SPEECHES EU BIOGRAPHICAL DRAFT
SATISFIED
DEMONOLOGY.
ARISTOCRACY.
ETERNAL POWERS.
I LIKE.
EDUCATION.
SUPERLATIVE.
ETHICAL SOVEREIGNTY.
PREACHER.
LITERARY MAN.
STUDIOUS.
PLUTARCH.
HISTORICAL NOTES OF LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND.
CHARDON STREET CONVENTION.
EZRA RIPLEY, D. D.
MARY MOODY EMERSON.
SAMUEL HOAR.
THOREAU.
CARLYLE.
GEORGE L. STEARNS.
DEMONOLOGY.
Night - a trail of dreams on the wall of memory
Shadows of the day's thoughts,
And your happiness to fall
Your partiality will betray you.
In the chamber, on the stairs,
Silent fools,
comes and goes
Lemurs in Lars.
[Of o a course of speeches already "Human Life," ler you Boston, 1839-40. Published you o Norte americano analysis, 1877.]
The name Demonology embraces dreams, omens, coincidences, luck, choice, magic, and other experiences which are avoided rather than judicial investigation, and deserve attention mainly because every man usually has two or three signs of this kind in his life which are particularly striking. for him. . They also shed light on our structure.
Sleep sorcery shares the realm of our lives with truth. This gentle enchantress visits the two children who lie in each other's arms, and separates them across vast expanses of land and sea, and wide spaces of time:—
"There lies the sleeping city, God of dreams!
What an unreal and fantastic world
It's happening below!
Within reach of your surrounding wall
What a great creation of the night,
Great desert and mountain, stone and sea,
Many employees, transient groups,
It finds space to climb and never feels crowded."
It is unnecessary to think about the dreams of the crowd, it is surprising that one dreams; that we should so silently turn away from this deified Reason and become the theater of delirious plays, in which time, space, people, cities, animals should dance before us in a joyous and mad confusion; a delicate creation surpassing the climax and flower of real nature, an ancient comedy alternated with gruesome imagery. Sometimes forgotten childhood companions reappear:
"They come, led in a dark procession,
Cold, unfaithful and dead,
Warm as each hand, cheerful as each eyebrow,
It's like they broke up yesterday:" —
or we seem absorbed for hours and days in journeys by sea and land, in serious dialogues, laborious actions for nothing and absurdities, deceived by ghostly jokes, and suddenly wake up with a hideous laugh, only to be scolded by the cold, lonely, silent half- night, and bewildered by memory among the chattering nonsense to find the motive of this wretched machination. Dreams are jealous of memory; they spread instantly and angrily if you try to contain them. When freshly awakened from vivid dreams, we are so close to them, still disturbed by them, still in their sphere, - give us one syllable, one feature, one hint, and we should again possess the whole; the hours of this strange entertainment would return to us; but we cannot lay hold of the first link or fiber, and the whole is lost. There is a strange obstinacy in the speed with which it spreads and confuses our understanding.
Displacement seems to be the most important characteristic of dreams. They are almost always accompanied by a painful blemish. The most beautiful forms, the noblest and most excellent people, are distorted by some miserable and mad circumstances. The landscape itself and the dreamscape do not seem to suit us, but like someone else's coat or cape to overlap and burden the wearer; such is the ground, the road, the house, in dreams, too long or too short, and if it served, no other purpose would show us exactly how nature adapts itself to waking man.
One is the memory of waking up and the other of sleeping. In our dreams, the same scenes and fantasies are connected over and over again, and, it seems, for years. In a dream, someone travels certain roads on stagecoaches or at shows, which he recognizes as familiar, and he has dreamed of this walk a dozen times; or he will walk alone in familiar fields and meadows, whose road or prairie he never looked in his waking hours. This characteristic of dreams deserves greater notice on account of its singular resemblance to that vague but startling experience, which almost every person admits in the light of day, that certain passages of conversation and action occurred to him in the same order before, in sleep or in sleep. waking state. ; he suspects they were in this very room with these people and heard this same dialogue, in the past hour, they don't know when.
Animals are called "dreams of nature". Perhaps for the conception of your conscience we could enter our own dreams. In sleep we have the instinctive obedience, the same dullness of supreme power, the same unsurprising consent to the monstrous that these metamorphosed men show. Our thoughts of the barn or the zoo, on the other hand, can remind us of our dreams. What a pity these closed forms are! Sometimes you can get a dog's attention by claiming friendliness and brotherhood. What! something from me down there? Does he know about it? Can he, like me, step outside himself, see himself, look at relationships? We fear that the poor fellow may take a terrible view of his condition, that he may in a moment learn the severe limitations of this restrictive organization. In this sense, Ovid envisioned his metamorphoses; Calidasa from his transmigration of souls. Because these fairy tales are our own realized thoughts. What keeps these wild stories circulating for thousands of years? What but the wild fact to which they suggest some approximation of the theory? Nor is this fact entirely solitary, for in the varieties of our own species, where organization seems to prevail over the genius of man, in the Kalmyk, Malay, or Flat Indian, we are sometimes afflicted with the same feeling; and sometimes he is awakened by a crafty and successful white man. In the mixed assembly, we had the opportunity to see not only the look of Abdiel, so majestic and astute, but also in other faces the features of the mink, the bull, the mouse and the barn hen. You mean that if a man could ignore his own condition he would not be able to avoid suicide.
Dreams have poetic integrity and truth. This limbo and dust of thought is also governed by a certain reason. Your extravagance of nature is still within a higher nature. They seem to us to suggest an abundance and fluidity of thought unknown to waking experience. They sting us with their independence from us, and we get to know each other in this crazy crowd, and we owe a kind of fortune telling and wisdom to dreams. My dreams are not me; they are not Nature, or not-self: they are both. They have a double consciousness, simultaneously sub and objective. We call the ascending ghosts the creation of our imagination, but they act like rebels and shoot their commander; showing that every act, every thought, every cause is bipolar, and the act contains a contrary action. If I strike, I am struck; if I chase, they chase me.
In them, wise and sometimes terrible advice will be thrown to a man of completely unknown intelligence. Two or three times in his life he will be astonished at the justice and meaning of this phantasmagoria. Once or twice, the conscious shackles will seem to be unlocked and freer expression will be achieved. The prophetic figure has pursued them in all ages. They are often the maturation of opinions that are not consciously translated into affirmations, but whose elements we already possess. So when I'm awake I know Rupert's character, but I don't think about what he can do. In my dreams, I see him involved in certain actions that seem meaningless, - out of shape. He's hostile, he's cruel, he's terrifying, he's a poltergeist. The prophecy comes true a year later. But he was already in my mind as a character, and Sibyl's dreams really just embodied him. Why then would there not be symptoms, forebodings, forebodings and, as has already been said, groanings of the spirit?
By this experience we are hurled into the high realm of Cause and made acquainted with the identity of apparently very different effects. We learn that the works whose corruption is very differently called arise from one and the same affection. The dream strips away the clothes of circumstances, arms us with a terrible freedom, so that every will rushes into action. A skilful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; but not details, but quality. What role does he play in them, a happy male role or a bad directing role? As monstrous and grotesque as their apparitions are, they have a significant truth. The same observation can be extended to omens and coincidences that may have surprised us. It is true that their reason is always latent in the individual. Goethe said: "These whimsical images, since they come from us, can have an analogy with our whole life and destiny."
The soul contains within itself an event that will happen to it at that moment, because the event is only the realization of its thoughts. No wonder certain dreams and premonitions turn out to be prophetic. The fallacy consists in selecting a few insignificant hints when they are all inspired by the same meaning. As if one should exhaust their wonder with the economy of their thumbnail and ignore the central causal wonder of what it is to be human. Every man passes through the world accompanied by innumerable facts that predict (yes, clearly announce) his destiny, if sufficiently attentive and enlightened eyes were fixed on the sign. The sign is always there as long as there is an eye; just as under every tree in dappled sunlight and shadow no one realizes that every point of light is a perfect image of the sun, until sometime the moon eclipses the lamp; and then we first notice that the points of light have become crescent-shaped or ring-shaped and correspond to the altered image of the sun. Things are quite significant, God knows; but the seer of signs, - where is he? We have no doubt that a man's wealth can be read in the lines of his hand, by palmistry; in the facial features, according to the physiognomy; in the contours of the skull, in craniology: all the lines are there, but the reader is waiting. Long waves show the experienced sailor that there is no land nearby in the direction from which they come. Belzoni describes three signs that led him to excavate the door of the Giza pyramid. How many thousands have looked at the same place for so many years and not seen the three marks!
Secret analogies connect the most remote parts of nature, while the atmosphere of a summer morning is filled with innumerable strands of spider's web stretching in all directions, revealed by the rays of the rising sun. All life, all creation is a fairy tale and a betrayal. Man reveals himself in every aspect and step and movement and rest:-
"Head and foot have a particular friendship,
And both with moons and tides.”
It is not a mathematical axiom, but a moral rule. A joke and a saying for an intelligent ear extends its meaning to the soul and for all time. Indeed, all human productions are so anthropomorphic that he cannot invent a fable that does not have a deep moral and is true in a sense and to a degree that the inventor never intended. So modern philosophers can explain all the bravest stories of Homer and poets with a sound judgment of law, state and ethics. Lucian has an empty story that Pancrates, traveling from Memphis to Coppus and wanting a servant, took an anvil and spoke magic words over him, and she got up and brought him water, turned a skewer and carried bales, doing all the work. of a slave. What is this if not a prophecy of the progress of art? For Pancrates write Watt or Fulton, and for "magic words" write "steam"; and do they not make a rod of iron and half a dozen wheels do the work, not of one, but of a thousand skilful mechanics?
"Nature," said Swedenborg, "requires our faith almost as much as miracles do." And I find nothing in fables so astonishing as my hourly experience. A moment in the life of a man is a fact so incredible that it cancels out all fiction. Lovers of miracles, of what we call the occult and unproven sciences, of mesmerism, of astrology, of chance, of sexual intercourse, of writing, rapping or painting, with departed spirits, need not censure us with disbelief because we are slow to accept your statement. It is not the improbability of the fact, but a certain disharmony between the action and the agents. We are used to greater miracles than those mentioned. In the hands of poets, pious and simple minds, nothing in the line of his character and genius would surprise us. But you should look for the style of a great artist in him, look for completeness and harmony. Nature never works like a magician, to surprise, rarely by shocks, but by an infinite process; so that we live absorbed in sounds we don't hear, odors we don't smell, sights we don't see, and in countless impressions so delicately placed that, though important, we don't discover them until our attention is drawn to them.
As for spiritualism, it shows that no man is able to testify. So I say to the kind and honest among them, these things are too important to trust any legend. If I don't have the facts, as you claim, I can wait for them. I am satisfied and occupied with the wonders I know, which my eyes and ears show me every day, such as humanity and astronomy. If some others are important to me, they will certainly show themselves to me.
In the times of the most credulous of these fancies, reason has always found its way, and superstition has rebuked the serious spirit of reason and humanity. When Hector was informed that the omens were unfavorable, he replied:
"One signal It is o the best, to do to fight for one Terra."
Euripides said, "The best prophet is not he who guesses well, nor is he the wisest man whose hunch in the case of events turns out well, but he who, whatever the event, takes reason and probability as his guide." "Swans, horses, dogs, and dragons," says Plutarch, "we hold sacred and vehicles of divine foresight, but we cannot believe that men are saints and the favorites of heaven." The poor ship's captain discovered sound theology when, in a storm at sea, he uttered his prayer to Neptune: “O God, thou canst save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou canst destroy me; but nevertheless I will keep my helm faithful. Let me add another example of the same common sense, in a quoted story of Hecataeus of Abdera:
"As e he was once traveling after o Red More, leaves he was one in between o Knights e participated nas named Masollam, a brave eu forte man, eu according to to do o a testimony of all o greeks eu barbarians, a very deftly Sagittarius. Now while o all crowd he was already o to place, one augur called van to do eu to do to stay more, eu It is man he asked o reason of from them stopping. O augur showed em a bird, eu counted em 'EU e bird the rest where about biography, for bi to be to improve for eu all to do to stay; EU about he flew what, they can Continue; all EU about he flew to go back they mora turn back.' O Jews He said anything, all folded up dele to bow eu outlet o bird to do o tlo. It is to act insulted o augur eu some other, eu they started to do total curse contra o Jews. All about he responded, 'Because? Because they are vas then stupidly as to do to take Careful of It is unhappy bird? As it could It is aves data nas any to change instructions respecting our a trip, when about it could that's it to save dele ter life? tive about known anything of future, about bi that's it ter for here to do to be died after o seta of Masollam o Jews."
It is not the tendency of our time to attach importance to whimsical dream images or omens. But the belief in a strange, alien power takes another form in the modern mind, much more like the ancient doctrine of a guardian genie. The belief that certain individuals are accompanied by good fortune, which makes them desirable collaborators in any undertaking of uncertain success, exists not only among those who take part in political and military projects, but it affects all common commercial and commercial pursuits and the corresponding security in such outstanding individuals fulfill and justify the expectations of others with boundless self-confidence. "I am lucky, sir," Napoleon told his hesitant Chancellor; "Those I put on are capable of anything." This faith is known in one way - that a certain renunciation of prudence and foresight is often an element of success; so that children and youth may escape safely from victims who would be dangerous to wiser people. We don't think that young people will be abandoned; but he is fast approaching the age when submiraculous external protection and guidance withdraws and he is left to his own devices. The young man jumped in the dark and landed safely. As he grows into an adult, he remembers passages and people who, as he now looks at them, seem to have been preternaturally devoid of any harmful influence on him. His eyes were closed so he couldn't see them. But he learns that he must no longer expose himself to such risks. He perceives with pain, not that he makes accidents here and there, but that his genius, whose unseen benevolence was his tower and shield, is no longer present and active.
In popular belief, ghosts are a select tribe, they shun millions and speak to one. In our traditions, fairies, angels and saints show similar affection; so also the means and means of magic, such as amulets and charms. That belief in the power of worship, which so easily becomes the present belief everywhere, and especially in happy days and happy people, is as common in America today as belief in fables and filtering was in ancient Rome, or the healthy power of the sign of the cross in modern Rome, — this supposed power runs counter to the recognized agents, natural and moral, which are investigated by science and religion. As much as it is respected in many actions and partnerships, it is not the power with which we build churches, or perform liturgies and prayers, or that we take into account when passing laws, or establishing university professors to expound. Goethe said in his Autobiography what is largely to the purpose:-
"E believed e e uncovered you nature, animate eu inanimate intelligent eubrutal, which manifested itself to a certain extent only in contradiction and, therefore, could not be encompassed by a concept, much less by a word. It wasn't divine, because it seemed irrational; not human, because he had no understanding; it is not diabolical, because it was beneficial; it's not angelic, because it's often marplot. It felt like a coincidence because it didn't show a sequel. It was reminiscent of Providence, because it indicated a connection. Everything that limits us seemed permeable to it. It seemed to be a matter of pleasure with the necessary elements of our constitution; he shortened time and enlarged space. It seemed that he only delighted in the impossible and rejected the possible with contempt. That which seemed to insert itself among all other things, cut them off, unite them, I called demonic, after the example of the ancients and those who observed similar things.
"Although every demonic quality may manifest itself in corporeal and incorporeal, yea, also in beasts in an extraordinary manner, yet it remains especially in wonderful relations with persons and forms in the moral world, though it is not an antagonist, but a transverse element, so which the one may call a warp and the other a woof. There are innumerable names for the phenomena arising from it, for all philosophies and religions have tried in prose or poetry to solve this riddle and settle the matter once and for all, as indeed they can allow. .
“But this demonic element seems most fruitful when it shows up as a defining characteristic of an individual. During my life I could see several of them, some close, others further away. They are not always superior people, neither in mind nor in talent. Rarely are they recommended out of the goodness of the heart. But monstrous power emanates from them, and they wield incredible power over all creatures and even over the elements; who can say how far such influence may extend? All moral forces united have nothing against them. It is in vain that the bright part of humanity discredits them as frauds or deceived, - the mass is attracted. They are rarely if ever equaled among their contemporaries; they are not to be conquered, except by the very universe they armed themselves against. From such experiences no doubt arose the strange and monstrous proverb, 'None against God but God.'"[Goethe, True eu poetry, A book xx.]
It would be easy in the political history of all ages to furnish examples of this irregular success, of men with a force which, without virtue, without great talent, makes them prevail. There is no equal against them on the field. From them comes a force that draws all people and events to be favorable to them. The crimes they commit, the revelations that follow that would destroy any other man, are strangely ignored or even more strangely turned against them.
I write these things as I find them, but however poetic these twilights may seem, I love daylight and consider them rather arbitrary, a blind man's play, when men as wise as Goethe speak mysteriously of the demonological. The implication is that the known eternal laws of morality and matter are sometimes corrupted or circumvented by this gypsy principle, which picks favorites and works in the dark on their behalf; as if the laws of the Father of the universe were sometimes circumvented and evaded by the intrusive aunt of the universe for the sake of her pets. You'll notice that this extends the popular idea of success to the gods themselves; who encourage success that is not success for everyone; that there are happy people, happy young people, whose good is not virtue or public good, but private good, stolen from others. It's a midsummer madness, corrupting all principled. Demonological is just a fancy name for selfishness; the exaggeration, that is, of the individual, which nature's determined purpose is to postpone. "There is a world common to all those who are awake, but each sleeper attributes himself to one of his own."[Heraclitus.]Dreams retain the weaknesses of our character. The good genius may or may not be there, our bad genius will surely remain. The partial ego constitutes the dream; General interpretation of the ego. Life is also a dream under the same conditions.
The history of man is a series of conspiracies to gain some advantage from nature without paying for it. It is interesting to see what great powers we have to intuit and that we are crazy to understand, but how slow heaven is to entrust us with such sharp tools. "Anything that unleashes talent without increasing self-control is harmful." Therefore, the legendary Ring of Gyges, which makes the wearer invisible and which in modern fable is represented by the telescope used by Schlemil, is simply malicious. A new or private language, used only for base or political purposes; blood transfusion; a steam battery, so fatal that it ended the war with the threat of general assassination; of the desired discovery of a guided balloon, are of such types. Vagrants are troublesome enough in the city and on highways, but vagrants flying through the air and landing on a lone traveler or the home of a lone farmer or bank messenger in the countryside can be spared. Men are not to be trusted with these talismans.
Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well. Animal magnetism inspires a certain horror in the prudent and moral; as well as the divination of unforeseen events and the supposed second sight of pseudo-spiritualists. There are many things of which a wise man may be ignorant, and these are such. Avoid them as you would the secrets of the undertaker and the butcher. The best are never demonic or magnetic; leave this member to the prince of the power of the air. The lower angel is better. It is the height of the animal; below the realm of the divine. Power as such is unknown to angels.
Great men feel this way in sacrificing their selfishness and trusting in what is human; in renouncing family, clan, state, and every exclusive and local connection, beating with the pulse and breathing with the lungs of the people. A mountain chief, a Sachem Indian or a feudal baron, may think that the mountains and lakes were made especially for him, Donald, or he Tecumseh; that the only question for history is his home pedigree, and future ages will be filled with his glory; having a guardian angel; which is not in the possession of common people, but obeys a high family destiny; when it works, unprecedented success shows the presence of rare agents; omens and coincidences suggest what will happen to him; when he dies, the banshee will announce his fate to relatives in foreign lands. What's easier than projecting that exuberant self into a realm where individuality is forever limited by generic and cosmic laws? The deepest flattery, and one to which we can never be insensitive, is the flattery of omens.
We can make big eyes if we like, and say of the one on whom the sun shines, "What happiness awaits him!" But we know that the law of the universe is one for everything and everyone. For every event that happens to him there is a reason as precise and as describable as for anything else that happens to any man. Every fact in which moral elements are interwoven is no less under the authority of the fatal law. Lord Bacon reveals the magic when he says, “Obvious virtues gain reputation; occult, wealth." Thus the so-called happy man is he who, though he has not the gift of speaking when men hear him, or of acting with grace or understanding to great ends, is yet he who, in acts of low tone or common , trusts his instincts, and he just doesn't act where he shouldn't, but bide his time and act effortlessly when necessary If you add to this the ability of the society around him, you have the elements of happiness; so that in a certain circle and tangle of things, it is not so much his own man as the hand of nature and time. Just as his eye and his hand work exactly together - and to hit a target with a stone, he only needs to fix his eye firmly on the mark and his hand will swing, so that chief ambition and genius are directed in one direction, the lesser spirits and reluctant help within their sphere will follow. The fault of most men is that they are busy; they do not simply wait for the movement of the soul, but interfere with and thwart the instructions of their own mind.
Coincidences, dreams, animal magnetism, omens, sacred sacrifices are of great interest to some minds. They run into this twilight and say, "There is more to your philosophy than can be dreamed of." Certainly these facts are interesting and worth considering. But they are entitled to only part of the attention, and not much.nula magnificent nula generous divisionLet their value as exclusive objects of attention be judged by the unfailing test of the frame of mind in which many considerations of them leave us. Read Cudworth's or Bacon's page, and we shall be excited and armed for the duties of men. Read demonology or Colquhoun's report and one is confused and perhaps a little tainted. We feel. Those who love them say they will reveal to us a world of unknown and unsuspected truths. But suppose a diligent collection and study of these hidden facts is made, they are only physiological, semi-medical, connected with human machinery, they open our curiosity about how we live and do not help us with the higher problems of why we live. , and what we do. While dilettantes poke eye muscles and eye muscles, simple people help themselves and the world with their eyes.
And this is not the least remarkable fact developed by the adepts. People who were never surprised by anything, who considered it the most natural thing in the world to exist in this orderly and crowded world, could not contain their admiration for the somnambulists' discoveries. The peculiarity of the history of animal magnetism is that it attracted as researchers and students a class of people who were never known as students and researchers. Of course, the investigation is conducted on low principles. Animal magnetism lurks. It becomes a black art in such hands. The use of things, goods, power, suddenly comes to mind and directs the course of research. He seemed to open again the doors that had been opened to the imagination of childhood - wizards and fairies and Aladdin's lamps, the traveling cloak, the shoes of speed and the sharp sword that should safely satisfy the sincere desire of the senses. . or a drop of sweat. But as Nature can never be deceived, as no man in the Universe ever got a penny without paying a penny in some way, so this glorious promise always ends, and always will end, as sorcery and alchemy did before, in a very dark world. small and smoky. version.
Mesmerism is the high life below the stairs; Momus plays Jove in the kitchens of Olympus. 'T is basic curiosity or desire for structure, and is separated by heavenly diameters from the love of spiritual truths. It is quite a wrong point of view to connect these things in any way with nature and religious sentiments, and it is a very dangerous superstition to elevate them to the exalted place of motives and sanctions. This means you prefer halos and rainbows to the sun and moon. These adherents confused flatulence with inspiration. If this folly, which they report as the voice of spirits, is really so, we must find out a more decisive suicide. I say to the table-beaters:—
"I very much believe
You won't say what you don't know,
And until now I will trust you, gentle Kate.
They don't know everything that's healthy and useful to know, and according to the laws of the species - fools looking for fools in the darkness of what they call the spirit world - they prefer snorts and stomach sounds to the voice of any muse. . I think hitting is a new test, like a blue litmus or other chemical absorbent, to try catechism. It reveals organic skepticism in the minds of the Church itself. This is a lawless world. We leave the geometry, compensation and consciousness of the everyday world and enter the realm or chaos of chance and beautiful or ugly confusion; without guilt and without virtue, but foolish fools, where everyone believes only in their mood, and actors and spectators have no conscience or thought, no police, no rules, no common sense - nothing but whim and creative caprice.
However, let impatience be far from me, which does not support the supernatural, the immense; Far be it from me to want to explain everything that attracts the imagination and the great forebodings that haunt us. I gladly say, Cheers! by unknown and terrible forces that pass the mind of understanding. And the attraction which this subject has exerted on me, and which leads me to lay its parts before you, is precisely because I think that the innumerable forms in which this superstition reappears in all ages and among all peoples, indicate the inextinguishable wonder of man. , betraying your conviction that behind all your explanations there is a vast, powerful and living, inexhaustible and sublime nature, which you cannot explain. He is sure that no book, no man has told him everything. He is sure that the great Instinct, the all-enveloping soul that pours into him as into everything and is his life, has not been probed. He is sure that there are intimate relationships between his character and his destiny, between him and his world; and until he can count them properly, he will talk to them wildly and in fairy tales. Demonology is the shadow of theology.
The whole world is an omen and a sign. Why are you looking so longingly into the corner? Man is the Image of God. Why run after a ghost or a dream? The voice of divination echoes everywhere and escapes irretrievably, inaudible, unnoticed, while the mountains resound with the lowing of cattle.
ARISTOCRACY.
But if you do your best,
No remission, no rest,
And calls the sunbeam,
And I abhor act or pretend
Even the ones you should love
And your behavior approves;
If you go on your form, -
Whether health or disease, -
If you are like your father's son,
If you don't wear a mask or a lie,
Acting clean and naked, - ...
[First ler as a lecture — you England — you 1848; here printed s accessories of other papers.]
There is an attractive subject, which never goes out of style and is not impertinent in any community, - the permanent traits of aristocracy. It is the interest of the human race and, in my view, inevitable, sacred and found in all countries and in all human societies. My concern is one which all well-meaning people will feel, that there should be exemplary men - true rather than false images of excellence and, if possible, a standard of living.
I realize that the wordsiris happy to be heard in all companies; that the motivation of the best young people who plan and make decisions for the future is the spirit of honor, the desire to be gentlemen. They do not yet crave political power, nor any exuberance of wealth, wealth that is expensive; nor do they want to be saints; by fear of partialism; but the mean, the element of reconciliation, the success of the virile character, they find in the idea of the gentleman. Not to be a man of high rank, but a man of honour, accomplished in all arts and magnanimity, which seems to them the true mark and true head of our modern society. The reference to society is part of the idea of culture; gentleman's science; the gentleman's art; poetry in the gentleman: held intellectually, that is, by itself, by what it is; because of its universal beauty and value; — Not by economy, which degrades them, but not excessively intellectually, that is, not to the point of ecstasy, enrapturing man, but leading to his beauty and glory.
In the sketches I give, I will not be surprised if my readers think that I am giving them, under a cheerful title, a chapter on education. It would not hurt me if I found myself wandering here and there from an accepted and historical pair to a theoretical pair: or if it happened, which is true, that I am describing a real aristocracy, a chapter of Templars sitting indifferently in all climates and at the shadow of all institutions, but so few, so indifferent to insignia, so seldom summoned, so little in tune with the prevailing policy of nations, that their names and deeds are not recorded in any Book of the Pen, or any Journal of the Court, or even the daily newspapers of the world.
I find chaste in man. The Golden Book of Venice, the scale of European chivalry, the barons of England, the hierarchy of India with its impenetrable degrees, are each a transcription of decigrade or centigrade Man. The multicameral aristocracy is already organized in their moods and abilities. In the dispositions and faculties of each human spirit there is room for all government departments, with special function and difference of dignity.
The terrible aristocracy that is in nature. Real men living with real ones, face to face fearless: then, far below, men of good taste, men living in connection, or rumor, or the influence of the good and just, amused by it, superficially touched, but enchanted by these shadows: - and, far below them, brute and thoughtless animal man, waves of chaos, even slave dances and organizations.
I note the indestructible prejudice that men have against the hereditary transmission of qualities. It is useless to remind them that nature seems capricious. Some qualities she carefully fixes and transmits, but some, even the most subtle ones, she exhales with the individual's breath, as if they were too expensive to be eternalized. But I also notice that they can be established and persisted in any stock, painting and copying them in each individual, until Nature finally adopts them and cooks them in her china.
Anyway, I understand this indestructible conviction in human minds as a suggestion from the outer universe to man to bring as much virtue and superiority as possible into this fleeting fresco of the day, which solidifies into an immortal image.
If anyone thinks of the interest all men have in beauty of character and manners; which is of the utmost importance to the imagination and affection, inspiring that devotion and adoration so essential to the completion of character - certainly, if culture, if laws, if birthright, if heraldry, if money can secure such a result superior and complete persons, it would be in the interests of all mankind that steps were taken, that efforts were made. Without taxes, without concessions, without granting privileges, such a high price would never be too high.
The old French Revolution drew into its first movement all the liberality, virtue, hope, and poetry of Europe. By abolishing the kingdom and aristocracy, tyranny, inequality and poverty would disappear. There! No; tyranny, inequality, poverty, remained as swift and fierce as ever. We also believe in democracy; in the republican principle taken to the extreme limits of practice in universal suffrage, in the will of the majority. The young adventurer finds that he is annoyed and irritated with the relations in society, the position of the classes, and lends to every evil party that attacks what is eminent. He will one day know that he is not removable, but a difference in the nature of things; that neither club, nor newspaper, nor congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, not all together, can help to prohibit, cut, burn, or destroy the transgression of supremacy in the people. The mannerisms, the pretensions, which bother me so much, are not superficial, but built on a real difference in my partner's nature. Superiority in him is inferiority in me, and if this particular fellow were removed from nature, my inferiority would still be evident to me by other people everywhere and every day.
No, even the most hardened utilitarian will not question the value of aristocracy if he loves himself. Because every man recognizes that the highest good that the universe offers him is the highest society. If some great natures came to us and wove duties and offices between us and them, it would make our bread ambrosiac.
I maintain that there are inequalities, not in dress, but in power of speech and action; primitive aristocracy; and that we certainly did not come here to describe well-dressed vulgarity. I cannot say how English titles are bestowed, either to the full blood or to the highest owner of the three percent. The English government and people, or the French government, can easily err; but nature creates nothing. Each of his moles and scars indicate constitutional qualities. In science, in commerce, in social discourse, as well as in the State, it is the same thing. Forever and ever, it takes a pound to lift a pound.
It is clear that all the reverence of modern society for this idea of a gentleman, and all the capricious tyranny of fashion which has continued to inculcate itself in that veneration, is a secret tribute to the reality and love that must inhabit every man. This is the steel that hides under gauze and lace, under flowers and sequins. And of course instead of this idolatry, worship; instead of this impurity, pure respect for character, a new respect for the sanctity of the individual, is the antidote which must correct in our country the shameful respect for public opinion and the insane subordination of ends to means. From the madness of too much socializing, we must return to the rest of self-respect and confidence.
The game of the world is an eternal examination of the forces between man and event. An ordinary man is a victim of events. Whatever happens, it's too much for him, pulls him here and there, his whole life is a rush. The superior man is at home in his own mind. We like cool people, who neither hope nor fear much, but seem to have many strings to their bows, and can take the hit just fine if stocks rise or fall, if the parties end, if their money or family is scattered. ; who bears slander very well; indeed, on which events make little or no impression, and who can face death steadfastly. In short, we dislike every sign of superficial life and action and appreciate every sign of central life.
What is the meaning of this invincible reverence for war, here in the triumphs of our commercial civilization, that we can never completely silence trumpet and drum? How does the sword escape in all its glory of swords and clubs? How solid in history do those Merovingians, Guelphs, Dorians, Sforzas, Burgundians, and Guesclines of the old warring ages seem to us! We can hardly believe that they were all shadows as fast as we are; that have been wiped out by illness or fever, a drop of water or an ice crystal. Even today, we give soldiers the same advantage. From the accumulated culture we always run to the sound of any drum and record. And in any commerce, or in courts, in orchards and farms, and even in saloons, those who have a military mind, who design in sword and cannon style, with energy and sharpness, prosper or prosper best. Why, but why does courage never lose its high price? Why, but why do we want to see those for whom existence is the most beautiful and beautiful, above all, to threaten it for their purpose, and for their actions are ready to answer with their lives.
The existence of a superior class is not harmful, as long as it depends on merit. It has long been a provocation for the brave and generous. These differences exist, and they are profound, they should not be commented on or dismissed. If the differences are organic, so are the merits, that is, the strength and excellence we describe are real. The aristocracy is an eminent class for personal qualities, and belongs to it without claim to royal influence. Men with a purpose must lead the aimless; uninventive people of invention. I want Catholic men, who by their science and skill are at home in all latitudes and longitudes, who carry the world in their thoughts; men of universal politics, who are interested in things according to their truth and grandeur; who know the beauty of animals and the laws of their nature, who are seduced by the mystery of botany and mineral laws; who see general effects, and are not much taught to love imagination, strength, and solitude spirits; — men who see dance in men's lives, as well as in the ballroom, and can feel and convey the meaning that is only collectively or fully expressed by the population; men who are as enchanted by the beautiful Nemesis as the terrible Nemesis, and dare to trust their inspiration to be welcome; that they would find their companions in persons of real elevation of any kind of speculative or practical ability. We have fallen into times so permissive and traditional that we are in danger of forgetting so simple a fact as that the foundation of all aristocracy must be truth - to do what elsewhere is intended to be done. We would like to see that all our institutions are legitimately aristocratic in this sense.
I have enumerated the claims by which men enter the upper class.
1. Command talent. In every company there is a godfather; and if there is any doubt, it will be decided as soon as they begin any practical undertakings. If you are the inventors of glass, gunpowder, printing, electricity, — if you are the cure of smallpox, the inventor of the safety lamp, the aqueduct, the bridge, the tunnel; if the inventors of parallax, of new planets, of steam propulsion for ships and carriages, the inventor of sulphurous ether and the electric telegraph - if these men are to keep their secrets, or only communicate them to one another, must not all race of mankind serves them as gods? One need only look at the social aspect of England, America, and France to see the position occupied by original practical talent.
Every uprising of dignified classes, in ancient or modern history, imprints universal lessons and establishes the nobility of a prouder creation. And the conclusion which the Roman senators, the Indian Brahmins, the Persian magicians, the European nobles and the great Americans inculcate - what they preach of its material wealth and splendor, of its ancient warfare and modern land tenure, even of sensuality and ridiculous, is that they are radical and essential differences of all moral aristocracy. Do not listen to people, but to fate in institutions. Aristocracy consists of simple and honest people for whom nature and ethics are strong enough, who speak their minds and go straight to their goals. It's basically real.
The multiplication of monarchs known by the telegraph, and the daily news of all countries in the daily papers, and the effect of freer institutions in England and America, have stripped the title of king of all its romance, when compared with that of our commercial consuls. like that of the ancient Romans. We will go so far as to add "Kings" to the "Contents" of the Directory, as we do with "doctors", "brokers" etc. In simple communities, in heroic times, a man was chosen according to his talent; he received his name, rank, and life for it; and the best of the best was an aristocrat or a king. In the Norse Edda it appears as an uncommon but excellent policy of conflicting tribes, when weary of war, to exchange hostages, while in reality each adopts from the other a first-class man, who thus acquires a new land; he was immediately made chief. And no injustice was so severely censured as any fraud in this transaction. In heroic periods, as we call them, the hero always has real talent. Ulysses is presented in Homer as a very skilled carpenter. He builds a boat to leave Calypso's island, and in his own palace he carves a bed out of a tree trunk and covers it with gold and ivory. Epeus builds a wooden horse. The English nation inherited reality from its northern origins to an advanced age. In 1373, in the acts of summons of members of parliament, the sheriff of each county must challenge “two named knights, or worthier warriors, more skilful in arms, and no other; and from each city, two citizens, and from each quarter, two citizens, who have the greatest skill in navigation and trade, are to be returned."
The ancients liked to attribute gigantic proportions and strength to their nobles. The hero must have the strength of ten men. A chief is one head taller than any member of his tribe. Douglas manages to throw the crossbar better. Richard can cut through the iron bolt with his sword. Roland's horn, in the novel, is heard for sixty miles. Cid has a predominant health that allows him to care for a leper and share his bed without harm. And as the body is the tube through which we draw all the helps and virtues of the material world, it is certain that a healthy body must be at the root of all excellence in behavior and action; a strong and flexible structure that provides a supply of strength and spirit for all the needs of the day and creates the habit of having a supply of strength for all extraordinary endeavors. When Nature begins to create a national man, she establishes a symmetry between physical and intellectual powers. It forms a large brain and joins to it a large trunk to supply it; as if a good alembic were being filled with liquor for distillation in great full vats in the vaults of the laboratory.
Certainly, the source of most of the perversions and absurdities that disgust us is mainly the lack of health. Genius is health, beauty is health, and virtue is health. The small arts that we censor in the semi-great ones also seem abominable to them; —sources of weakness and despair. And manners betray a similar frail constitution. Temperament is wealth, and we have to say it often. In a thousand cups of life there is but one true mixture, - a fine adjustment to the existing elements. When this happens, when a well-mixed man is born, with eyes neither too dull nor too good, with enough fire and enough earth, capable of the impressions of all things, and not too sensitive, - then no gift should be given him, he brings with him wealth, followers, love, power.
"I think it will be in Rome
Just like a goldfish, whoever catches
For the sovereignty of nature."
Not a phrenologist but a philosopher might say, let me see his brain, and I'll tell you whether he will be a poet, king, founder of cities, rich, magnetic, sure hands, scientific memory, a real classifier; or whether he will be a rascal, a persecutor, unhappy, difficult, and wearisome.
It would be to argue against the sun, denying this difference in the brain. I can see very well that when I bring a man onto the property, he sees vague abilities, what others can, could, would, or should do with it. If I bring another man, he sees whataboutshould have done it. He appreciates the privilege of water, land suitable for orchards, crops, pastures, forests, meadows of blackberries; but just as easily anticipates all means; every step of the way, and he could just as easily get his hand on a spot like another in that series that opens up the skill for the last spot. The poet views the result with great trepidation; a well-built head guarantees all steps, one as perfect as the other, in sequence. Seeing this head of work in him, it's clear to me that he will have the direction of the property, as if he had a property. If we see tools in a warehouse, such as a file, an anchor, a plow, a pump, a brush, a cider press, a diving bell, we can predict their fate very well; and man's societies, wealth, love, hate, residence, position, books he will buy, paths he will follow are predetermined in his organism. Men will need him, and he is wealthy and respectable by nature. This man cannot be too late or too early. He is in no hurry and does not hesitate. Though millions have already arrived, his place is reserved. Though the millions come, they only multiply your friends and agents. The senator is never bothered by the crowds pounding the stands and bending the galleries to listen. He who understands the art of war counts on enemy battalions and cities, opportunities and spoils.
Aristocracy could not exist if it were not organic. Men are born to command and - even so - "come into the world with boots and encouraged to ride". Real blood never pays, we say. He receives favours, gifts, supplies, aids of all kinds for the love and joy of those who feel honored by the service they render.
Stupid people think that wealth is what makes one rich and one poor. And that? Yes, but happiness was before what they think, that is, in the balance or adjustment between devotion to what is pleasant today and anticipation of what will be valuable tomorrow.
I'm certainly not going to debate the merits of grading in space; the existing order more or less. I don't even want to go into the justification of justice that disposes of the diversity of destiny. I know how sharp the state contrast looks; such an excess here and such a lack there; like a complete accident, like freaks of the wind, they pile up snowdrifts in the gorges, lay bare the plain; such a despotism of wealth and comfort in the banqueting halls, while death is in the pans of the miserable - that it behooves a good man to walk tenderly and carefully amidst so much suffering. I point only to the transition to the order of the universe, which rotates - not like the rude politics of the Greeks, ten generals, each commanding one day, then giving way to the next, or like our democratic politics, my turn now is the next. turn - but the constitution of things has distributed a new quality or talent to each mind, and the revolution of things always brings need, now this, now that, and certainly brings opportunity to all.
The only relief I know against the malice of a superior position is to exercise your skill; for as each does so, he excludes difficult thoughts from the spectator. All true activity is kind. I never feel that any man takes my place, but that the reason I don't get what I want is because I want a college that works. All spiritual or real power takes its place.
We declare ourselves who we are and we prosper or fail because of who we are. There are people who can be very bold and will be justified in their boldness. But that's because they know they're in their shoes. As long as I'm in my place, I'm safe. "The best lightning rod for your protection is your own column." Let man's social aims be proportionate to his means and power. I pity not the misery of the man who is not in position: that will be righted at once: but I pity the man who is elsewhere. A certain amount of power goes with a certain amount of skill. Whoever wants more power than his college's legitimate attraction is a politician, and must pay for that excess; he must drive for it. This is the whole game of world society and politics. Being will always look good; - but is it possible that they cannot appear, without the problem of existence? Every Frenchman would have a career. We Englishmen are no better with our love of figure-making. “I told the Duke of Newcastle,” says Bubb Dodington in his memoirs, “that this must end one way or another, it must not remain as it was; for I was determined to become some sort of figure in life; I sincerely wanted her to be under his protection, but if that cannot be, I must calculate something; what it would be, I could not yet determine; I have to do some research and consult with my friends, but I decided to do a number."
Everyone will agree that society should benefit from the best leaders. How to get them? Birth was attempted and failed. Casta does not score well in India. The creation of a family is good for a generation; I'm not sure anymore. Slavery had a lot of evil that needed to be answered, but it also had this good in it - the prices of men. In the South, a slave was openly but accurately valued at between five hundred and a thousand dollars if he was a good field worker; if he is a mechanic, such as a carpenter or blacksmith, one thousand two hundred or two thousand. In Rome or Greece, how many sums would not be paid for a superior slave, a confidential secretary and administrator, an educated slave; genius man, Moses educated in Egypt? I don't know how much Epictetus, or Æsop, or Toussaint l'Ouverture was sold for, and it may not have been a good market day. There was a time in England when the State determined in advance what price should be paid for the life of each citizen if he were killed. Now, if it were possible, I would like to see that estimation applied to every man, and that every man would know the true number and weight of every citizen of full age, and be placed where he belongs, with as much power entrusted to him as he could carry. and use.
In the absence of such an anthropometer, I have complete confidence in the laws of nature. I think that the commonwealth - the whole commonwealth, if the hindering laws and customs be removed - will be the best measure and the fairest judge for the citizen, or finally give the fairest judgment and reward; better than any royal patronage; better than any prize in the race; better than any statute raising families to hereditary distinction, or any class to education and priestly power. Judging the battles will prove to be the best overall; municipal meeting, congress, will not fail to reveal legislative talent. The prerogatives of a true physician are not determined by his degrees, but by the health he restores to body and mind; the surveyor's powers in solving his problem; the priest for inspiring us with a feeling that dispels the sadness from which we suffer. When a lawyer tries his case in court, he is also being judged, and his own merits appear, as well as those of his client. When young writers who have written their first book consult older writers, they say: Make sure you publish it; this is the only way to know for sure its quality.
But we dare to put any man anywhere. It's interesting how much the public cares about the essential qualifications of their representatives. They ask if the man is a Republican, Democrat? What. Is he a talented man? What. Is he honest and does not ask for a position or any kind of bribe? He's honest. Then choose it by acclamation. And they go home and with great pleasure tell their wives what a good thing they have done. But they forgot to ask the fourth question, no less important than the others, and without which the others are useless. Does he feel like it? Can he take his points against the opposition? Probably not. It is not enough that his work follows his genius, or that it is organic, to give him a magnetic power over people. The will must be more than taste and talent. And it must be a gift from nature. In some it is; in others it is absent. But I must say, if you don't have it, you better not put yourself in places where not having it means being a public enemy.
The expectations and demands of mankind indicate the duties of this class. Some services have to be paid for. We do not expect them to be saints, and it is very pleasing to see humanity's instinct in this matter - how much they will forgive those who do considerable service and energetically work for their kind; but they do not extend the same indulgence to those who seek and enjoy the same prerogative, but do not return anything. The day darkens when the golden river flows into the mud; when a genius becomes idle and licentious and careless of his fair duties of being a saint, a prophet, an inspirer to his lowly fellows, he refuses their respect and confuses his understanding with foolish extravagances. On the right aristocracy, Hercules, Theseus, Odin, Sid, Napoleon; To Sir Robert Walpole, Fox, Chatham, Mirabeau, Jefferson, O'Connell; — to the people, that is, who are incomparably superior to the populace in ways acceptable to the populace, showing them the way they should go, doing for them what they will and what they cannot do; — of course, everything will be allowed and forgiven, — pranks, drunkenness, fights, lust. These are party bosses, who can do no wrong - everything but the infamous crime will pass. But if those who just sit in their seats and are not, like them, capable; if the gentleman dressed and perfumed, who does not serve the people at all and does not adorn them, is notthat's it be afraid of eu,if such a person begins to set bad examples and corrupt them, who will blame them if they burn their granaries, insult their children, attack their person and express their unequivocal indignation and contempt? He eats their bread, does not disdain to live by their work, and after breakfast he cannot remember that human beings exist. Living without duty is obscene.
2. Genius, what is strictly so called - the power of influencing the imagination, such as is possessed by an orator, poet, novelist or artist - has a real right to all such possessions and privileges as are representative and accepted by all men as their delegates. It really has the best right, because it elevates people above themselves, intoxicates them with beauty. They are honored with homage, and the reason for this remuneration is, that Genius frees all men from the chains of wear, temper, and toil, and gives them a sense of excellent freedom and power.
The first example that comes to mind is the extraordinary gift of eloquence. We have to respect a man who has this possession of his resources and this magnetism to be able to carry the convictions of a public meeting at any time, and he is ennobled by it. He has the freedom of the city. He has the right to overlook the little things. Like a great general, or a great poet, or a millionaire, he can wear an open coat to his elbows and a hat on his feet if he likes. He established a relationship, a representativeness. Genius' greatest achievement is to bring all kinds of talent and culture to his audience; the mediocre and dull are achieved, as are the clever. I saw it conspicuously displayed in a village. Here are the classes that day after day have no intercourse, nothing more than a grumpy nod in passing. But I saw a man with a lively mind coming among these people, so full of facts, so incapable of suppressing them, that he poured out a river of knowledge to all who came and drew all these people around him, all kinds of people. people, interested the whole village, good and bad, smart and stupid, by their facts; all iron boundary lines disappeared; the stupid discovered that they weren't stupid; the colder ones felt attracted to their neighbors because of their interest in the same things. This was a naturalist.
The most famous instances of this power are certainly those which establish a wider hold over men's minds than any speech can; who think and paint and laugh and cry in their eloquent closets, and then turn the world into a vast whispering gallery, to tell the story to all men and win the smiles and tears of many generations. Eminent examples are Shakespeare, Cervantes, Bunyan, Burns, Scott, and now we must add Dickens. In the fine arts, I don't find anyone today who has any popular power, who has achieved any nobility by ennobling the people.
3. Elevating the feelings, purifying and inspiring the manners must, in fact, supersede all distinction of material power or intellectual endowments. Of course, good manners must have depth and solidity of tone to assert their central role in human nature. I think the things themselves will be the judges and decide. In the face of this nobility, even genius must stand aside. Because the two poles of nature are beauty and meanness, and noble feeling is the highest form of beauty. He is beautiful in face, in bearing, in manners, he who is concerned with objects which he really believes are superior to him. Is there any parchment or any cosmetic or any blood that can deserve so much respect as the safety of the air that so unquestionably assumes the sympathy of men in their designs? What makes a true knight? Fidelity to his thought. He makes a beautiful contempt, an elegant simplicity, a frankness, an imposing door that all men admire and that men who are not noble guess. For thought has no debts, no hunger, no lust, no base obligations or relationships, no intrigues or affairs, no murders, no envy, no crime, but it has ample leisure and an attractive future.
The service we receive from the great is mutual respect. If you deal with the vulgar, life is reduced to begging. Astronomers are very interested in finding out if the Moon has an atmosphere; I'm just worried that every man has one. However, I note that it takes two to create an atmosphere. I know people who follow this ambient cloud. Just let them come. It doesn't matter what they say. The sun and night sky are no longer calm. It seems like they've come to terms with the fact that they're done with the show and are at peace. Their manners and behavior at home and in the country are those of people who are at rest: what have they to hide? what do they have to show? Others I know, who have no respect and who take and take away all attributes, except material values. How much health and muscle you have, so much land, so much space and dinner. Of course the man is a miserable bag of bones. There is no grace period, not an inch allowed. Bone rubs against bone. Life is therefore a beggar's bush. I know of nothing that makes us feel so low and miserable as when we are treated for our utilities, as economists do, for starving imagination and feeling. In this impoverished animation, I seem to encounter Hunger the wolf. We'd rather be alone while we live than meet these skinny cows. Man needs to emancipate man. He does this, not by preventing it, but by removing it. The closer you are, my friend, the more spacious our kingdom, the larger our spheres in diameter. It's a measure of culture, the number of things that are taken for granted. When a man begins to speak, the noise will occupy him in scramble for his first words, so that he cannot reach her range. A wise man takes everything for granted until he sees the parallelism of what confused him with his own vision.
I will not prolong this speech by describing the duties of the brave and generous. And yet, I dare say one thing, and that is almost the only condition under which a knighthood is gained; it is, namely, loyalty to one's own order. A true aristocrat is one who is at the head of his own order, and it is disloyal to substitute other knighthoods for his own. May he not share your respect, but may he defend what he was born and assigned to defend. Gustav was criticized for not better distinguishing the duties of carabinieri and general, but for exposing himself to all dangers and being too profligate with so much precious blood. For the soul entrusted with high duties will so fulfill its special and high duties that it will not run the risk of assuming for low generosity those that do not belong to it.
There are all degrees of nobility, but amid the frivolity and vertigo of the people, one can see, as if by a tower of strength, some independent mind, which does not go out to evaluate and has already made up its mind a long time ago. that it is impossible to fail. The great sages of India had a lesson for the Brahmins, which comes to mind every day: “Whatever depends on another causes pain; everything that depends on it gives pleasure; in these few words is the definition of pleasure and pain." A noble mind is here to teach us that failure is part of success. Prosperity and pound cake are for very young gentlemen, who are satisfied with such things; but the hero's success , man, is made of failures, for he experiences and ventures every day, and "the more he falls, the faster he goes"; defeated all the time and still born for victory. I have heard that, when riding, a good knight is not he who has never been felled, but that a man will never be a good knight until he has been fallen; then he will no longer be haunted by the terror of plunging and he will ride; - that is his business, - yesdriving,with or without falls, to ride to the place to which it is bound. And I know of no such badge and unquestioned banner of a sovereign mind, as that persistence of purpose which, through all changes of companions, parties, fortunes, - never changes, never dims an ounce of heart or hope, but exhausts opposition. , and arrives at your port. In his consciousness that he deserved success, Caliph Ali constantly neglected the usual means of achieving it; and for big interests, superficial success is not valid. He succeeds both in error and happiness, in obstacle and absurdity, as among angels; the richness of mere colors counts; difficulty is his pleasure: perplexity is his noon: minds that go their way without winds and against the tide. But these are rare and difficult examples, we can only point to them to show how high the realm of honor's reach is.
I know the feeling of the most ingenious and excellent young man in America; I hear the candidates complain that we have no rewards for the ambitions of virtuous young men; that there is no Theban band; there is no strictly exclusive Legion of Honor, which can only be entered by a long and royal service and a patient ascent of all the steps. We have a rich male aristocracy, many bribes for those who love them; but the grand style of culture which, without harm, the ardent youth can suggest itself as Faros through the long dark years, does not exist and there is no substitute. The young man, having passed through the first thickets that prevent him from entering life, having entered decent society, is left to his own devices and falls into a foreign country with too much freedom. But in the hours of discernment we unite against this skepticism. So we see that if the ignorant are around us, the great are much closer; that there is an order of men, never wholly absent, who inscribe no names in their archives except those who are capable of the truth. They are gathered in no chamber; no chamber would hold them; but, from the vast duration of the human race, they rise like mountains, and are present in all minds in proportion to their resemblance to theirs. The loneliest man who shares their spirit walks surrounded by them; they speak to him, they comfort him, and happy is he who loves these associates more than worldly companions. They are also formed in men, in women. There is no trait, feeling or heroic thought that does not materialize at some point in the form of a friend. This highest good of rational existence always comes to such a rejection of evil alliances.
We must celebrate another quality, the self-confidence that characterizes real nature. It is such a prized gem that it should definitely be tested. Rules and discipline were ordained for this. The golden table never lacks members; all your seats are taken; but with this strange provision, that the limbs are carefully withdrawn into deep niches, so that none of them can see another of them, and each one believes himself to be alone. In the presence of the chapter, it is easy for each member to behave well and royally; but in the absence of his peers, and in the presence of evil men, he is tempted to accept the low customs of the city. A member's honor consists in indifference to the people and actions around him, and in unrestrained pursuit of his brother's career, as if he were always in their presence, and as if nothing else existed. Give up, once and for all, the hope of approval from the people on the street if you aim for big goals. How can I guess your designs?
Any reference to role models, any comparison with neighboring skills and reputations is a path to mediocrity. A generous soul, arriving at a new port, immediately prepares for a new journey. By experience, by original study, by secret obedience, he has made a place for himself in the world; there is a real, significant, unprecedented person, and when the greats meet, as always, angels walk the earth, they recognize him at first sight. Effective service in its right form brings out the real man. For he must know that the mark of a real nature is a big heart; that neither Louis Quatorze, nor Chesterfield, nor Byron, nor Bonaparte is the model of the century, but, wherever found, the former glory is given to the virtues of simple faith and firm endurance and clear perception and clear speech, and that not there is a masterly grace and dignity imparted by sentiments elevated to the human form, to which utility, and even genius, must pay homage. And that is the sign and mark of that nobility, drawing their advice from their own bosom. Because serious and dangerous duties are proposed to every gentleman. Justice always wants champions. The world awaits him as its defender, for he will find vulgarity of feeling in the well-dressed multitude, yea, in the politeness of whole nations. In the best halls of modern society he will find the laughing devil, the bourgeois ridicule; in English palaces, the London turn, ridicule, coldness, contempt for the masses, contempt for Ireland, dislike for the Chartists. The English House of Commons is the proudest body of gentlemen in the world, and yet the ingenious House of Commons, its rightful expression, is a laughing stock. In America he will face the condemnation of purism in all matters relating to the morals of commerce and social mores, and the narrowest narrowing of ethics to the sole duty of paying money. Pay, and you can play the tyrant all you like, and never look back at the fatal question: where was the money you paid?
I know the difficulties in the way of an honorable man. A man of honor is a man of good taste and humanity. By inclination, like all generous men, he is a democrat. But the revolution is coming and he joins the banner of Chartists and bandits? No, because the angry leaders in their ignorance dragged them into the Red Revolution; they are full of murder, and the student withdraws - and joins the rich. If he cannot vote with the poor, let him be alone. Let him accept the position of armed neutrality, abhorring the crimes of the Chartists, abhorring the selfishness of the rich, and say: 'The time will come when these poorchildren lostrevolutions will guide their party, if only by their destiny, and wiser counsels will prevail; the song and dance of freedom will rise from the bright and holy ground and take me too. Then I would not lose my right to speak and act for humanity.” In the meantime, it is a disgrace to the learned and philosophic who suffers the vulgarity of speech and habit to blind him to the still greater vulgarity of implacable selfishness, and to hide from him the current of Tendency; that he abandons his own position as priest and poet to these impious and unpoetic executors of God's work. You must, by wisdom, by common sense, have some access to the minds and hearts of common humanity. The exclusive excludes itself. There was no great man who did not trust the reason and heart of mankind represented by the common sense of men, as a corrector of the manners, excessive refinement and class prejudices of the literati of the world.
There are certain conditions that are more conducive to the serenity of mind and generosity that we value so much. And mostly the habit of considering big interests and things in bulk, and not too much in detail. The habit of conducting big business creates nobility of thought in any mind of average ability. Because the matters themselves show how they should be treated; and a good head soon becomes wise and does not govern too much.
I now believe in the closest affinity between moral and material power. Virtue and genius are always on the direct path to controlling the society in which they find themselves. It is in society's interest for good people to govern, and there is always a tendency to put them that way. But, for the day that is now, a man of a generous spirit will not need to hold public offices, or manage the great interests of commerce, or war, or politics, or manufactures, but will use great prudence in the conduct of life to protect against extravagance in many things. There is no need for him to count the pounds of property or the number of agents touched by his influence; it is enough that his aims are high, that the interests of intellectual and moral beings are paramount to him, that he comes to what is called good society from a higher plane, and that he has a high habit which the ministers of empires will be forced to see and remember.
I do not know whether the word gentleman, though it denotes an important idea in recent civilization, is a broad enough generalization to convey the deep and serious fact of self-reliance. To many the word expresses only the outside of cultured men - only graceful manners and independence in trifles; but the sources of this thought are in the depths of man, the beauty that reaches from end to end, from manners to the soul; honor which is but a name for holiness, confidence which is confidence in God himself. Call him a man of honor, or call him a man, the American who would serve his country must learn the beauty and honor of perseverance, must fortify himself with strength of character, and revisit the brink of that pit whence his fathers fell. they took the water. water of life and enthusiasm, the source I mean of moral feeling, the mother source from which this beautiful Universe flows like a wave.
ETERNAL BACK
"Several servants wait for a man
Then he will notice."
Jorge Herbert
The Rock of Ages is always melting
No ar mineral,
To be a quarry where it's built
Thought and its beautiful castles.
[Reprinted of o Norte americano analysis, Sim. 125, 1877.]
A hero in fairy tales has a servant who can eat granite stones, another servant who can hear the grass grow, and a third who can run a hundred leagues in half an hour; thus, man in nature is surrounded by a group of friendly giants who can accept even more difficult tasks than these and help him in every way. Each in himself has a certain omnipotence, but all, like rival kings and emperors, in each other's presence are antagonized and held decent and possess a balance of power.
We must not allow ourselves to lose any advantage. No man was too strong for his true work. Art is long and life is short, and he must compensate for this disparity by borrowing and applying the energy of nature to his task. Strengthen his self-esteem, show him your means, your arsenal of powers, physical, metaphysical, immortal. Show him the wealth of the poor, show him what powerful allies and helpers he has. And though King David has no use for a census of vain glory, yet I find it useful and encouraging to enumerate the resources at our command, to look over that arsenal a little, and to see how many rounds of ammunition, what muskets, and how many weapons better than the Springfield musket, we can bring it.
Go outside and get some air. Ah, if you only knew what's in the air. See what your stout neighbor, who was never afraid to live there, got out of it; strength, joy, persuasiveness, courage and equality in all events.
All lands are burnt metals. Half of the avoirdupois rocks that make up the solid crust of the globe are composed of oxygen. Adamant always turns to smoke; a marble column, a bronze statue burning in the light of day, and would soon disintegrate if its molecular structure, disturbed by the furious sunlight, were not restored by the darkness of night. What effects of electricity, gravity, light, affinity combine to make each plant what it is, and so silently that the presence of these vast powers is generally unsuspected. Faraday said: "A grain of water is known to have electrical relations equal to very strong lightning." The ripe fruit finally fell without violence, but the lightning struck and the storm raged, and the layers were laid down and torn and bent back, and Chaos moved from below to create and savor the fruit on your table today. The winds and rains return a thousand and a thousand times. The coal in its sheet emits today in its decomposition exactly the same amount of light and heat as was taken from sunlight in its formation in the leaves and branches of the antediluvian tree.
Grab a shovel or a loam dollar; who can guess what it contains? But the gardener knows he is full of peaches, full of oranges, and throws some seeds like keys to unlock and combine their virtues; he left her in the sun and rain, and slowly lifted all his weight in golden fruit into the air.
The world's first hymns were hymns to these natural forces. The Indian Vedas, before Homer, are hymns to winds, clouds and fire. They all have certain properties associated with them, such as preservation, persistence in being what they are, impossibility of being distorted. The sun has lost no ray, the earth no element; gravity is sticky, heat is expansive, light is joyous, air is virtuous, water is as healing as the first day. No loss, just transfer. When the heat here is less, it is not lost, but there is more heat. When the rain is excessive on the coast, there is drought on the prairie. When a continent sinks, the opposite continent, i.e. the opposite coast of the ocean, rises. When there is less life here, it is born there.
These forces are in ascending order, but seem to leave no room for the individual; man or atom, he just splits them; sail as these irresistible winds blow. But behind all this are subtler elements, their sources, and much faster and more powerful; new style and series, spiritually. Intellect and morality appear only as material forces on a higher plane. The laws of material nature reach into the invisible world of the mind and thus we obtain the key to those sublimities which lurk and hide in the caverns of human consciousness. And in the impenetrable secret that hides – and hides through absolute transparency – mental nature, I await the insight that our advanced knowledge of material laws will provide.
But the laws of force apply to all forms of force. Carpentry learned in the economy of heat or light or steam or muscle fibers is precisely about the use of ingenuity. What I said about the inexorable tenacity of every elemental force to stand alone, the impossibility of being tampered with or distorted, - the same rule again strictly applies to that force of intellect; which is perception, vision, not creation of thoughts. Man must obey the law, and never the law for him.
Man's brain has methods and arrangements corresponding to these material powers by which he can use them. You see how trivial any other creature's use of the world is. Although these forces act on us from the outside and we are not on his advice, we call them fate. Animal instincts guide an animal as gravity guides a stone, and in man this bias or direction of his constitution is often as tyrannical as gravity. We call it the temperament, and it seems to have the remnants of the wolf, the ape, and the rattlesnake in it. While reason rests, reason reigns; as the reflective faculties open, it diminishes. We come to reason and knowledge; we see the causes of evil and learn to fight them and use them as instruments, with knowledge, to be within them and deal with them as the Creator does. It is interesting to see how a creature as weak and vulnerable as man, who, unarmed, is no match for wild beasts, nor for the tiger, nor for the crocodile, nor for the ice, nor for the sea, nor for the mist, neither to the damp air, nor to the feeble jaws of a poor worm - every one of a thousand little accidents kills him every day - but he is able to bend to his will these terrible forces and more than these. His whole structure responds to the world, part by part, every sense, every pore to a new element, so that he seems to have as many talents as there are qualities in nature. There is no strength, but it is his strength. He does not own them, he is the tube through which their currents flow. If the straw is held still in the direction of the ocean current, the sea will flow through it like Gibraltar. If he were to measure strength with them, if he were to fight sea and storm with his ship, he would break her spars, rend her sails, and sink her ship; but shrewdly distributing his strength, taking advantage of the storm for a little side wind, he uses the monsters, and they carry him where he will. Look at it; you cannot guess what power is in it. He never appears directly, but follow him and see his effects, see his productions. He is a planter, a miner, a shipbuilder, a machinist, a musician, a steam engine, a surveyor, an astronomer, a persuader of men, a lawgiver, a builder of cities; - and each one of them thanks to the wonderful method or sequence that resides in it and allows it to work on the material elements.
We are surrounded by human thought and work. Where have the farmer's days gone? See, they are hidden in that stone wall, in that dug trench, in the plantation grown in what was gravel and bare pine. He spent his days dragging a mountain of mud from a distant swamp that had been swept away to cover fertile soil. The work is hidden in every way and shape. It was massaged and locked in that stone house for five hundred years. It twists and turns in the fragrant hay that fills the barn. He surprises with the perfect shape and condition of the trees, free of caterpillars and borers, properly pruned and loaded with grafted fruit. It is located under the house in the well; it is above a slate and copper house and a fountain of water; grows on corn; he makes us happy in the flowerbed; he keeps the cow out of the garden, the rain out of the library, the miasma out of the city. He is in clothes, in paintings, in ships, in cannons; in every show, in smells, in flavors, in sweet sounds, in works of safety, pleasure, anger, science.
Think about it, no one has ever seen it, but disorder becomes order wherever it goes; weakness becomes power; Amazing and admirable effects follow you as a creator. All powers are his; just as the wise merchant of truth in his dealings thinks that his credit is unlimited - he can use in return, as he pleases, all the property in the world - so a man draws all the air to his opportunities, as if there were no other vent. ; in all the water it is as if there were no other sailor; he is warmed by the sun, as are all the elements; walking and working with the help of gravity; he relies on all knowledge as his province, on all beauty for his innocent pleasure, and sooner or later exhausts by its use all the harvests, all the powers of the world. To man, the recipient of all and the depository of these amounts of power, I must say that his ability and performance are proportionate to his receiving these various streams of force. We define genius as sensitivity to all impressions of the external world, a sensitivity so equal that it receives all impressions accurately and can report them truly, without excess or loss, as it has received them. Not only must he receive everything, he must also give everything. And human health is equality of input and output, collection and donation. Any accumulation is a tumor and a disease.
If indeed we had to consider probate before the last appellate court, - it would be probate! What are my resources? "Our stock of life, our equity, is the amount of thought we've had" - and which we've applied and therefore tamed. The ground we thus create is forever a background for new thinking. Some moral maxims confirmed by great experience would be at the top of the list, representing supreme prudence. So incalculable knowledge of our personal strength, where it lies, its approaches and reliefs, and its obstacles. My belief in principles - that's a big part of my property. Certain thoughts, certain observations, long known to me during night vigils and daylight hours, would be my capital when I moved to Spain or China, or, in a stranger translation, to the planet Jupiter or Mars, or to new spiritual societies. . Every worthy person who engages in an undertaking - whether it be a branch of industry, or the establishment of a colony or a college, the reformation of some public abuse, or some endeavor of patriotism - what he chiefly brings, whatever he brings, it is not his land or his money or the strength of his body, but his thinking, his way of classifying and seeing things, his method. And so with each new strength. Proportionate to the depth of the vision is the power and scope of the realm he rules.
It would be easy to arouse admiration by sketching the effect of each of these mental forces; like the diving bell of Memory, which descends into the depths of our most ancient past experience and brings up every lost jewel; or Fancy, sending her joyous balloon skyward to catch every shadow and glimmer of romance; The imagination, which transforms every dull fact into pictures and poetry, becoming an emblem of thought. What power, when combined with analytical understanding, makes Eloquence; the art of persuasive belief, the art of making men's hearts dance to his flute! And nothing less, method, patience, confidence, perseverance, love, desire for knowledge, passion for the truth. These are the angels who hold our hands, they are our immortal and invulnerable guardians. We are strong with his strength, and at important times in our careers his inspiration flows to us and makes a selfish, sheltered, and gently bred person strong for his duty, wise in counsel, skillful in action, able to rule, ready to obey.
I like to follow these wonderful powers, electricity and gravity of the human world. The power to persevere, endure defeat, and gain victory through defeat is one of those powers that never loses its charm. Man's power constantly grows by continuing in one direction. He knows resistances and his own tools; he increases his skill and strength and learns auspicious moments and auspicious accidents. He is his own apprentice, and more time greatly increases strength, just as a falling body gains momentum with every fall. How we reward a good follower! I knew a manufacturer who found his assets invested in chemical plants that were falling in value. He took it over himself, started from scratch, learned chemistry and got acquainted with all the conditions of production. Friends of his dissuaded him, advised him to give up a job that did not suit the country. Why throw good money after bad? But he persevered, and after many years succeeded in producing a suitable article of commerce, increased the stock of his mills to an equal value, and then sold part of it, after effecting the necessary repairs.
In every talent is the perception of order and order in the department with which it deals - order and order that previously existed in nature, and to which this mind sees and adapts itself. The geometer shows us the correct order of numbers; painter in the laws of color; dancer in grace. Bonaparte, with his swiftness of combination, mute, inscrutable, reads the geography of Europe as if his eyes were telescopes; his will is a huge battery that discharges irresistible bursts of power always in the right place at the right time.
There was a story in the diaries about a poor prisoner in the Western Police Court who was told he could be released if he paid the fine. He had no money, no friends, but he took his flute out of his pocket and began to play, to the surprise and, as it turned out, to the joy of the whole company; the jurors awoke, the sheriff forgot his duty, the judge himself ran out of time, and the prisoner, with the general consent of the court and clerks, was allowed to go on his way penniless. And I suppose, if he could play it loud enough, we here should keep time, and all the people of the globe would beat time and agree that it should go unpunished.
I knew a stupid, rude young farmer, who lived only for his gain, and with whom the only relationship you could have was to buy what he had to sell. One day I found his four-year-old son pulling the most beautiful wooden cart behind him, so well made and decorated, and I knew that Father had made it; that hidden deep within that thick skull was that delicate art and taste which her son's little fingers and caresses had the power to bring into the day; after all, he was not a peasant. We are so close to the flowering of the fine arts in the rudest population. You see in the circle of schoolgirls one without beauty, without particular vivacity - but she can tell her adventures in such a way that she is never alone, but night or morning wherever she sits, an inevitable circle gathers around her, willing captives. that wonderful memory and imagination and spirit of life. Do you know where to find her? Hear the laughter, follow the merry hum, See where the rapt attention and the beautiful crowd All glow with an electricity; there in the center of conviviality and joy is Scheherazade again.
See how rich life is; rich in particular talents, each of which delights us in turn and seems the best. If we listen to music, we give up all that; if we venture into a cricket club and watch a masterful game, the best bowler is first among men; if we go to the regatta, forget the pitcher for the shot; and when the soldier returns home from battle, everyone's eyes water. But the soldier has the same admiration as the great parliamentary debater. And poetry and literature despise all these claims except their own. Like the boy who considered each of the four seasons to be the best, and each of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year to be the coronation. Sensitivity is everything.
Everyone knows the effects of music to make people happy, sad or martial. But these are effects on dull subjects and only an indication of its power in the keenest sense. It is the stroke of a loose or taut string. The stories about Orpheus, about Arion, about the Arab musician are not fairy tales, but experiments on the same red-hot iron.
With that marvelous sensitivity to all impressions of Nature, man sees himself as a vessel of heavenly thoughts, happy intercourse with all people. Imagination enriches you like no other; memory opens all your cupboards and files; Science through and through; Poetry, its splendor and joy and the august circles of eternal law. These are means and steps to new heights of mind. But they are not impoverished to any other mind, they are not corrupted, they are not inspired; for the mighty Intellect did not bow before him and become his property, but ascended to him and followed his circles. "It's ours while we use it, not ours when we don't."
And so, one step higher, when it comes to the sphere of feelings and will. He sees the greatness of justice, the victory of love, the eternity that belongs to every moral nature. He then does not invent his feelings or his act, but obeys the pre-existing law he sees. We arrive at virtue by following his lead rather than imposing our own.
The last discovery of intellect and feeling is that it somehow separates man from all other men; he lets him know that his spiritual powers are sufficient that no other being exists; that he absolutely must behave in the world, as if it were the only system and state, and although everything must disappear, he can create everything anew.
The forces are infinite. Everyone has the power of everything, because the secret of the world is that their energiesunido;work together in a mutual aid system, all for all and all for all; that the stress at one point is supported by each arch and foundation of the structure. But if you want to harness their power, and likewise if you want strength of intellect, strength of will, you must follow their divine guidance, not yours. Obedience itself gives the right to command. It's like a village operator tapping a telegraph wire and discovering the secrets of empires as they pass through the capital. Thus, this son of dust is cast into the circle of heavenly wisdom by obedience and shares God's secret.
So the world is given into your hands, but on two conditions: not for possession, but for use, use according to the noble nature of the gifts; not for toys, not for self-pleasure. Things work for their own ends, not yours, and will surely defeat any adventurer who fights this ordinance.
People's effort is to use them for private purposes. They want to put in their pockets earth and water and fire and air and all the fruits of these, for property, and they would like to have Aladdin's lamp to chase away the darkness, and iron gates, and enemy armies, and lions and snakes to serve as foot soldiers. And they want the same service from the spiritual faculties. The man has a rare mathematical talent that invites him to the beautiful secrets of geometry and he wants to patent it; or he has a poet's imagination and invention, so he says, 'I will write a play that will be repeated in London for a hundred nights;'; or military genius, and instead of using it for the defense of his country, he says, 'I will conduct the battle in such a way as to give myself political place and consideration'; either Canning or Thurlow have a genius for debate and say, 'I will know how to plead the cause with this weapon that will pay better and make me Chancellor or Foreign Secretary.' But this depravity is punished with a momentary loss of real wisdom and real power.
I regard the examination of these cosmic powers as a doctrine of comfort in the dark hours of private or public happiness. It shows us a living, guided, incorruptible world; that his cannon cannot be stolen nor his virtues misapplied. It shows us a long providence, an assurance of honesty. It encourages effort; warns us against the despair into which the Saxon people can fall - against the idolatry of forms, instead of working for simple ends, in the belief that Heaven always helps us to work for them. This world belongs to energy. It is a bundle of laws, and a proper analysis of those laws, showing how immortal and self-protective they are, would be a useful lesson for all times and for this time. This group that connects them is the unit, it is the universal good, permeating everyone with one being and purpose, so that each one translates the other, only the same spirit is applied to the new departments. Things are saturated with moral law. There is no escaping it. Violets and herbs nail him; rain and snow, wind and tide, every change, every cause in nature is but a missionary in disguise.
All of our political disasters logically arise from our past attempts to work without justice, just as a part of your house sinks because of a faulty foundation. One thing is clear; a certain personal virtue is essential to freedom; and it is beginning to be questioned whether our corruption in this country has not gone a little beyond the bounds of safety, so that, when examined, it will be found that we are composed of the most wanton selfish men. Divine knowledge has disappeared from us and we don't know enough to be free.
I hope better than the state. Half a man's wisdom goes with his courage. A boy who knows that a bully lives around the corner he has to pass on his daily way to school tends to have a sinister view of the streets and of school education. And the sensitive politician suffers from his ideas about the role that New York or Pennsylvania or Ohio should play in the future of the Union, which will be shaped by the election of thugs in some districts. But we must not satisfy thieves so deeply. There is a quick limit to arbitrary policy.
Fear lets life and the world down. If I don't have my own respect I'm a cheat, I have no right to someone else's and I had better crawl to my grave. I admire the sentiment of Thoreau, who said, “There is nothing so much to be feared as fear; God himself prefers atheism.” Because the world is a battlefield; every principle is a note of war, and the quietest, safest life is every moment exposed to incidents that test your steadfastness. The illusion that seems to me a masterpiece in this circle of illusions that is our life is the timidity with which we express our moral sentiments. We are made of it, the world is built of it, things endure while sharing it; all beauty, all health, all intelligence exist because of him; however, we meet to talk it out or side with him. No, we assume the strength of the one or those who deny it. Cities are going against it; the college opposes it, the courts seize every precedent, every enchanted form of law to exclude it; legislatures listen with appetite to statements against it and reject them. Every new rightist surprises us, like a man who joins a church, and we hardly dare believe he is serious.
What we do and suffer is momentary, but the cause of justice for which we fight never dies, works for a long time, can pay many checks, earned from our defeats and will know how to compensate for our final sacrifice. Anger and impertinence may have their brief success, but they quickly reach their brief date and disintegrate, while the overwhelming power of ideas is finally overwhelming. Where does knowledge come from? Where is the source of power? God's soul is poured into the world through human thoughts. The world is based on ideas, not iron or cotton; and iron from iron, fire from fire, ether and source of all elements is moral strength. Like cloud upon cloud, like snow upon snow, like a bird in the air and a planet in space in its flight, so the nations of men and their institutions rest upon thoughts.
I LIKE.
Stay away from passion, close the hands of thrift,
Sit still, and Truth is at hand;
will rise suddenly
Your eyelids to the sphere:
Wait a while and you'll see
A picture of things to come.
What do I need a book or a priest
Or the mummified Sibyl of the East
When every star is the star of Bethlehem, -
I count how many
Pansies or violets in the grass,
So many saints and saviors,
So many good manners.
[Reprinted of o Norte americano Analysis of April, 1866.]
Morality respects what men call goodness, what all men agree to respect as justice, truth-telling, good will, and good deeds. Morality respects the source or motive of that action. It is a science of substances, not of representations. That's itwhat,and movedas.It is that which all men claim to respect, and to which they commend themselves to one another in true respect.
There is this eternal advantage of morality, that, in the question between truth and goodness, the moral cause of the world is behind everything else in the mind. It was for the good, it's good, that everything works out. It certainly is not to prove or show the truth of things, - that sounds a little cold and scholastic, - no, it is for the good, that everything exists. As we say in our modern politics, finally grasping the language of morality, that the end of the state is the greatest good for the greatest number, - therefore the reason we must give for the world's existence is that it is for the good of all. the beings.
Morality implies freedom and will. The will makes a man. He has his life in Nature, like an animal: but the choice is born in him; here is who chooses; here is the Declaration of Independence, the 4th of July of zoology and astronomy. He chooses, - as the rest of creation does not choose. But the will, pure and discerning, is not obstinacy. When a man, out of stubbornness, insists on doing this or that, something absurd or capricious, just because he wants to, he is weak; he blows with his lips against the storm, he defends the approaching ocean with his staff. It was an unspeakable disgrace if anyone thought they had the right to impose their own will on others. This is the role of the attacker, the assassin. All violence, all that is dark and repulsive, is not power but powerlessness.
Morality is the direction of the will towards universal goals. Anyone who acts for any private purpose is immoral. He is moral, — we say this with Marcus Aurelius and with Kant, — whose aim or motive can become a universal rule, obligatory for all intelligent beings; and with Vauvenargues, "the mercenary sacrifice of the public good to private interest is the eternal mark of vice."
All virtues are special directions of this motive; justice is the application of this good of the whole to the affairs of each individual; courage is contempt for danger in the determination to realize this good of the whole; love is the pleasure of preferring this benefit to another rather than securing our own share; humility is the feeling of our insignificance when the good of the universe is taken into account.
If we want to get a little closer to the truth of these external statements, our first experiences both in the moral and in the intellectual nature oblige us to distinguish a universal mind, identical in all men. Certain prejudices, talents, executive skills are special to each individual; but an elevated, contemplative, commanding view, a sense of good and evil, is alike in all. Its attributes are self-existence, eternity, intuition and command. It is the mind of the mind. We belong to him, not he to us. It is in all men and makes them men. In bad people it rests, just as health in people is raptured or drunk; but, however ineffectual it may be, it exists under all vices and errors. The extreme simplicity of this intuition puts any attempt at analysis to shame. We can only mark, one by one, the perfections that unite in each act. It does not recognize attraction, it does not look to any higher essence. That's the reason for the matter.
The antagonistic nature is the individual, formed in a limited body of exact dimensions, with appetites which take from all others what they appropriate, and would involve all the individual's spiritual capacity, if possible, to satisfy them. In the constant conflict between the dictates of this universal mind and the desires and interests of the individual, the moral discipline of life is built. The one longs for private welfare, which the other requires to be renounced out of respect for the absolute good. Each hour places the individual in a position where his desires are aimed at something that his sense of duty prevents him from pursuing. He who speaks the truth performs no private function of the individual will, but the world utters a sound with his lips. He who does a just action sees nothing of his own in it, but receives an inconceivable nobility, because it is the dictate of the general mind. We have no idea of a power so simple and so complete as this. It is the basis of thought, it is the basis of being. Compare all that we call, all our private and personal undertakings in the world, with this depth of moral nature in which we lie, and our private good become insolence, and share in the rash shame upon ourselves:
“Higher instincts, before which our mortal nature is
He trembles like a surprised culprit, -
That, whatever they were,
You are still the source of light for our whole day,
You are still the main light of all our vision, -
Support us, feed us and have the power to create
Our noisy years seem like times in being
Eternal silence, - the truth that will be
It never fails."
The moral element invites man to great expanses, to find his satisfaction, not in details or events, but in purpose and aspiration; not in bread, but in the right to bread; not in much corn or wool, but in their communication.
The moral sense does not help us by adding; no, but in a completely different way. It puts us in place. It centralizes, concentrates us. It places us in the heart of nature, where we belong, in the cabinet of science and cause, where all the threads that hold the world in magnetic unity end, and thus transforms us into universal beings.
That wonderful feeling, which pleases itself when obeyed, seems to be the source of intellect; for no talent gives the impression of reason if it so desires; no, he absorbs everything into himself. Truth, Strength, Goodness, Beauty, are their different names - the faces of one substance, the heart of all. What are persons before him, prophets or seraphim, but his fleeting agents, momentary rays of his light?
The moral feeling is the only omnipotent one. There is no effort or sacrifice that does not take a person and that does not facilitate. So there is no man who bargains to sell his life, say at the end of the year, for a million or ten million dollars in gold, or for any temporary pleasures, or for any position, like nobility or prince; but many people who do not hesitate to lay down their lives for the truth, or for the cause of their country, or to save their son or friend. And under the influence of this sense of Entitlement, your heart and mind expand beyond yourself and beyond Nature.
Though love suffers and reason rages,
A voice was heard without answer, -
"It is the bane of man, surely,
When you have to die for the truth."
There is a big difference between the inner workings of the heart and the outer senses. One is enthusiasm and the other is more or less horsepower.
Godly men, trying to express their convictions, used various images to suggest this latent force; as, the light, the seed, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Devil, the still small voice, etc., - all indicating their power and latency. It is calm beyond all mediation. In all ages, to all people, it has been said,e about;and he who hears it feels the impiety of turning this revelation aside for any record or rival. The poor Jews in the desert cried out, “May the Lord not speak to us; let Moses speak to us.” But the simple, sincere soul offers the opposite prayer, 'Let no intruders come between you and me; deal with me; let me know that this is your will, and I ask no more.” The excellence of Jesus and of every true teacher is that he confirms the Godhead in himself and in us - and does not come between him and us. This would immediately disqualify us from anyone claiming to speak for the Author of nature, stating any fact or law that we do not find in our own conscience. We must say with Heraclitus: “Enter this smoky hut; God is also here: show yourself to him”.
We affirm that in all men is this glorious perception and commandment; that it is the presence of the Eternal in each man that disappears; that he removes and degrades all utterances of any saints, heroes, poets, as vague and confused stuttering before his silent revelation.Theyto report the truth.Forand truth. When I think of Reason, Truth, Virtue, I cannot conceive of them as situated in your soul and situated in my soul, but that you and I and all souls are situated in it; and I can easily speak of that lovely nature, where I only see it in my dim experiences, in expressions that will seem profane to the frivolous, who dare not probe their conscience. How is a man a man? How can it exist to weave relationships of joy and virtue with other souls, if not because it is invulnerable, anchored in the center of Truth and Being? In an hour of thought which continually returns, he says: 'I am here happy in my heart for all the sympathies I can awaken and share, clothing myself in them as a garment of shelter and beauty, and yet knowing that it is not in the power of everyone around me to pull out of me the smallest thread that I call mine. If all things are taken away, I still have all things in my relation to the Eternal.'
We intend not to define the form of your access to the private heart. Understanding passes. There was a time when Christianity existed in a child. But if the child were killed by Herod, would the element be lost? God sends his message, if not by one, then by another. When the Lord of the Universe has objects to fulfill, he impresses his will on the fabric of minds.
Divine mind is bestowed upon an individual: his whole duty is in accordance with this rule and teaching. The help others give us is like the help a mother gives her child - temporary, gestational, short-term lactation, nursing care or housekeeper care; but on reaching a certain maturity it ceases, and it would be painful and ridiculous if it were prolonged. The body slowly begins to use its organs; slowly the soul is revealed in the new man. At first it is partial and respects only one or a few truths. In his companions he sees other truths that are respected, and their foundation is successively found in himself. Then she cuts the cord and no longer believes "because of her words", but because she has recognized them in herself.
The divine mind is bestowed on a person: but it is also true that men have a powerful effect on us. There are people who surprise and delight, people who teach and lead. I remember the words of some men so well that I often have to use them to express my thoughts. Yes, because I see that we heard the same truth, but they heard it better. It only means that in all Nature there is a degree and gradation; and the Deity does not violate its firm laws in the matter of imparting truth, any more than in the matter of imparting material heat and light. From time to time people appear who receive these high communications with greater purity and fullness. But just so far as this hearing of another is approved by his consent with his own, is it pure and safe for all; and all income from abroad must be controlled by this vast reserve.
It happens here and there over the centuries that a soul is born which has no weakness of its own, which presents no obstacle to the Divine Spirit, which descends into Nature as if for the soul's sake alone, and all its thoughts are perceptions of the things as they are, without any weakness of the country. Such souls are like apparitions of gods among men, and by their mere presence bring judgment upon them. Men are forced to give them some attention due to their self-respect. Evil people cower and unwittingly pay homage, hiding or apologizing for their actions.
When a man is born with deep moral feelings, preferring truth, justice and service to all men to any honor or gain, people easily feel superior. Those who deal with it are uplifted with joy and hope; he lights up the house or the landscape he is in. His actions are poetic and miraculous in their eyes. In his presence or under his influence, everyone believes in the immortality of the soul. They feel that the unseen world sympathizes with them. The Arabs delight in expressing the sympathy of the unseen world to holy men.
When Omer prayed and loved,
"Where the waters of Syria flow,
Above, the ninth sky shone and moved
At the foot of jubilant souls.
The greatest event in life is the day we meet a mind that astounds us with its vast reach. I am wont to think - not, I hope, by partial experience, but confirmed by what I have observed in many lives - that to every serious mind Providence sends from time to time five, six or seven teachers who are of the first importance to him in the lessons he teaches. must transmit. The highest of these do not so much provide specific knowledge as they elevate feelings and your usual grandeur of vision.
Great men serve us like rebellions in bad governments. The world would fall into an endless rut, and create encrustation forms, until life disappeared. But the constant supply of new genius shocks us with life's emotions and reminds us of principles. Lucifer's wager in the ancient drama was, "There is no firm man on earth." He is very rare. "A person is already significant in the world when you know you can trust him unconditionally." See how one noble person surpasses an entire nation of subordinates. We show this constancy when we praise character.
Character means habitual self-mastery, habitual consideration of internal and constitutional motives, a balance not to be disturbed or easily disturbed by external events and thoughts, and by implication it points to the source of right motives. We sometimes use the word to express the strong and consistent will of men with mixed motives, but when used with emphasis it indicates that which no event can change, namely, a will built on the reason of things. Such souls do not come in troops: most often they appear alone, like a general without his command, because those who can understand and support this rarely appear, not many, perhaps not one, in a generation. And the memory and tradition of such a leader are preserved in a strange way by those who only half understand him, until a true disciple appears, who catches and interprets every word.
The feeling never ceases in pure vision, but it will come true. It confirms not only its veracity, but also its supremacy. It's not just insight, like science, imagination, like imagination; or entertainment, such as friendship and poetry; but it is sovereign rule; and the works it suggests — As when it makes a man advance, and communicates him to others, or puts him into some asceticism, or some practice of self-examination to keep him obedient, or some zeal to unite men to reduce some disturbance, or establish some reform or charity which he enjoins - is the veneration we pay to that sentiment, in comparison with the inferior respect we pay to other thoughts: and the private or social practices which we set up in its honor we call religion.
Sentiment, of course, is the judge and measure of every expression of it - the measure of Judaism, Stoicism, Christianity, Buddhism or any philanthropy, politics, saints or seers who pretend to speak for them. The religions we call false were once true. They were also confirmations of a conscience that corrected the bad customs of his time. The population lowers the gods to their own level and gives them their selfishness; while in Nature there are none at all, God is kept out of sight and known only as pure, though irresistible, law. Châteaubriand said, with a bit of irreverence in his expression: If God made man in his own image, man has given it back as well."EU Dieu a he does man To do sin Photo, man e BOM accomplished."Every nation is degraded by the goblins they worship instead of this Deity. The Dionysus and Saturnalia of Greece and Rome, the human sacrifices of the Druids, the sradds of the Hindus, purgatory, the pardons and inquisition of the papacy, the revenge mythology of Calvinism, are examples of this depravity.
Each special instruction is quickly incorporated into a ritual, adapted to lowly and rude and corrupted minds. The moral sense is the eternal critic of these forms, thundering its protests, sometimes in grave and lofty reproach; but it is also sometimes the source, in a less pure nature, of the frivolous sneers and jests of the common people, who feel that the forms and dogmas are not true for them, though they do not see where the error lies.
The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. In our idlest poetry and speech we use the words Jove, Neptune, Mercury, as mere colors, and we can hardly believe that they had to the animated Greek the anxious meaning which, in our cities, is given and received in churches when our names are given. religious are used: and with surprise we read the horror of Athens when, one morning, the statues of Mercury in the temples were found broken, and a similar horror reigned in the city as if all the orthodox churches in Boston had been burned. in one night.
The deepest thought will have the greatest power. The establishment of Christianity in the world does not rest on any miracle, but on the miracle of its being the widest and most humane doctrine. Christianity was once a schism and a protest against the impieties of the time, which was originally a protest against the former impieties, but has lost its truth. Varnhagen von Ense, writing in Prussia in 1848, says: “The Gospels belong to the most aggressive writings. None of its newspapers could obtain freedom of print (in Berlin) today. What kind of Mirabeaus, Rousseaus, Diderots, Fichtes, Heines and many other heretics can be discovered in it!
But before it became a national religion it was amalgamated, and in the hands of the hot Africans, the exuberant Byzantines, the fierce Gauls, its creeds were tainted with their barbarism. In Holland, in England, in Scotland, national narrowness was felt. How different was our common thinking in the last century in this country! Our ancestors constantly spoke of angels and archangels with the same good faith as they would speak of their parents or a deceased priest. Now the words are pale, the rhetoric and all credibility gone. Our horizon is not far, say a generation, or thirty years: we all see a lot. The elders see two generations, or sixty years. But that which lasts three horizons, or ninety years, seems to all the world a law of nature, and it is not impious to doubt it. So it's amazing to us, if we look at our grandparents' religious books, how they kept themselves in such a state. But why not? As far as they could see, across two or three horizons, nothing but ministers and ministers. Calvinism was the same in Geneva, Scotland, Old England and New England. If there was a wedding, they had a sermon; if it's a funeral, then a sermon; if war, or smallpox, or a comet, or boils, or a deacon dies, - yet a sermon: nature was a pulpit; the guardian of the church or giver of the tithe was a petty persecutor; presbytery, tyrant; and in many country houses the poor children met seven Saturdays a week. Fifty or a hundred years ago, prayers were offered, morning and evening, in every family; grace is said at the table; the exact celebration of Sunday was held in the homes of both lay and priests. The non-use of rituals so charged with humanity and aspiration is observed with some pain. But it by no means follows, since these services are not much used, that men and women are irreligious; certainly not because they have less integrity or feeling, but just, let us hope, that they see that they can omit form without losing real ground; perhaps they find some violence, some spasm of their freedom of thought, in the constant repetition of form.
So, about changing the position and manners of the clergy. They discarded, with the priestly dress and manners of the last century, many of the doctrines and practices once considered essential to their order. But the differences from the real priest are no less decisive. Men are now asking, “Is he serious? Is he an honest man, who lives while learning? Is he a benefactor? For now, religion is where it should be. People are discriminated against as honest, truthful, enlightened, useful, with public and universal respect, or otherwise; — are broken down according to their goals, not these rituals.
Changes are inevitable; the new age cannot see through the eyes of the past. But the change is in the superficial; principles are immortal, and support for principles must come as men become intellectuals. I regard theology as the rhetoric of morality. The mind of this age has fallen from theology to morality. I imagine this in advance. I suspect that when theology was at its most corny and dogmatic, it was the barbarism of the people, and that at that time even the best people turned away from theology and rested in morality. I think that all dogmas are based on morality and that it's just a matter of youth or maturity, more or less the addressee's fantasy; that the strict determination to do justice, to speak the truth, to be chaste and humble, was essentially the same, whether under self-respect or under a vow taken on one's knees in Our Lady's shrine.
When Selden once said that it seemed to him that the priests were baptizing their own fingers, the rite of baptism was late in the world. Or when it is observed that the English missionaries in India have placed obstacles in the way of the schools (as it is asserted) - they do not wish to enlighten but the Christianization of the Hindus - it is immediately seen how wide English is of the Christianity of Christ.
Humanity as a whole is always like frivolous children: they are impatient to think and want to be entertained. The truth is too simple for us; we don't like those who expose our illusions. Fontenelle said: "If the Divinity revealed to men the secret system of Nature, the causes by which all astronomical results are produced, and they found no magic, no mystic numbers, no fatalities, but the greatest simplicity, I am convinced that they would not be able to suppress a feeling of humiliation and would exclaim in disillusionment, 'Is that all?'” And so we paint the nakedness of ethics with the grotesque uncanny of theology.
We are proud of the triumph of Christianity over paganism, which means the victory of the spirit over the senses; but paganism hides in the garments of the Church. Paganism has only taken the oath of allegiance, taken up the cross, but it is still Paganism, it outnumbers real people by millions, it loads the purse, spends the treasury, writes tracts, elects the priest, and persecutes the true believer.
There is a certain secular progress of thought, which in civilized countries affects everyone. A service rendered by this age is to make the lives and wisdom of all men of the past accessible and available to all. Socrates and Marcus Aurelius were allowed to be saints; Muhammad is no longer cursed; Voltaire was no longer a scarecrow; Spinoza became respected. "The time will come", says Varnhagen von Ense, "when we will treat jokes and pranks against the myths and ecclesiastical rituals of Christianity - for example, the sarcasms of Voltaire, Frederick the Great and D'Alembert - with good nature. offence. : as, deep down, these people honestly think, their polemic arises from a religious aspiration, and what Christ thought and wanted was essentially more with them than with their adversaries, who only carry and misrepresentpendencyChrist. ... Voltaire was an apostle of Christian ideas; only the names were hostile to him, and he didn't know otherwise. He was like the husbandman's son in the Gospel, who said No and went away; the other said yes and it was not. These men preached the true God, — The One whom men serve justly and honestly; but they called themselves atheists."
When the highest concepts, teachings of religion are imported, the nation does not culminate, has no genius, but is servile. Real people love their national language. A complete nation will not matter its religion. Duty grows everywhere, like children, like grass; and we don't need to go to Europe or Asia to learn it. I'm not sure the English religion isn't listed. Even the Jeremy Taylors, the Fullers, the George Herberts, the sodden ones, all of them, in church traditions, use only their beautiful imaginations to embellish their memory. The soil is Judah, not England. So it is with the acrid Calvinism of Scotland and America. But this citation distances and disables them: for with each repeater something of the creative power is lost, as we feel when we go back to each original moralist. Pythagoras, Socrates, the Stoics, Hindus, Behmen, George Fox, — these speak originally; and how many sentences and books we owe to unknown authors - to writers who have not taken the care to write names, dates, titles, cities or postmarks on these miniatures!
We, for our part, want the power to govern a massive state. America's constitution and laws must be written on ethical principles, so that all the power of the spirit world can be employed to maintain the loyalty of the citizens and repel every enemy like a force of nature. The laws of ancient empires were based on religious beliefs. Now that their religions have grown, empires lack strength. Romanism in Europe does not represent the true opinion of enlightened people. The Lutheran Church in Germany does not represent the views of universities. In England, gentlemen, magazines, and now, finally, clergy and bishops, have fallen away from the Church of England. And in America, where there are no legal ties to churches, laxity seems dangerous.
Our religion has reached Unitarianism. But all forms disappear. The temple walls are worn and thin and, in the end, just a coat of whitewash, because the mind of our culture has already left our liturgies behind. “Each age,” says Varnhagen, “has another sieve for religious tradition, and it will be sifted again. Something is constantly lost by this treatment, which posterity cannot make up for."
But it is a great truth that nature, both moral and material, is always the same as itself. Ideas always generate enthusiasm. Faith, legend, forms of worship, quickly perish. Morality is an incorruptible essence, very careless in its wealth of any master or witness of the past, regardless of their lives and wealth. He doesn't ask if you are right or wrong in your anecdotes about them; but overall, it's how you position yourself before your judgment.
The lines of religious sects are very variable; its unstable platforms; the whole science of theology is very uncertain and rests largely on opinions about who might be the leading physician in Oxford or Edinburgh, Princeton or Cambridge, today. Nobody can say what religious revolutions await us in the coming years; and education in theological faculties can falter and vary. But the science of ethics has no mutations; and whoever feels any love or ability for ethical studies, may safely put all his strength and ingenuity to work in that mine. The pulpit may shake, but this platform does not. All the victories of religion belong to the moral sense. Some poor soul saw how the Law penetrated such obstacles and surrendered to humility and joy. What is gained by saying that it is justification by faith?
The Church, in her fervor for loved ones, clings to miracles in the vulgar sense, which even has an immoral tendency, as seen in Greek, Indian, and Catholic legends, which are used to denigrate all crime. The soul, imbued with the bliss that pours into it from all sides, does not seek insertions, nor new laws, - the old ones are enough for it, - it finds in every road of work the paths to heaven, and raises the highest lot. humble. . Men will learn to unconditionally restore the emphasis on pure morals, always the same, not subject to doubtful interpretations, without selling pardons, without killing heretics, without slaves, without deprivation of women's rights, without the stigma of race; to make morality an absolute test and thus discover and expel false religions. There is no vice that has not hidden behind them. Just yesterday our American churches, so long silent about slavery and notoriously hostile to abolitionists, lined up for emancipation.
I am far from accepting the opinion that the revelations of moral feeling are insufficient, as if it represented the rule itself, and not the spirit by which the rule is moved. For in that I include, of course, the story of Jesus, as well as that of every divine soul who, in any place or at any time, has given mankind a great lesson; and I find in eminent experiences at all times an essential agreement. Feeling itself teaches the unity of the source and renounces all superiority except the deepest truth. Jesus has enormous rights to the gratitude of humanity and knew how to preserve the integrity of his brother's soul and himself; but, with his disciples, admiration for him eludes respect for the human soul, and they hinder us by the limitations of person and text. Every one of their exaggerations represents a violation of the rights of the soul, and inclines the virile reader to lay aside the New Testament, to accept the heathen philosophers. It is not that the Upanishads or Antoninus' maxims are better, but that they do not encroach on his freedom; for they are mere propositions, while the other adds an inadmissible assertion of positive authority, -- of an external command, where there can be no command. This is the secret of the pernicious result that the Church, in every period of intellectual expansion, fails to attract to her clergy those who belong best to her, the greatest and freest minds, and that in her most liberal forms, when such minds enter it. , are received coldly and displaced. That charm of pagan moralists, hints, charm of poetry, mere truth, (easily separated from its historical accidents which no one wants to impose on us), the New Testament loses by its connection with the church. Mankind cannot long suffer this loss, and the task of this age is to place all these writings on an eternal basis of equal origin in the instincts of the human mind. It is certain that every inspired craftsman will instantly gain by breaking away from the idolatry of all ages.
To their great credit, the simple and free minds of our clergy did not resist the voice of Nature and the advanced perceptions of the mind; and every church is divided into a liberal, expectant class, on the one hand, and a reluctant, conservative class, on the other. As it is here, some priests, with a more theological mindset, keep the tradition, but carry it discreetly. Generally speaking, they never impose themselves. If a priest traveled to France, England, Italy, he could leave them locked in the same cupboard with his "occasional sermons" at home, and if he didn't come back, he would never think to send for them. Orthodox clergymen cling a little closer to theirs, because Calvinism has a more persistent vitality; but that too is doomed and will only die last; for Calvinism hastens to be Unitarianism, just as Unitarianism hastens to be pure theism.
But the inspirations never wane. In the worst of times men of organic virtue are born, - men and women of native and indifferent chastity in high and low conditions. There will always be a class of imaginative youth whom poetry, the love of beauty, will lead to the worship of moral sentiment, and they will give it new historical forms and songs. Religion is as indisputable as the use of lamps, wells, or chimneys. We must have days, temples and teachers. Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to reflection and worship. It demands the noblest solitude and the noblest company, all the means and aids of spiritual refreshment. People can come together to encourage one another to live virtuous lives. Confucius said: "If I hear about the right way in the morning and die at night, I can be happy."
The churches are already indicating the new spirit by adding to their many years of teaching service, charitable activities, - such as setting up hospitals, broken schools, employment offices for the poor, establishing asylums for the sick, tutors for the needy and orphans. The power that once inspired the Crusades, or the colonization of New England, or the modern revivals, flies to the aid of the deaf, the dumb, and the blind, in the education of the sailor and the wandering boy, in the reformation of the convict and the harlot - as the war created the Hilton Head and Charleston missions, the health commission, nurses and teachers in Washington.
In the current trend of our society, in the new importance of the individual, when thrones are overthrown and presidents and governors are forced to remember at every moment their constituents; when counties and cities resist centralization and individual voters stick to their party, society is threatened by real granulation, both religious and political. How many people are there in Boston? A couple hundred thousand. So many sects. Of course, every poor soul loses all its old remnants; no bishop observes him, no confessor informs him that he neglected the confessional, no teacher warns him of faults, no cigarette, no penance, no chastisement, no scolding. Is this not wrong? isn't that dangerous? 'T is not wrong, but the law of growth. It is not dangerous, just as a mother does not remove her hands from a staggering baby when he first walks on the nursery floor: the child is afraid and cries, but succeeds, immediately tries again and never wants to be helped again. . more. And this little soul has to learn to walk alone. At first he is alone, homeless; but this rude deprivation of all support forces him in, and he is found unharmed; he comes face to face with the glorious Presence, reads the original of the Ten Commandments, the original of the Gospels and the Epistles; no, his narrow chapel extends to the sky blue cathedral where he
"Look and behold every blessed deity,
Where he lies before the thundering throne."
For nations or for individuals, the advance of thought is not a loss of moral restraint, but simply a shift from coarser to finer control. No harm can come of reform which deeper thought will not correct. If there is any tendency in national expansion to mold character, religion will not lose out. There is a fear that pure truth, pure morality, will not make a religion for the feelings. Whenever greatness of character is embodied in a man, admiration, love, and insatiable curiosity can be trusted to follow in his footsteps. Character is the habit of acting from a constant view of the truth. It carries superiority over all the misfortunes of life. It forces a right attitude towards all other people, — it tames itself with strangers and enemies. "But I, father," says the sage Prahlada in the Vishnu Purana, "know neither friend nor foe, for I see Kesava in all beings as in my own soul." It gives a lasting vision. He sees that a man's friends and his enemies are of his own house, of his own person. What good would it do me if I could destroy my enemies? Tomorrow there will be many more. What I hate and fear is really inside me, and no knife is long enough to pierce its heart. Confucius said to Ke Kang one day, “Sir, while you continue your rule, why would you use killing? Let your expressed desires be for what is good, and people will be good. The grass must bend when the wind blows over it. Ke Kang, alarmed by the number of thieves in the state, asked Confucius how to get rid of them. Confucius said: "If you, sir, were not greedy, although you should reward them for it, they would not steal."
His methods are subtle, he works without means. He harbors no animosity toward anyone, knowing, along with Prahlada, that "the suppression of evil feeling is in itself a reward." The more reason, the less power. In a sensible family, no one ever hears the words "must" and "must not"; no one commands and no one listens, but everyone conspires and cooperates happily. Take the roofs off hundreds of happy houses and you see that order without rulers and the like in all intelligent and moral societies. The commandment is exceptional, and marks some break in the connection of reason; as the current goes around the world without spark or sound, until there is a break in the wire or the stream of water. Swedenborg said that, "in the spirit world, when someone wants to rule over or look down on others, he is driven out." Goethe, speaking of the characters in "Wilhelm Meister", maintained his belief that "pure beauty and right goodwill are the highest masculine prerogatives, before which all energetic heroism, with its splendor and glory, must recoil". In perfect harmony with this, Henry James asserts that "Giving the female element of life its hard-won but eternal supremacy over the male has been the secret inspiration of all past history."
There is no end to sufficiency of character. It can wait; it can do without what is called success; it cannot fail. For a man of good principles, existence is a victory. It guards against flaws in your core design, making every inch of the journey enjoyable. For him there is no trifle, no ambiguity: he feels the immensity of the chain, whose last link he holds in his hand and is guided by it. Having nothing, this spirit has everything. He asks, along with Marcus Aurelius: "What does it matter who does good?" It increases humility - with each self-abasement a person rises higher on the scale of being. He does not set conditions for earthly happiness - he does not, in his absolute confidence, ask for even the guarantee of the continuation of life.
EDUCATION.
With the secret key he marches faster
From strength to strength, and night brings day,
While classes or tribes are too weak to dominate
Current living conditions are improving.
It seems that the new level of brain power is cheap at any price. The use of the world is for man to learn its laws. And the human race wisely expressed its feeling for this, calling it wealth, i.e. - man is the goal. Language is always wise.
So I praise New England because it is the country in the world where education is most freely given. We have already, by founding the colonies, (as far as I know, for the first time in the world) taken an initial step which, because of its importance, might have met with resistance as the most radical of all revolutions, thus deciding from the outset the fate of this country--that, namely, that the poor man, whom the law does not permit to carry an ear of corn, or shoes to his frozen feet when he is starving, may put his hand in his pocket. rich, and say: You will educate me, not as you want, but as I want: not only in the elements, but, subsequently, in languages, sciences, useful and elegant arts. The child will be taken over by the State and taught, at public expense, the rudiments of knowledge and, finally, the more mature results of art and science.
Humanly speaking, school, college, society make a difference between people. All the fables of Aladdin or the invisible Gyges or the talisman that opens the palaces of kings or the enchanted halls under the earth or in the sea, are but inventions that point to the one miracle of intellectual growth. When a stupid man becomes an inspired man, when one and the same man passes from mindlessness to the state of awareness, he leaves the noise of trifles, the stupor of the senses, to enter the quasi-consciousness of higher thought - upwards and down down around all boundaries disappear. No horizon closes. He sees things in their causes, all facts in their connection.
One of the problems of history is the beginning of civilization. The animals that accompany and serve man do not progress as races. The so-called natives are capable of learning some useful or amusing tricks from man, but they cannot pass this skill on to their own race. Each individual must be taught anew. A trained dog cannot train another dog. Man himself in many races retains the almost untouchable nature of the beast. For a thousand years, the islands and forests of much of the world were filled with savages who had not advanced in art or skill beyond needing to be fed and warmed. Certain peoples with better brains and generally in milder climates have made such progress that they may be compared with them as they are compared with bears and wolves.
Conquering things is the work of man. Of course, until that happens, there is war and offensive things all around you. Your constant tendency, your great danger, is to ignore the fact that the world is only your teacher, and the nature of the sun and moon, plants and animals only a means of stimulating your inner activity. Enamored by their beauty, comforted by their comfort, he pursues them as goals and quickly loses sight of the fact that they have more than no value, that they become harmful when he becomes their slave.
This apparatus of desire and skill, this body of desire, whose organs seek all the elements and all the functions of Nature for their satisfaction, creates a wonderful creature that satisfies them with light, heat, water, wood, bread, wool. The needs imposed by this so irritable and related structure taught man hunting, herding, agriculture, trade, weaving, joining, masonry, geometry, astronomy. Here the world is pierced and threatened by natural laws, fenced and planted with civil and property barriers that impose new restrictions on the young inhabitants. And he must enter this magic circle of relationships and know health and illness, the fear of harm, the desire for external good, the charm of wealth, the charm of power. The family is a school of power. There, inside the door, discover the tragicomedy of human life. Here is an honest thing, a wonderful composition to which they revolve day and night. In this routine are the sacred relationships, the passions that bind and tear. Here is poverty and all the wisdom your hated needs can teach, here toil, here the passions burn, here secrets of character are told, watchmen of the man, watchmen of the woman, fees that, like angels of justice, pay every debt: the usual opium, which everyone drinks and many go crazy. Here there is economy, joy, hospitality, solemnity, sincerity, calamity, death, and hope.
All have confidence in power - every man, every boy under jurisdiction, whether of a cow or a potato road, or a fleet of ships, or the laws of a state. And what activity the will to power inspires! What torments does he endure! How it sharpens perception and stores facts in memory. Therefore, a person can spend many years of his life in trade. It is a constant learning about the laws of matter and mind. Not a dollar of property can be created without direct communication with nature and, of course, a certain acquisition of knowledge and practical power. It is a constant competition with the active faculties of men, a study of the question of one course of action and another, an accumulation of power, and if the higher faculties of the individual are from time to time stimulated, he will gain wisdom. and virtue of his work.
Just as every wind draws music from the Aeolian harp, so every object in nature draws music from its mind. Isn't it true that every landscape I look at, every friend I meet, every act I do, every pain I suffer leaves me a different being from the one in which they found me? That poverty, love, authority, anger, illness, sadness, success actively affect our being and reveal the hidden abilities of our mind? Whatever private or petty goals are thwarted, that goal is always served. Whatever a man does, or whatever happens to him, opens another chamber in his soul, that is, he has received a new feeling, a new thought, a new organ. Do we not see how wonderfully man is adapted to the world for this purpose?
What draws you to science? Why does he search the midnight sky for a pure spark, a bright spot that wanders from age to age, but why does he thereby gain a magnificent sense of power; learning that in his own constitution he can set in order the splendid labyrinth, and by finding and committing its laws to his mind, he can, as it were, see his simple idea realized up there in vertiginous distances and terrifying periods of duration. If Newton came and was the first of the people to observe that not only do certain bodies fall to the ground with a certain velocity, but that all bodies in the universe, the universe of bodies, always fall with the same velocity; that every atom in nature attracts every other atom - he extends the power of his mind not only to every cubic atom of his home planet, but relates the state of millions of worlds his eyes have never seen. And what charm does each ore, each new plant, each new fact in contact with winds, clouds, ocean currents, secrets of chemical composition and decomposition have for Humboldt? Which, in addition to brooding over similar facts in his mind, showed him that the mind always contains in its transparent chambers the means for classifying the most impermanent phenomena, for stripping them of all haphazard and chaotic aspect and subordinating them to the clear reason of his own, and thus giving man a kind of property - that of the highest property in every district and particle of the globe.
By the constancy of Nature, minds are equally trained and intelligible to each other. In our condition are the roots of language and communication, and we never run out of these instructions.
In a way, the end of life is that man - he must take the universe into himself, or leave nothing without representation from this quarry. There the mountain must migrate to his mind. There he will finally introduce magnificent astronomy, reveal the moon and the planet, the solstice, the period, the comet and the double star, understanding their relation and law. Instead of the shy young man he was, he will be the steadfast Archimedes, Pythagoras, Columbus, Newton, of physics, metaphysics and the ethics of world design.
For, truly, the population of the globe has its origin in the ends which its existence must serve; and so with every part of them. Truth takes on a body in forms that can express it; and so in history an idea always rises, like the moon, and governs the tide that rises simultaneously in all the souls of a generation.
While thus the world exists for the mind; while in this way man is constantly invited into the glittering realms of knowledge and power by representations of the world, which interpret for him the infinity of his own consciousness, - it becomes the service of right education to awaken him to the knowledge of this fact. .
We learn nothing until we learn the symbolic character of life. Day after day drags on, each one full of facts, dull, strange and despised things, which we cannot despise enough - to call difficult, prosaic and deserted. The time we try to kill: the attention that is elegant to divert from the things around us. And soon the awakened intellect finds gold and precious stones in one of these despised facts - then finds that the day of the fact is a rock of diamonds; that the fact is the Epiphany.
We have our theory of life, our religion, our philosophy; and the event of every moment, a shower, the crash of a steamer, the passing of a pretty face, our neighbour's apoplexy, are all tests to test our theory, the approximate result which we call the truth, and discover its defects. If I have renounced the search for truth, if I have entered the harbor of some feigned dogmatism, of some church new or old, of some Schelling or Couzin, I am dead to any use of those new developments that are born of fertile time. in the crowd of lives every hour. I am like a bankrupt who is offered brilliant opportunities in vain. He just took away his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself in and gave the key to someone else to keep.
When I see the door through which God enters the mind; that there is no sluggard or fool, brute or pedantic, whose thoughts do not enter through passages which the individual has never left open, they can look forward to any revolution in character, "I hope," said the great Leibnitz, "that society may be reformed, when I see how much education can be reformed”.
It is sinister, a presumption of crime, that this word education should sound so cold and hopeless. A treatise on education, a convention for education, a lecture, a system, strikes us with a slight paralysis and a certain jaw yawn. He does not encourage us when the law touches him. Education should be as broad as a person. Any elements in it that must be nurtured and displayed. If he's nimble, his tuition should work; if he can divide men with the sharp sword of his thinking, education must dig it up and sharpen it; if he is one of those who will strengthen society by his reconciling affinities, oh! Hurry your action! If he is cheerful, if he is tough, if he is generous, a cunning craftsman, a strong commander, a powerful ally, resourceful, helpful, elegant, witty, a prophet, a prophet, everything this society needs. Imagination must be turned. Why does it always float on the surface and never open the interior of nature, not with science, which is still the surface, but with poetry? Is not Vast an element of the mind? However, which teaching, which book today attracts the Universal?
Our culture has passed into time, — into the senses. It is not worthy of a man. If the vast and the spiritual are left out, the practical and the moral are also left out. It doesn't make us brave or free. "We teach boys to be like us. We don't teach them to strive to be all they can be. We don't teach them as if we believed in their noble nature. We barely educate their bodies. We don't train the eye and the hand. We practice their understanding to understand and compare some facts, to skill in numbers, in words; our goal is to train accountants, lawyers, engineers; but not to train serious and capable people with a big heart. The great objective of education must be compatible with the objective of life. You must be moral; teach self-reliance: inspire a young man to take an interest in himself; touch nature itself with curiosity; acquaint him with the resources of his mind and teach him that therein lies all his strength, and inflame him with reverence for the Great Mind in which he lives. Thus, education would be in conspiracy with Divine Providence. Man is a small thing when he works by and for himself, but when he gives voice to the rules of love and of justice, he is divine, his word is current in all countries; and all men, though his enemies, have become his friends, and obey him as if they were his own.
Asserting that the moral nature of man is the dominant element, and that, therefore, attention must be chiefly given to the organization of the school, I am far from wishing that it should devour all other instincts and abilities in man. It must be enthroned in his mind, but if it monopolizes a man, he is not yet healthy, he does not yet know his wealth. He is in danger of becoming merely pious and wearisome on account of the monotony of his thoughts. It is no less necessary to cultivate and mature intellectual and active abilities. Let us apply to this subject the light of the same torch with which we observe all the phenomena of time; infinity, that is, of every man. Teaches everything.
One fact gives me all the satisfaction, inspires all the confidence in me, and it is that eternal youth, which, as long as there is some good in us, we cannot get rid of. It is very true that the age that is coming and the age that is going are rarely understood. The old man thinks that the young man does not have a clear purpose, because he never managed to get anything understandable and serious out of him. Perhaps the young man thinks that it is not worth explaining himself to such a difficult and incomprehensible confessor. Let him be guided with far-reaching tolerance, and let not the antics of his melancholy or madness be checked by disgust, indignation, or despair.
I call our system the system of despair, and I find all the correction, all the revolution that is necessary and that the best spirits of this age promise, in a word, in Hope. Nature, when she sends a new mind into the world, fills it in advance with desire for what she wants it to know and do. Let us wait to see what this new creation is, what new organ the great Spirit needed when he incarnated this new Will. The new Adam in the garden, he will name all the beasts of the field, all the gods in heaven. A jealous provision seems to have been built into its constitution that you must not assail it and pollute it with the spent weeds of your language and opinion. The charm of life is this variety of genius, these contrasts and flavors with which Heaven has modulated the identity of truth, and there is a constant desire to distort this individuality, to distort its ways of thinking and acting to resemble or reflect its own thinking. and behaving. A parent's low self-esteem wants his child to repeat his character and happiness; an expectation that the child, if justice is done, will nobly disappoint. Working on the theory that this similarity exists, we will do what is within us to defeat its true promise and produce the ordinary and the average. It pains me whenever I see that common view of a parent or elder imposing their opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul for whom they are completely unsuitable. Can't we just let people be who they are and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make this man your second self. One is enough.
Or do we sacrifice the student's genius, the unknown possibilities of his nature, to a pure and certain uniformity, as the Turks dropped the precious mosaics of ancient art that the Greeks left on the walls of their temples. Instead, let's have men whose manhood is just a continuation of their boyhood, still natural characters; such are capable and fertile for heroic action; and not the sad sight we are familiar with, educated eyes on uncultured bodies.
I love the boys, the owners of the playground and the street - the boys, who have the same liberal ticket of admission to all stores, factories, armories, town meetings, clubs, mobs, skeet shooting, as well as flies; quite unsuspecting, they come naturally as caretakers - known for not having money in their pockets and themselves not imagining the value of that poverty; not putting anyone on guard, but seeing the inside of the play - listening to all sides. There are no secrets before them, they know everything that goes on in the firehouse, the advantages of every engine and every man on the brake, how it's done, and they're quick to try every part; likewise the merits of all locomotives on the rails, and will persuade the driver to let them ride with him, and pull the cranks when he goes to the engine-room. They're just there for the fun of it, and not knowing they're in school at a courthouse, or at a cattle show, as much as they are on a ranch and more than they were in arithmetic class an hour ago.
They distinguish truth from counterfeit as quickly as a pharmacist. They detect a weakness in your eyes and demeanor a week before you open your mouth and give you the edge of their opinion as quickly as a wink. They don't make mistakes, they don't have pedantry, but a full experience of conviction. Your choices in baseball or cricket are based on merit and they are correct. Swimmers are of no use until they can swim, nor rowers until they can row: and I want to be saved from your contempt. If I can get along with them, I can get along with their parents.
Everyone likes the energy with which the guys engage and talk to each other; the mixture of amusement and seriousness, of censure and adulation, of love and wrath, with which the game is played; — the good-natured but defiantly independent behavior of the lead boy in the schoolyard. How we later envy the happy youth to whom their boisterous games and rough drills provide a precise element that frames and defines their school and university tasks and teaches, when they least expect it, their use and meaning. In their playfulness and extreme eccentricity, they touched Horace's highest sense. The young giant, brown from his wandering hunt, tells his story well, interspersed with cheerful allusions to Homer, Virgil, college poems, Walter Scott; and Jove and Achilles, the partridge and the trout, the opera and the binomial theorem, Caesar in Gaul, Sherman in Savannah and fainting in Holwortky, dance through the narrative in gleeful confusion, but still the logic is good. If he can turn his books into such a vivid account of his fishing and hunting, it's easy to see how his reading and experience, having more of both, will interpenetrate. And everyone wants that sheer force of action and richness of narrative, animated by so much humor and street rhetoric, to be transferred into a young man's habit, cleansed of its rebelliousness and crudity, but with all its vivacity. Hunting and camping provided him with an indispensable base: I want to add a taste for good company to his impatience with bad ones. That tempestuous genius of his needs a little guidance in games, riddles, companionship verses, songs, and year-to-year correspondence with his best and wisest friends. Friendship is the order of nobility; from their discoveries we become more valuable to nature. Society he must have or he is really poor; he cheerfully enters a school which forbids presumption, affectation, emphasis, and weariness, and demands of all but the flower of his nature and experience; it requires goodwill, beauty, intelligence, and selected information; through practice he teaches the law of conversation, that is, both listening and speaking.
However, if circumstances do not allow high social advantages, loneliness also has its lessons. Obscure youths there learn the practice rather than the literature of their virtues; and, owing to the disturbing effect of passion and common sense, which with a multitude of trifles obstruct the mind's eye from the silent pursuit of that faint line of horizon which truth guards,—the path to knowledge and power has ever been an escape of dealing too much with business and possessions; the way, not through abundance and excess, but through denial and renunciation, to loneliness and scarcity; and the more it is withdrawn, the more real and inevitable richness of being is revealed to us. A lonely person knows the essence of thought, a scholar in society only its beautiful face. There is no lack of examples of great people, of great benefactors, who were monks and hermits by habit. The mind's bias is sometimes overwhelming in this direction. Man is, as it were, born deaf and dumb, and devoted to a cramped and solitary life. Let him learn the art of solitude, surrender to his fate as gracefully as possible. Why can't he take advantage of his downfall and if it's always been established that he and society will be nothing to each other, why should he blush so much and grimace to keep his freshman place in the good world? ? Heaven often protects worthy souls laden with great secrets, great ideas, imprisoning them for a long time with their own thoughts. And the kindest and kindest people must alternate company with solitude and learn hard lessons from it.
Everyone comes to a period of imagination after youth; the power of beauty, the power of books, poetry. Culture makes his books a reality for him, its characters brighter, more effective in his mind than his real companions. Don't hesitate to put novels in the hands of young people as occasional vacations and experiments; but above all good poetry of all kinds, epic, tragedy, lyric. If we can touch the imagination, we serve them, they will never forget. Let him read "Tom Brown in Rugby", read "Tom Brown in Oxford" - better yet, read "The Life of Hodson" - Hodson who captured the King of Delhi. They teach the same truth - trust, against all odds, against all faults, in self worth, not gimmicks, intrigues or patronage.
I believe that our own experience teaches us that the secret of education is to respect students. It's not up to you to choose what he will know, what he will do. It is chosen and predetermined, and he holds only the key to its secret. By his meddling, preventing, and overgoverning, he may be prevented from his end, and kept from it. Respect the child. Wait and see Nature's new product. Nature likes analogies but not repetitions. Respect the child. Don't be too much of a parent. Do not enter his solitude.
But I hear a cry in response to this suggestion: — You are really going to throw away the reins of public and private discipline; would you abandon a little child to the mad career of its own passions and whims, and call this anarchy respect for the child's nature? I answer: — Respect the child, respect him to the end, but also respect yourself. Be a companion of his thoughts, a friend of his friendship, a lover of his virtues, but not a relative of his sin. Let him think you are so true to yourself that you are a relentless hater of his vice and a staunch despiser of his trivia.
Two points in the boy's training are to keep thenaturaland train everything in addition: - keep your ownnatural,but stop your alarm, your arrogance, and your jests; — to preserve its nature and arm it with knowledge in the very direction in which it points. There are two main suits here, Genius and Drill. The first is the inspiration in a well-born and healthy child, a new perception of nature that he has. To some extent he sees in forms or hears in music or understands in mathematics, or believes to be practicable in mechanics or possible in political society, which no one else sees or hears or believes. It is the enduring romance of new life, God's invasion of the old dead world, as he sends into the silent houses a young soul with an unattainable thought, looking for something that is not there but should be: the thought is dark, but it is certain, and he tirelessly seeks means and master to stop it; he makes mad attempts to explain and get the help and consent of the spectators. Confused by the lack of language and methods of conveying their meaning, which is still unclear to him, he realizes that, though not in this house or city, in some other house or city there is a wise master who can bring him into possession of the rules. and instruments for the execution of his will. Fortunately, this child with prejudices, with a thought that dominates him, takes him, sometimes to deserts, sometimes to cities, foolish with an idea. Let him follow you in good and bad report, in good and bad company; he will justify himself; it will finally lead him to the famous society of lovers of truth.
In London, in private company, I knew a gentleman, Sir Charles Fellowes, who, while at Xanthus in the Aegean, saw a Turk pointing with his crook to some carved work in the corner of a stone which was nearly buried in the ground. Fellowes scraped the earth, marveled at the beauty of the sculptural decorations, and, looking around, noticed more of these blocks and fragments. He returned to the site, hired workers and discovered many blocks. He returned to England, bought a Greek grammar and learned the language; he read history and studied ancient art to explain his stones; he interested Gibson, the sculptor; he asked the English government for help; he enlisted the help of Sir Humphry Davy to analyze the pigments; coin experts, scholars and connoisseurs; and finally, on his third visit, he brought back to England such statues and marble reliefs and such careful plans that he was able to reconstruct, in the British Museum, where it now stands, a perfect model of the Ionian trophy monument, fifty years old. older than the Athenian Parthenon, which had been destroyed by earthquakes, then Christian iconoclasts, then wild Turks. But observe that in the task he obtained an excellent education, and associated himself with distinguished scholars whom he was interested in following; in short, he formed a college for himself; the enthusiast found the master, the masters he was looking for. A genius is always looking for a genius, he wants nothing more than to be a student and find someone who can help him improve.
These two elements, enthusiasm and exercise, are also not incompatible. Precision is the key to beauty. The very definition of intellect is Aristotle's: "that by which we know conditions or limits". Give the boy accurate perceptions. Teach him the difference between like and like. Make him call a spade a spade. Sorry, there is no error in it. Then he will give you solid satisfaction as long as you live. It is better to teach a child arithmetic and Latin grammar than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because these demand precision of performance; ensures that the lesson is mastered and that the power of performance is more valuable than knowledge. He can learn anything important to him now that the power of learning is secured: as the mechanics say, once you learn to use a tool, it's easy to make a new trade.
Letter by letter, syllable by syllable, the child learns to read and over time can convey the meaning of Shakespeare to the entire family circle. Many steps, each boy equally short and stammering and vacillating fellow, in the school debate, in the university clubs, in the mock courtroom, finally arrives at the full, sure, triumphant exposition of his thought in the national assembly, with a plenitude of power that makes all forgotten steps.
But this function of opening and nourishing the human mind cannot be performed by any mechanical or military method; no skill less than Nature herself is to be trusted. You must not neglect the form, but you must ensure the essentials. It's interesting how perverse and meddling we are, and how much pain and cost we expose ourselves to if we do bad things. Although we all know from our own experience and apply natural methods in our own work - in education, common sense fails us and we constantly try expensive machines against nature, in patent schools and academies and in large colleges and universities.
The natural method forever refutes our experiments, and we must return to it again. The whole school theory is on the knees of the nurse or the mother. A child is as happy to learn as a mother is to transmit. There is a mutual delight. The joy of our childhood when we hear beautiful stories from some clever aunt who loves to tell them, we must repeat in our youth. The boy wants to learn to skate, ride on the bank, catch a fish in the creek, hit some target with a lump or stone; and a little older boy is just as happy to teach him these sciences. No less wonderful is the mutual satisfaction of teaching and learning secret algebra, or chemistry, or good reading and recitation of poetry or prose, or selected facts of history or biography.
Nature took care of the communication of thought, implanting with it in the receiving mind the fury of transmitting it. It is so in all arts, in all sciences. One is eager to share a new fact, the other is eager to hear it. You see how far a young doctor rides or walks to witness a new surgical operation, I saw a carriage empty all its workers into the street, so that they could examine a new specimen from New York. Thus, in literature, the young man who is fond of poetry, of beautiful images, of noble thoughts, is insatiable for this food, and forgets the whole world for a more learned friend - who finds equal joy in sharing his treasures.
A happy natural faculty that has thus set itself up around every natural teacher; young Athenians around Socrates; Alexandria around Plotinus; Paris around Abelard; The Germany around Fichte, or Niebuhr, or Goethe: in short, the natural domain of every leading mind. But as soon as this is organized, the difficulties begin. College should be the nurse and home of genius; but though every young man is born with a certain determination in his nature and is a potential genius; is to finally be one; it is, in most cases, prevented and postponed, and whatever they may be in the future, their senses are now open before their minds. They are more sensual than intellectual. They have appetite and carelessness, but no enthusiasm. These come in large numbers to the college: some geniuses: and teaching comes to be organized for these many, not for the few. Therefore, it seems that teaching requires qualified teachers, precise and systematic minds, not ardent and inventive masters. Also, young geniuses are eccentric, they won't stick, they are irritable, insecure, explosive, lonely, they are not worldly people, they are not good for everyday life. You must work for large classes rather than individuals; you must lower your flag and hoist your sails to wait for annoying sailors; you grow departmental, routine, military almost with your university discipline and police. But what will such a school do for the formation of a great and heroic character? What lasting hope can it inspire? Which reformer will he nurture? What poet will he bring to sing for the human race? What discoverer of the laws of nature will he inspire to enrich us by discovering in the mind the statute to which all matter must obey? What fiery soul will he send to warm the nation with his mercy? What peaceful mind will be strengthened to walk meekly in private and dark duties, to wait and suffer? It is not obvious that our academic institutions must be broader in scope; that they are not timid and follow the routine of the previous generation, but that wise people who think with their heads and hearts seek the good of humanity and, counting the cost of innovation, dare to awaken the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature must be addressed in the school classroom and children must be treated as well-born candidates for truth and virtue?
Thus, the treatment of a small child, of a young person, undoubtedly requires a rare patience: a patience that nothing but faith in the healing powers of the soul can provide. You see his sensuality; you see his lack of those tastes and perceptions which constitute the strength and certainty of his character. Very possible. But he has something else. If it has its vice, it also has its corresponding virtue. Each mind must be allowed to make its own statement in action, and your balance will emerge. In these judgments is called for that foresight which has been attributed to an eminent reformer, of whom it has been said that "his patience could see in the aloe bud a flower after a hundred years." Woe to crippled practice when it tries to come to terms with the theory of the bird, which flies before it. Test your design at the best school. Scholars are of all ages, temperaments, and abilities. It's hard to categorize them, some are too young, some are slow, some are perverted. Each requires so much consideration, that the teacher's morning hope, a day of love and progress, often closes at night with despair. Each individual case, the more it is considered, shows more what needs to be done; and the strict conditions of hourly rate on the one hand and number of tasks on the other. Whatever happens to our method, the conditions are fast - six hours and thirty, fifty or one hundred and fifty students. Something must be done, and quickly, and in this matter the wisest are tempted to adopt violent means, to declare martial law, corporal punishment, mechanical arrangement, bribery, espionage, wrath, main force and ignorance, instead of that wise genius they expected. . providential influence, and yet they hope to adopt it at some future day. Of course, dedication to detail is detrimental to the teacher. He cannot satisfy his genius, cannot enjoy personal intercourse with young friends, when his eye is always on the clock and there are twenty lectures to be had before the end of the day. Besides, how can one be content with genius and cultivate modest virtues? A certain share of rascals and fools find their way into every school and demand a cruel share of the time, and the kind teacher, who wished to be a providence for the youth, becomes a martin, sick with doubts; he knows as much vice as a police court judge, and his love of learning is lost in the routine of grammars and element books.
The rule is so easy that it doesn't need a man to apply it; an automaton, a machine, can be made to keep the school that way. It makes working and thinking so easy that in large schools there is always a temptation to omit the endless task of satisfying the desires of each individual mind and run at full speed. But it comes at a terrible price. Our education methods are aimed at speeding up, saving labor; to do for the masses what cannot be done for the masses, which must be done respectfully, one by one: say, it takes the whole world to teach each student. The advantages of this system of imitation and representation are so quick and obvious, so time-saving, so energetic for slow and ill-tempered temperaments, and so easy to apply, that they need no sage or poet, but can be applied by any teacher. or school principal. in the first term, — that it is not strange that this calomel from culture is a popular remedy. On the other hand, total abstinence from this drug and the adoption of simple discipline and obedience to nature simultaneously involve enormous demands on the teacher's time, thoughts and life. It requires time, use, discernment, event, all great lessons, and God's help; and the mere thought of its use implies character and depth; to enter this course of discipline is to be good and great. This is exactly analogous to the difference between the use of corporal punishment and the methods of love. It is so easy to lash out at a bad boy, overpower him, and obtain obedience without a word, that in this world of hurry and distraction, who can wait for reason to return and self-conquest; and in suspense, will it come to that? And yet the familiar observation of universal compensations may suggest a fear that interrupting a bad mood so summarily is more dangerous than its continuation.
The correction of this quack practice is the import of life's wisdom into education. Leave this military rush and embrace the rhythm of nature. Her secret is patience. Do you know how a naturalist learns all the secrets of forests, plants, birds, beasts, reptiles, fish, rivers and seas? When he enters the forest, birds fly before him, but he finds none; when he goes to the bank of the river, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits and sits still; he is a statue; he is a trunk. These creatures are not worth his time, and he should put as low a rate as possible on his. Due to the stubbornness of staying still, reptiles, fish, birds and beasts begin to return, all wanting to return to their homes. He stands still; if they approach, he remains as passive as the rock he sits on. They lose their fear. And they are curious about it. Little by little curiosity overcomes fear, and they come swimming, crawling and flying towards him; and how still he is; they not only go about their rounds and their usual business and manners, show themselves to him in his day's work, but also voluntarily make a certain degree of progress towards comradeship and good understanding with the biped who behaves so civilly and well. . Can't you mistake a child's impatience and passion for his calmness? Should we not wait for him, as Nature and Providence do? Can you not preserve for your mind and manners, for your secret, the same curiosity that you extend to a squirrel, a snake, a rabbit, a beautiful deer, and a deer? He has a secret; wonderful methods in it; he is, - every child, - a new style of man; give him time and opportunities. We're talking about Columbus and Newton! I tell you that the child that has just been born in that hut is the beginning of a revolution as big as theirs. But you must have an eye that believes and prophesies. Have the self-control you want to inspire. Your teaching and discipline must have the reserve and silence of Nature. Teach them to keep their mouths shut by holding their own. Talk a little; do not growl; do not scold yourself; but control the eye. See what they need and get the right thing done.
I confess that I am completely lost in proposing certain reforms in our teaching methods. No amount of discretion that can be given to the school committee, supervisors, or visitors to the academy, the college, can help resolve these difficulties and doubts, but they resolve themselves when we leave institutions and turn to individuals. . The will, the masculine force, organizes, imposes its own thoughts and desires on others, and does it like a military eye that controls boys as it controls men; admirable in its results, a real wealth for those who possess it, and dangerous only when it induces the worker to overestimate and overutilize it, and deprive him of better means. The sympathy, the female power, - which must be used by those who are not the first, - which lacks immediate control and the crushing of resistance, is subtler, more permanent and more creative. I advise teachers to cultivate a mother's mind. I assume you will keep your grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic in order; It's not easy and of course you want it. But smuggle in some contraband of intelligence, imagination, fantasy, thought. If you have a taste that you've repressed because it's not shared by those around you, tell them. Make this law, whatever the school rules are: they must not whisper, much less speak; but if one of the young people says something clever, say hello, let all the children clap their hands. They cannot have books that are not schoolbooks in the room; but if anyone brings Plutarch or Shakespeare or Don Quixote or the Goldsmith or any other good book, and understands what he reads, place him immediately at the head of the class. No one should be disorderly, nor leave his table without permission, but if a boy runs from his bench, or a girl, because the fire has fallen, or to check the mischief that the little bastard is doing at his table to some helpless sufferer, take it away. the senior class medal and immediately give it to a brave savior. If a child happens to show that he knows some fact about astronomy, or plants, or birds, or rocks, or history, that interests him and you, silence all classes and encourage him to tell it for all to hear. . So you made your classroom like the world. Of course, you will insist on modesty towards children and respect for teachers, but if a boy stops you from talking, yells that you are wrong and corrects you, hug him!
Any right mind, any beating heart, so to speak, you are dedicated to educating people. With a simple life, with a boundless soul, you inspire, correct, teach, uplift and beautify everything. By your own action, you teach the observer how to do the doable. According to the depth from which you draw your life, so will be the depth not only of your hard work, but also of your behavior and presence.
The beautiful nature of the world here has mixed its luck with its power. Work straight into absolute duty and you will lend a hand and encourage all the youth of the universe. Agree to be the organ of your highest thought and lo! suddenly you are indebted to all people and you are a source of energy that pulsates with waves of well-being to the borders of society, to the periphery of things.
O SUPERLATIVE.
When wrath and terror changed the royal harbor of Jove
And the rushing thunder failed.
Enchanted by art, by music,
The glass shakes, the wine spills.
[Reprinted of o century of February, 1882.]
The doctrine of temperance is one of many degrees. It is usually taught on a low platform, but it is very necessary, over meat and drink, and its importance cannot be denied or exaggerated. But it is a long way from Maine Law to the heights of absolute self-control that respects the conservatism of all energy in body, mind and soul. I want to point out some of its higher functions as it enters the mind and character.
There is a supreme temperament that has no middle ground, but fluctuates rapidly from the freezing point to the boiling point, and which affects the behavior of those who share it with some desperation. His appearance is a grimace. They go divided, writhing through life - moaning, begging, screaming, cursing. We talked, sometimes, with people whose conversation would lead us to believe that they lived in a museum, where all the objects were monsters and extremes. Your good men are phoenixes; your bandits are like the figs of the prophets. They use superlative grammar: "the most perfect", "the most excellent", "the most terrible". Like the French, they are delighted, they are devastated, whether or not you have a shoelace or a biscuit you want, - not realizing that superlatives are diminutive and weak; that the positive is the nerve of speech, the superlative fat. If the orator loses a tooth, he thinks there has been a general melting and dissolution of things. She challenges his opinion and he yells "Persecution!" and is reckoned with St. Barnabas, who was cut in half.
We especially notice this penchant for extremes in the pleasant excitement of the horror dealer. Is there something so delicious about disaster and pain? Bad news is always exaggerated, and we can provoke Providence to send a fact so tragic that we cannot make it worse in our gossip.
All this comes from poverty. We are unqualified definers. From lack of skill to quality transmission, we hope to replace admiration with quantity. The language must be intended to describe a fact. It is not enough to suggest and expand it. A sharper view would show a straight line. 'It is very tiring, this laborious conversation, these experiences all exquisite, intense and incredible, - 'The best I have ever seen;' "Never in my life!" One wants these conditions publicized and banned. Not every favorite is a cherub, not every cat is a griffin, not every nasty person is a dark and diabolical schemer; neither pain nor suffering nor ecstasy are our daily bread.
Horace Walpole reports that some people, in anticipation of a major earthquake, which occurred in London a century ago, stocked up on dresses for the occasion. But no one would wear shivering tunics or resurrection tunics as a work jacket, nor make a codicil to his will whenever he went out to ride; and the secrets of death, judgment, and eternity are wearisome when they are repeated like rifles in short minutes. Thousands of people live and die without ever, on any occasion, feeling hunger or thirst, anger or fear. In the books, he says, "That made my hair stand on end!" Who in our city life has had such an experience? In fact, I believe that much of the horror rhetoric—"My blood turned to ice," "It made my knees buckle," etc. —was understood by most men only in dreams and nightmares.
Then there is the inverted superlative, or superlative of opposites, which shivers, like Demophon, in the sun: he wants a fan and a parasol on a cold Friday; he is tired of sleeping; he feeds on drugs and poisons; he finds a long discoloration; he hates birds and flowers.
The exaggeration I complain about makes the simple fact all the more welcome and refreshing. It is interesting that a face magnified in a concave mirror loses its expression. All this exaggeration is unnecessary. A small fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams, and I can spare myself the exaggerations that appear on my canvases to cover up my ignorance. Among these glorifiers, the coldest lover of names, dates and measurements cannot regret his criticism and the coldness of his imagination. Imagine how much effort astronomers and opticians put into acquiring an achromatic lens. A revelation in the heavens awaited him; a discovery on the face of the earth no less. Without sympathy I listen to the complaints of the young and ardent that they do not consider life a romantic kingdom, without sorcerers, without giants, without fairies, not even muses. I am very grateful to my eyes and I am pleased that they see the real world, always geometrically complete, without blurs or halos. The more I deal with it, the more it's enough for me.
How we, in these northern latitudes, are impatient with looseness and intemperance in speech! Our measure of success is the individual's restraint and low level of judgment. Dr. Channing's piety and wisdom carried so much weight that in Boston the popular idea of religion was what this eminent god upheld. But I remember that his best friend, a reticent-lipped man, speaking of him in the circle of his admirers, said: "I have known him a long time, I have studied his character and I believe he is capable of virtues." paid the Duke of Wellington high praise when his articles were published: "Here are twelve volumes of military dispatches and a wordgloryit's not in them."
The English mind is arithmetic, appreciates precision, loves literal statements; it stigmatizes any warmth or hyperbole as Irish, French, Italian, and suggests weakness and inconsistency of character in the speakers who use it. He does not like the superlative, but the positive degree. Our ordinary and mechanical existence does not favor flights; the long nights and frost keep us grounded quickly. The people of English origin, in all countries, are solid people, wear good hats and shoes, and have lands with duly registered titles. Their houses are of wood, brick, and stone, not designed to capsize in earthquakes, nor to blow too much in the air in hurricanes, nor to be lost under drifts of sand, nor to be set ablaze by capricious viziers; but to remain spacious tenements for a century or two. Our entire way of life follows a safe and moderate pattern, while it lasts. Violence and extravagance are, once and for all, unpleasant; competence, silence, comfort, are the agreed benefits.
Low style is best. "I judge by the truth of every man his degree of understanding," said Chesterfield. And I know of no more remarkable advantage which a man owes to his experience in markets and stock exchanges, or politics, than the caution and accuracy which he acquires in his reporting of facts. "Uncledo Joelthe news is always true, someone told me with obvious satisfaction, and rightly so; to an old head, after he cheated and was cheateda lot of fora, he thinks,"What is the use of not saying today what I said yesterday? I will not be responsible; I will not add an epithet. I will be moderate indeed, and will use the same expression, without color, that I received; and I prefer to repeat it several times, word for word , than to change it so little.
The first valuable power in the rational mind, it may be said, was the power of clear statement, or the power of taking things as they happen, and of transmitting the image of them unchanged to another mind. 'T is a good rule of rhetoric given by Schlegel, -- "In good prose every word is underlined;" what i think it means, never write in italics.
Spartans, Stoics, Heroes, Saints, and Gods use short, positive speech. They are never off center. As soon as they swell and take pictures and the truth is not enough for them, the softening of the brain has already begun. It seems that inflation is a disease caused by the excessive use of words, and the cure is in resorting to things. I am more and more surprised by the violent underestimation of people who do not have literary habits. The base expression is strong and pleasant. The citizen lives in illusions. Her dress and curtains, her house and stables, occupy her. A poor peasant, who cannot be confused by carpets, carriages, dinners, wines and dancing in his head, can look straight at you, without refraction or prismatic glare, and see whether you see straight or whether your head is held up by this wine mix.
The common people downplay: "a cold"; "it rains easily;" "good time to cut." When a farmer wants to tell you that he's doing well on the farm, he's saying, "I'm not working as much as I used to, and I don't intend to work." When he wants to condemn any treatment of the soil or the cattle, he says, "It won't work." Under the Catskill Mountains, the steamboat boy said, “Come here, Tony; it looks beautiful out there. Farmers in the region do not call certain peaks, such as Killington, Camel's Hump, Saddle-back, etc., mountains, but only "those before they go up", and reserve the word mountain for the range.
I was once at a dinner given to a high official of the state by officials, persons of law, state, and commerce. The guest was a great man in his country and a distinguished diplomat there. His health was intoxicated by some acknowledgment of his distinguished services to both countries, and nine cold applauses followed. There was a perverse superlative. Then the great officer spoke and beat his chest, and declared that he should remember this honor until the last moment of his existence. The officials answered him again. Too bad, I thought, they should lie about their acute sensitivity to the cold nine o'clock and the usual supper cheer. The people of the world value the truth in proportion to their abilities; not because of its holiness, but because of its convenience. These people, especially diplomats, are expected to have the intelligence and ingenuity to avoid lying if they have to adhere to form. Now, I was present, a little while ago, in the country, at a dinner at a cattle fair, which followed an agricultural lecture by a farmer: the conversation, to tell the truth, was bad; and one of our country dads made this toast at dinner: "Orator of the day: his subject deserves every farmer's attention." The caution of the toast honored our village father. I wish great lords and diplomats had as much respect for the truth.
But while everything points to simplicity and moderation of action; quite frankly, in a positive way, we want to say that "the right to be great does not mean starting without a great argument". Whenever real objects of action appear, they must be seriously sought after. Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the transition from the human to the divine.
A superlative is as good as a positive if it's alive. If a person loves conditionally, he also loves unconditionally. We don't want to err on the other side, be purists or withhold humor devices or humorous jokes. It is very different, this feeble and dull lie, From the stimulus to fancy given by the amorous babbler who would not be carried away, - like the brave captain who complained to his masters that he had pumped the Atlantic Ocean thrice through his ship in passing. , and it was not common to hit seals and porpoises in the warehouse. Or what was similarly asserted of the late Lord Jeffrey, in the Scotch pub,—a careful auditor who on one occasion declared, after a three-hour discussion, that he had spoken the whole English language three times in his address.
The objection to immoderate speech is its lying. All men love a stunning suit. An astronomer shows you the Orion Nebula in his telescope, so you can see what is considered the most distant Earth in visible nature. At the Bank of England, they place a piece of paper worth a million pounds sterling in the hands of visitors to touch. Our journey is something of a quest for superlatives or pinnacles of art, let alone true marvels of power in human form. Newton's arithmetic, Magliabecchi's or Mirandola's memory, Julius Caesar's versatility, Bonaparte's concentration, Shakespeare's inspiration will certainly arouse interest and admiration in all human societies.
A superlative is an overstatement. We are a chatty, demonstrative sort of creature and cannot live without a lot of ventilation for all our reasonableness and foolishness. And adequate expression is so rare that mankind has a superstitious value for it, and the whole human race seems to agree in valuing a man just in proportion to his power of expression; and to the most distinguished man that ever lived, namely Shakespeare, they assigned the highest place.
The expressors are the gods of the world, but the people whom these expressers worship are solid, balanced, and discreet citizens who form a restrained guardian, the core meaning of the world. For the luminous object is dissipated by its brightness - it is luminous because it burns: and if the powers are laid aside for display, there is less and less left for use and creation. Talent sucks the essence out of a person. Superlatives must be bought for many positives. Rose gardens must be stripped to make a few drops of otto. And those ecstasies of fire and ice, which really purge conversation of pedantry and make speech salty and caustic, would cost me the days of prosperity which are now so cheap and so valuable to me. I don't like deep papers. I'm a coward at gambling. I'll enjoy the ordinary sun for a while longer.
Children and reckless people love excessive events and activities; happy to run into a burning house, into a fight, to shoot; we like to talk about marriage, bankruptcy, debt, crime. A wise man avoids all these things. I knew a serious man who, when asked to go to a church where the priest had just been ordained, said "he liked it very much, but he'll leave when the interesting Sundays are over."
Ultimately, it all rests on the simplicity of nature, or being real. Nothing is usually less crowded. We love clothes, ornaments, achievements, talents, but we distrust health, health, pure innocence. However, nature measures her greatness by what is left, what is left when she has given up all superfluous things and accessories.
Nor in nature itself is there any breath, any ostentation, any tension or shock, but solid common sense through all its elephants and lions, through all its ducks and geese; the right relationship between your means and your performance.Always sam similarYou won't catch it in any anomalies, or displaying any monsters. In all the years I spent in the city and in the forest, I never saw a winged dragon, a flying man or a talking fish, but always the strictest observance of the rules and the absence of all surprises. No; nature does not encourage looseness, does not forgive mistakes; freezes at exactly 32°, boils at exactly 212°; it crystallizes in water at an invariable angle, in diamond in one, in granite in one; and if you leave out even the smallest condition, the experiment will fail. Your communication follows the evangelical rule, yes or no. He never rants, never gets into arguments. Plant a beech pole and it sprouts, or it doesn't. Sow the grain and it does not sprout: put lime in the earth and try again, and this time she says yes. A restrained but absolute answer to all questions. There is a similar stance in your dealings with us. Nature is always serious — she doesn't play games with us. Where we started in madness, we are quickly led to common conduct. Life could not go on except by faithfulness and good earnestness; and she actually brings the most insensible trifle to a definite purpose. Confident men, with a simple and brilliant character, are also characterized by the absence of pretensions and underestimation. Ancient and modern sages of clearer vision are common people, who clung to the poverty of nature.
The firmest and noblest ground on which men can live is the truth; real with real; a land where nothing is assumed, but where they say and think and do what they have to do, because that's how they are, and not otherwise.
But while the foundation of character must be simplicity, the expression of character, we must remember, is largely a matter of climate. In temperate climates, speech is moderate, in hot climates, fervent. While in Western nations the superlative in conversation is wearisome and weak, and the main character flaw, nature likes to show us that in the East it is lively, relevant, pleasant, poetic. While compelling us to adhere to the sharp limits of form as a condition of our strength, it creates in the East an uncontrollable desire to escape limitation into the vast and boundless; use the freedom of imagination that plays with all works of nature, big or small, the galaxy or the specks of dust, as toys and words of the mind; it inculcates the principle of bliss which is found in the flight of all organization and all personality, and makes an institution of ecstasy.
Religion and poetry are the whole civilization of the Arabs. "The ground of Paradise," said Muhammad, "is spacious and the plants in it are hallelujah." Religion and poetry: religion teaches an inexorable destiny; distinguishes but two days in the history of each man, the day of his destiny and the day of judgment. Religion meets asceticism and destiny. The costumes, the objects in which wealth is displayed, are at the same extremes. Thus the diamond and the pearl, which are only incidental and secondary in their use and value to us, are peculiar to the Oriental world. The diver dives into the beggar and comes up with the price of the kingdom in his hand. A bag of tinsel, a jewel, a balsam, a single horse, make possessions in countries where precarious institutions make everyone yearn for hidden and fungible possessions. I must also say that the Orientals excel in precious arts, in the cutting of precious stones, in the processing of gold, in weaving precious things of silk and wool on hand looms, in spices, in dyes and medicines, in henna, otto and camphor. , and in the training of slaves, elephants and camels - things that are poetry and the superlative of commerce.
On the other hand - and this is a good illustration of the difference in genius - European nations, and generally all nations in proportion to their civilization, understand the production of iron. One of the meters to which all civility has risen is the art of making iron. Universally, the better the gold, the worse the man. The political economist challenges himself to show us any country with gold mines through which good roads lead: or a coast where pearls are found where good schools are created. European civility, or in a positive degree, was established by coal-mines, ventilation, irrigation, and every skill - in the possession of cheap and pure water, iron, the cultivation of bread, and the manufacture of coarse and domestic products. cloths. Our modern improvements have been the invention of friction matches; India rubber shoes; known two parallel iron bars; then Watt's inner tube and Stephenson's engine tubes for building locomotives.
Meanwhile, Nature, who loves crossings and mixtures, makes these two tendencies necessary to each other, and is pleased to strengthen each peculiarity by giving it to the other. Northern genius is especially invigorated and stimulated by the breadth and opulence of Eastern images and modes of thought, which prevent the pedantry of our inventions and the excess of detail. There is no writing that has more electrical power to untie and animate the lazy intellect than the daring oriental muse.
But if we return to the question of final supremacy, it is very clear that there can be no doubt that the star of empire is rolling towards the west: that the hot sons of the south-east have bent their necks under the yoke of the cold. temperament and accurate understanding of the Northwest races.
O SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHIC.
These rules are written in the human heart
By Him who made the day;
space columns
No tighter than them.
you must not try
Plant your withered pedantry
On the shoulders of heaven
[Reprinted of o Norte americano analysis, of It could, 1878.]
Ever since Oersted's discovery that galvanism, electricity, and magnetism are but forms of one and the same force, and that they can be converted into each other, we have constantly suggested to ourselves a larger generalization: that each of the great divisions of nature —chemistry, vegetation, animal life—display the same laws in the background; that the intellectual and moral world are analogous to the material world. There is a kind of latent omniscience not only in every man, but in every particle. That convertibility which we so much admire in the structures of plants and animals, by which repairs and hidden uses are subordinated to the other, when one part is damaged or deficient; this self-help and self-creation proceeds from the same original power which operates at a distance in the meanest and greatest structures by the same design - it works in the lobster or the mite, for the wise man would be confined in that wretched form. 'T is the effort of God, the Supreme Intellect, at the ultimate limit of his universe.
As this unity exists in the organization of insect, beast, and bird, still ascending to man, and from the lowest type of man to the highest ever attained, so it is no less declared in the spirit or intelligence of the animal. In the Age of Ignorance it was common to boast of human superiority by underestimating the instincts of other animals; but a better discernment reveals that the difference is getting smaller. Experience shows that the bird and the dog think like a hunter, that all animals show in their modest gait the same sense as the man who is their enemy or friend; and, though in a lesser degree, yet not diminished, as is often the case, by aberration and madness. St. Pierre says of animals that the moral sense seems to have determined their physical organization.
I see how the unity of thought and morality extends throughout animated Nature; there is no difference in quality, just more and less. An animal that is completely enclosed in the wild has no worries. Yielding to it, as it must, it grows and reaches its highest point. The poor brute, in the hole of the tree, yielding to Nature, passes impeccably through its lower part, and is finally rewarded, sheds its dirty bark, opens up into a beautiful form with rainbow wings, and is part of the summer day. The Greeks called her Psyche, an obvious symbol of the soul. Man in Nature is concerned to maintain, feed, warm, and multiply his body, and as long as he knows no more, we excuse him; but soon a mystical change takes place, a new perception opens up, and he becomes a citizen of the world of souls: he feels what is called duty; he knows he owes greater loyalty to act and live as a good member of this universe. Insofar as he has this meaning, he is human, he rises to universal life. A high intellect is absolutely one with a moral nature. A thought is embedded in a feeling, and the attempt to separate that thought and beautify it is like a display of cut flowers. Morale is a measure of health, and in the Genie's voice I always hear a moral tone, even when he renounces it in words; — health, melody, and a wider horizon belong to the moral sensibility. The more refined the sense of justice, the better the poet. The believer says to the skeptic:
"An avenue was shaded by your eyes
Through which I wandered to eternal truth."
Humility is the way. Truth be told, we exaggerate when we present these two elements as disjointed; every man shares both; but the truth is that people are generally characterized by a distinct predominance of one element or another.
In youth and old age we are moralists, and in mature life the moral element constantly grows in the consideration of all rational men.
'T is a sort of proverbial eulogy of a scholar (at least attributed to many) that Anthony Wood relates about Nathaniel Carpenter, an Oxford scholar. "He regretted," he said, "that he had earlier wooed a damsel rather than a mistress" (referring to philosophy and mathematics to the point of neglecting divinity). That, in the language of our time, would be ethics.
And when I say that the world consists of moral forces, they are not separate. All forces are found in Nature united with what they set in motion: heat does not separate, light does not collect separately, nor electricity, nor gravity, but they are always combined. And so moral powers; they thirst for action, and the more you accumulate, the more they mold and form.
It is in the stomach of plants that development begins and ends in the circles of the universe. It is a long scale from the gorilla to the gentleman - from the gorilla to Plato, Newton, Shakespeare - to the sanctity of religion, the perfection of legislation, the heights of science, art and poetry. The starts are slow and weak, but it's always a fast pace. The geological world is marked by the increasing maturity of the layers from the bottom up, as they become the home of more organized plants and animals. The civil history of men may be traced by successive improvements, as indicated in the higher moral generalizations; —virtue, which means physical courage, then chastity and moderation, then justice and love; — agreements of kings with peoples for certain rights for certain classes, then rights for the masses, — the day finally arrived when, as historians rightly say, the nerves of the world were electrified by the proclamation that all men are born free and equals .
Each truth leads to another. The bud rips off the old leaf, and every truth brings what will replace it. In court, the judge sits on the culprit, but in the court of life, at the same time, the judge also stands as the culprit before the real court. Every judge is guilty, every law is an abuse. Montaigne kills fanatics like a cow kills worms; but there is a superior muse who sits where she dare not fly, with an eye so keen that she can relate a kingdom where all the wit and erudition of the French is but the cunning of a fox.
It is the same fact which exists as feeling and as will in the mind, which operates in nature as an irresistible law, exerting its influence over nations, intelligent beings, or down into the realms of gross atoms or chemicals. Nature is a sunlit tropical swamp, on the edge of which we hear summer birdsong and see prismatic drops of dew - but its interior is bright, full of hydras and crocodiles. In the Pre-Adamite she cultivated only courage; little by little it reaches the man and adds tenderness, and thus gradually increases virtue.
When we follow from the beginning, this ferocity is useful; this is the only way to satisfy the conditions of the world at that time, and these monsters are scavengers, executioners, diggers, pioneers and fertilizers, they destroy what is more destructive than themselves and make a better life possible. We see Benefit constantly in view from the beginning. Land reclamation is the law. The cruelest enemy is the benefactor in disguise. The wars that make history so dark served truth and virtue. There is always an instinctive sense of right, an obscure idea that moves both sides and that, over long periods of time, is finally justified. Thus, in the depths of the heart, a lofty confidence is cherished that, in spite of appearances, in spite of malignity and the blind selfish interest that lives at the moment, eternal benevolent necessity always puts things right; and though we should fold our hands - which we cannot do, for our duty demands that we be the very hands of that guiding feeling, and we are working in the present moment - the evils we suffer will eventually be over by nature's continued opposition to whatever is harmful.
The excellence of men consists in the integrity with which the lower system is assumed into the higher - a process which requires much time and delicacy, but in which no point of the lower should be left untranslated; so that the war of beasts may be renewed on a finer field, for more excellent victories. The savage war gives way to that of Turenne and Wellington, which has limitations and a code. This war again gives way to a more subtle dispute over property, where victory is wealth and defeat is poverty.
Inevitabilities always undermine any apparent prosperity built on injustice. No matter how fat you seem to be on crime, it can never be good for the bee what is bad for the hive. See how these things look on the history page. Nations come and go, cities rise and fall, every human instinct, good and bad, is at work, - and every desire, appetite and passion, runs into action and is embodied in custom, protected by law. Some of them are useful and universally accepted, they don't get in the way of anyone, they help everyone, and they are respected and immortalized. Others are harmful. Communion of goods is attempted, as when a horde of Tartars or a tribe of Indians roams over a vast area to graze or hunt; but at length it was found that some establishment of property, permitting each, under certain special conditions, to fence and cultivate a piece of land, was best for all.
"For my part," said Napoleon, "it is not the mystery of the Incarnation that I discover in religion, but the mystery of the social order, which connects with heaven the idea of equality that prevents the rich from destroying the poor."
Need I say it was truer then to see Necessity calm, beautiful, impassive, serious, draped in flags of misery, stretching its dark thread across the universe? These threads are nature's destructive elements, its floods, miasms, diseases, poisons; its terrible cold, its hideous reptiles and worse men, cannibals and the depravity of civilization; the secret prisons of tyranny, the slave and his master, the proud man's scorn, the orphan's tears, the vices of men, lust, cruelty, and relentless greed. They form the dark curve of the ages. Mankind sits at the terrible loom and casts the slat and fills it with glad rainbows, until the sable soil flourishes everywhere with the woof of human diligence and wisdom, virtuous examples, symbols of useful and generous arts. , with beauty and pure love, courage and victory of the righteous and wise over malice and injustice.
Nature is not so helpless, but it can finally get away with any crime. An Oriental poet, describing the golden age, said that God had made justice so dear to the heart of nature, that if any injustice lurked anywhere under heaven, the blue firmament would shrink to the skin of a snake and cast it away. convulsions. But the convulsions of nature last for years and centuries, and waiting so long will strain man's faith.
Man always praises or criticizes events, but he does not see that he alone is real, and the world is his mirror and echo. He attributes the impact to luck, which actually hits itself. The student one day discovers that he lives in magic: the house, the jobs, the people, the days, the weather - all that he calls nature, all that he calls institutions, when once his mind is active they are only visions, wonderful allegories, images of the laws of the mind; and through this enchanted gallery he is led by unseen guides to read and learn the laws of Heaven. This discovery can occur early - sometimes in the nursery, for a rare child; later in school, but more often when the mind is more mature; and it never reaches a crowd of people who want mental activity - no more than poetry or art. But it must come; it belongs to the human intellect and is an insight we cannot do without.
The idea of correction exists in the human mind and is found in the balance of nature, in the equalities and periods of our system, in the level of the sea, in the action and reaction of forces. Nothing should exceed or absorb the rest; if it happens, it is a disease and is quickly destroyed. It was an early discovery of the mind - this beneficial rule. Power enters as long as the moral element predominates. The animal's power to eat and be luxurious and to usurp is rudeness and imbecility. The law says: To each one shall be returned what is his. You reap what you plant. Attack, and you'll be smart. Serve, and you will be served. If you love people and serve them, you cannot, by any dissimulation or trickery, avoid the reward. Secret retributions always restore the level, when disturbed, of Divine Justice. It is impossible to tilt the beam. All the tyrants, landlords and monopolists in the world have shrugged their shoulders in vain. It forever sets the heavy equator on its line, and man, thorn, star, and sun must move with it, or be crushed by the shock.
It is a doctrine of unspeakable comfort. Whoever sets foot here immediately leaves the realm of illusions. Others may suffer from the horrible sight of the crimes with which the country is filled and the life of society threatened, but the habit of respecting that great order which surely contains and will govern our little system will banish all fear from the heart. She alone created and distributed all that was created and distributed, and, believing in her power, we ceased to care what she will surely order well. To good men, as we call good men, this doctrine of Trust is an unspoken secret. In using the word, they accepted the notion of a mechanical supervision of human life, whereby a certain wonderful being they call God takes up his affairs where his intelligence leaves them, and somehow weaves and co-ordinates his affairs into everything else. which is beyond. scope of a particular college. They don't see itAbout,eFor,it is there, beside and within; thought of thought; business case; that he was existence, and take him away from them and they would not exist. They do not see that details are sacred to him, as are scope and outline; that these passages from everyday life are his work; that the moment they leave the interference, these details acquire sweetness and grandeur, and become the language of powerful principles.
A man should be a guest in his house and a guest in his thoughts. He's here to speak the truth; but who is he? Truth snatched a piece of the ground and created a man with fire to date. Without the truth, he's a nugget again. Let him find his supremacy in not wanting supremacy; find the richness of love that owns what it adores; the wealth of poverty; the height of baseness, the immensity of today; and, in one fleeting hour, the ages of ages.
The wonderful condition of man! never so happy as when he has lost all private interests and views and exists only in obedience and love to the Author.
The burning soul said: “Let me be a blot on this righteous world, the darkest and loneliest sufferer, on one condition - that I know it is His doing. I will love him, even though he put ice and darkness in all my ways." The emphasis of this blessed doctrine was on humility. The new saint gloried in his weaknesses. Who or what was he? His ascension and recovery were indirect He fell in the second, he climbs in another.
We are failing, and happily so, if the law stands. I hope it is conceivable that a man might cheerfully go to ruin, if he sees that it does not cast a shadow over what he loves and adores. We don't always have to demand a clean shirt and a roastafter daily salaryEven less do we not believe in astronomy and vegetation, because we writhe and roar in our beds with rheumatism. Crippled and disabled, we doubt not that there are deer charging in the woods, and lilies with graceful stems of spring; so neither do we doubt or cease to love the eternal law, of which we are so petty practitioners. Truth becomes unsullied and unscathed after all our renunciations, concealments, and quarrels—never wounded by the betrayal or ruin of its best advocates, be they Luther, William Penn, or St. We respond, when we are told about the bad behavior of Luther or Paul, “Well, what if it is? Who was more grievous than Luther or Paul?" Shall we cling violently to our teachers and historical figures, and think that the foundations are shaken if any error is shown in their record? But how is the truth marred by their falling away from it? law of gravity no harm is caused by all misfortune, though our leg is broken, There is no more law of justice for our deviation from it.
We must know that we are never without a pilot. When we don't know how to govern and we don't dare to raise the sail, we can get lost. Electricity knows the way, although we don't. When the stars and sun come out, when we've talked to sailors who know the coast, we can start to stretch the oar and adjust the sail. The ship of heaven steers itself and does not accept a wooden rudder.
Have you ever said to yourself: 'I renounce any choice, I see that it is not my place to interfere. I see that I was part of the crowd; that I was a miserable person, because I wanted to be my own master, to dress and organize my whole way of life and system of life. I thought I did really well. I see that my neighbors think so. I heard prayers, I even prayed, but I never dreamed until now that this undertaking of general management of my affairs was not commendable. I've never seen him stun me before. I did not discover, until this blessed ray had now passed through my soul, that there was some power in Nature to relieve me of my burden. But now I understand.
What is this intoxicating feeling that connects this speck of dust with all of nature and all of fate, that makes this doll a resident of time, sometimes a mocker, capable of rejecting all external advantages, an equal and master of the elements? I learned that what touches any thread in the vast web of being touches me. I am the representative of the whole; and the good of the whole, or what I call right, makes me invulnerable.
How did this creation come to be so magically woven that nothing can harm me but myself - that an invisible fence surrounds my being, protecting me from all harm I wish to resist? If I stand, creation cannot bend me. But if I am injured, if I commit a crime, lightning flies with the speed of retribution, and every act is not forever but momentarily rewarded according to its quality. Virtue is the adoption of this dictate of the universal mind by the individual will. Character is the habit of this obedience, and religion is the emotion that attends it, the emotion of respect which the presence of the universal mind always awakens in the individual.
We search famous books for our examples of character, just as we send to England the bushes that also grow in our yards and pastures. Life is always rich, and spontaneous graces and forces raise it up in all domestic circles, which are neglected while we read something less excellent in ancient writers. From the desolation and randomness of those I know, I deduce the desolation and randomness of a similar balm, comfort, and immortality in thousands of homes I don't know, all over the world. And I don't see why all the peaks and transcendences of virtue and enthusiasm are not open to these simple, simple yet grandiose instincts. There is enough power in them to move the world; and it is no sterility or defect in ethics, but our neglect of these fine monitors, of these world-embracing sentiments, that makes religion cold and life low.
While the immense energy of a sense of duty and admiration for the supernatural exerts an incomparable influence on the mind, - yet it is often perverted, and the tradition is received with admiration, but without corresponding action on the part of the recipient. There you find so many men in love with the subject! As for everything else, they lose their heads as soon as they talk about religion. The strongest bias in the public mind is that religion is something in and of itself; a department which differs from all other experiences, and which the tests and judgment of men are ready enough to show in other things, does not apply. You can sometimes talk to the most serious and best citizen, and as soon as the subject of religion is raised he is met with childish superstitions. His face looks smitten and his conversation is. When I spoke to a zealous missionary and told him that his faith did not find support in my experience, he replied, "It is not so in your experience, but it is so in the other world." I answer: Another world! there is no other world. God is one and omnipresent; here or nowhere is the whole fact. The only miracle that God does is always in nature, and he gives himself to the mind. When we simply ask, “What is truth in the mind? what exactly is at work?" is the surrender of the private heart to Divine Mind, and all personal preferences and all that requires miracles are unholy.
The word wonder, as it is used, only indicates the ignorance of the devotee, who gazes with astonishment at the water turned into wine, and heedless of the amazing fact of his own personality. Here it is, a solitary thought harmoniously organized in correspondence with the universe of mind and matter. What tale of miracles spanning a thousand years should so captivate your attention? It must be human to appreciate the general agreement, the fellowship of believers, the crowded church; but as feelings refine and grow, they leave heaps. That makes churches of two, churches of one. A fatal disservice is done by this Swedenborg or others who volunteer to think for me. It seems, when the Spirit of God speaks so plainly to every soul, it is impiety to listen to one saint or another. Jesus was better than others, because he didn't want to listen to others and listened at home.
Really interested in your thinking. You have contemplated your existence in this world in silent wonder. You have perceived in the first fact of your conscious life here such an astonishing wonder - a wonder that encompasses the entire universe of wonders to which your intelligent life gives you access - as if it exhausted the wonder and left you with no need to hunt. here or there for any special display. Then comes a man with a text from 1 John verse 7, or a complicated phrase from St. Paul, which he considers the ax to the root of his tree. You can't care about that. You say, “Stop it; my tree is Ygdrasil - the tree of life. He breaks for a moment his peaceful confidence in the Providence of God. Let him know with your assurance that your conviction is clear and sufficient, and that he himself is Paul, and you are here and with your Maker.
We all indulge in superstitions. The house we were born into is not just wood and stone; he is still haunted by his parents and ancestors. The beliefs into which we were initiated in childhood and youth no longer hold their former place in the minds of thoughtful people, but they mean nothing to us and we hate to be treated with contempt. There is so much we don't know that we doubt these proposals.
It is a necessity of the human mind that he who looks at one object should look away from all other objects. He may hurl himself upon some blunt statement of fact, some verbal belief, with such concentration that it hides the universe from him: but the stars coil; the sun warms you. With patience and faithfulness to the truth, he can reach the end, at least contradicting someone who believes in more fairy tales than he does; and, trying to dispel the neighbor's illusions, he opens his own eyes.
In the Christianity of this country there is a great difference of opinion respecting inspiration, prophecy, miracles, the future state of the soul; all kinds of opinions, and a rapid revolution in opinions, in the last half century. It is simply impossible to read the old history of the first century as it was read in the ninth; to do this, you must cancel in your mind the lessons of all the centuries, from the ninth to the nineteenth.
Shall I make the mistake of naming daylight, time and space after John or Joshua, in whose tent I have the opportunity to see daylight, space and time? What anthropomorphists we are because we cannot afford moral differences but must mold them into human form! "Mere morality" means - not putting morality in the personal master. Our religion is geographical, it belongs to our time and place; respects and mythifies a certain time and place and person and persons. So it's flashing. He visits us only on some exceptional and solemn occasion, at a wedding or baptism, at a sickbed, or at a funeral, or perhaps in some sublime national victory or peace. But it is certainly not the religion of a sleeping providence, lurking in trifles, in quiet little voices, in the secrets of the heart and our inmost thoughts, as effectually as in our proclamations and successes.
Far be it from me to underrate men or churches that have strengthened men's hearts and organized their pious impulses or oracles into good institutions. The Roman Church had its saints and inspired the conscience of Europe - St. Augustin, Tom à Kempis and Fenelon; the piety of the Church of England in Cranmer, Herbert, and Taylor; Reformed Church, Scougal; the mystics, Behmen and Swedenborg; Quakers, Fox and James Naylor. I admit that our later generation seems unbalanced, frivolous compared to the religions of the past or the Calvinist era. In the last century there has been serious and commonplace reference to the spirit world, through diaries, letters and conversations - yes, and also in wills and legal instruments, in comparison with which our deliverance seems a little silly and gaudy.
The religion of seventy years ago was an iron belt for the mind, giving it concentration and strength. The rude people respected the determination of their thoughts about the eternal world. Now people fall abroad, - they want polarity, - they suffer in character and intellect. Sleep creeps on the great functions of man. Enthusiasm disappears. Rather, low prudence tries to keep society stable, but its arms are too short, ropes and machines are never a place to live.
Luther would rather cut his hand than write theses against the Pope if he suspected that he was bringing with all his might the pallid denials of Boston Unitarianism. I will not now enter into the metaphysics of that reaction whereby in history the period of belief is followed by the period of criticism, in which intelligence replaces faith in ruling spirits and excessive respect for the forms from which the heart started becomes more evident in minds. less religious. I will not now inquire into the causes of the result, but the fact must be admitted as a fact of frequent occurrence, and never more evident than in our American church. A cold and intellectual race, which analyze the prayers and psalms of their forefathers, has succeeded the earnest and modest church, which delights in rites and ordinances, and the more intellectual ones reject every yoke of authority and custom with unprecedented taciturnity. It is a kind of mark of honesty and sincerity to declare how little you believe, while the mass of the community lazily follows the old ways with childish scruples, and we have precision of faith and good taste of character.
But I hope our lack of faith is only apparent. We shall find that liberty has its own sentinels, and as soon as it escapes permissiveness in the vulgar, it leads all men of good sense to investigate these sentinels. I do not believe that the zenith of this age is truly reached or expressed unless it reaches the heights which religion and philosophy reached in any previous age. If I miss the inspiration of the saints of Calvinism, or Platonism, or Buddhism, our times are not like theirs, or, what is clearer, they do not yet have a legitimate force of their own.
Worship is respect for what is above us. Men are only worthy of respect if they respect. We admire children because of that religious look that belongs to them; because of their respect for their elders and their objects of belief. We look at the poor Irish worker with respect because he believes in something, his church and his employers. We regard the superstitious with respect, because their whole existence is not limited to their hats and shoes, but they walk accompanied by images of the imagination, to which they pay homage. You cannot impoverish a man by depriving him of these objects without ruin. It is very sad to see people who think that their goodness comes from themselves; It is very gratifying to see who has the opposite opinion.
All belief periods were great; all unbelief was evil. Orientals believe in fate. What will happen to them is written on a sheet of iron; they will not turn to escape famine, pestilence, or the enemy's sword. It's great and makes a great impression on people. We in America are accused of a great deficiency in worship; such worship does not belong to our character; that our institutions, our politics, and our commerce have fostered a self-reliance that is small, Lilliputian, full of strife and strife; we look and have nothing above us in the state, and we applaud and admire ourselves greatly, and we rely on our senses and understanding, while our imaginations and our moral sense are relaxed. And in religion we want objects above; we are rapidly losing or have already lost our former respect; new views of inspiration, of miracles, of saints have supplanted the old opinions, and it is useless to restore them. Revolutions never return, and in all churches a certain decay of ancient piety is lamented, and everything threatens to fall into apathy and indifference. It behooves us to consider whether we may not have real faith and real objects instead of these false ones. The human mind, when reliable, is never false to itself. If there is sincerity and good meaning - If there really is a desire in us to seek our superiors, that which is lawfully above us, we shall not long seek in vain.
In the meantime, there is great centrality, centripetalism equal to centrifugation. The mystic or theist is never afraid of any startling materialism. He knows that the laws of gravity and repulsion are deaf to French speakers, however witty they may be. If theology shows that opinions change rapidly, people's beliefs about behavior do not. These remain. The boldest heroism, the most perfect culture, or rapturous sanctity never exhausted the claims of these base duties - never penetrated to their origin, nor were able to look beyond their source. We cannot be disappointed, we cannot be impoverished by obedience; but by humility we rise, by obedience we command, by poverty we become rich, dying we live.
We are thrown back to righteousness forever and ever, just righteousness - to fix one; that's all we can do.All ethe fanatic stigmatizes it as a barren chimney-corner philosophy. The first opinion I have is that natural religion still furnishes all the facts which are hidden under the dogma of popular belief. Religion's progress is steady towards its identity with morality.
How is the new generation created? How could you not? The life of those once all-powerful traditions was not really in the legend, but in the moral sentiment and metaphysical fact which the legends contained - and they have survived. A new Socrates, or Zeno, or Swedenborg, or Pascal, or a new group of geniuses like those of the Elizabethan age, may be born in this age, and, with a happy heart and bent to theism, bring asceticism, duty, and generosity back to life. fashion.
It is true that Stoicism, always attractive to the intellectual and the cultured, now has no temples, no academy, no commanding Zeno or Antoninus. He accuses us of not having it: that pure ethics is not nowformulatedand concreted in ato worshipfraternity with assemblies and festivals, with music and book, with brick and stone. Why did those who believe and love her not leave it at that and dedicate themselves to writing the scientific writings that will become their Vulgate for millions? I answer for one thing, that the inspirations we catch in this law are not continuous and technical, but joyful sparks, and are recorded for their beauty, for the pleasure they give, and not for their obligation; and this is their priceless good to men, that they delight and elevate, and not that they are imposed. He still doesn't have his first hymn. But for every line and word to be an ember of true fire, ages must roll before these slowly decaying embers can be gathered into a wide and constant altar flame.
It is not yet clear what form the religious feeling will take. It is preparing to rise in every way towards absolute justice and wholesome perception. Here is now a new sense of humanity infused into public action. This is a cash contribution on a more extensive and systematic level than ever before for remote redress of public disasters and political support for oppressed parties. Then there are the new social science conventions, before which women's rights, business laws, the treatment of crime, the regulation of work are discussed. If these are signs of constant currents of thought and will in these directions, a new nation may be expected.
I know how delicate this principle is, — how difficult it is to adapt it to practical and social arrangements. It cannot be desecrated; it cannot be forced; to take it out of its natural current is to suddenly lose all its strength. Such experiments, which we remember, are those in which some sect or dogma was linked, this being an artificial element, which cooled and impeded the community. But it is utterly impossible to believe that men should be attracted to each other by the simple respect each man feels for the other, in which he discovers absolute sincerity; the respect he feels for anyone who thinks that life is too hard and frivolous, and that he would elevate it a little, should love be the friend of a man's virtue? to another who, under his indulgence towards artificial society, would fervently wish to serve someone, - test his own reality by making himself useful and indispensable?
Man does not live on bread alone, but on faith, admiration, sympathy. It is very superficial to say that cotton, or iron, or silver and gold are the kings of the world; there are rulers who will make them forget at any time. Fear goes. Love will. Character goes. People live according to their beliefs. Governments are behind it, - the faith that people share, - either the faith in which they were brought up, or the original consciousness in themselves, which popular religion echoes. If the government could only be maintained by force, if the people's instinct was to resist the government, then of course the government must be two to one to be safe, and then it would not be safe from desperate individuals. But not; the old commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," holds New York, London, and Paris, not the police or the cavalry.
It is people's faith that molds them and creates one surface or another at will. As the mind opens it very quickly transfers its choice from the circumstance to the cause; from politeness to love, from invention to science, from London or Washington law, or from public opinion to the self-revealing idea; from everything that talent accomplishes to the feeling that fills hearts and dictates the future of nations. The main fact I never see is the sufficiency of moral feeling. We support it, in hours or shallow years, with legends, lore, and forms, each holding to a time when it was a happy type or symbol of Power; but the Power in the next moment sends a new lesson, which we miss while our eyes are turned back and seek to perpetuate the old.
America will introduce pure religion. It is believed that ethics does not satisfy love. But all the religion we have is the ethics of some holy person or other; as soon as the figure appears, be sure that the love, veneration, anecdotes and fables of him, and the delight of good men and women in him. And what depths of magnificence and beauty are known to us in ethical truth, what divining or insight belongs to it! For innocence is a wonderful choice to purify the eyes to explore the nature of those souls that pass before it. What armor is this to protect good from external or internal harm, and with what power it turns bad accidents into benefits; the strength of his face; the power of your presence! Only this comes true friendship; it achieves the grandeur of the situation and the poetic perception, enriching everything it addresses.
Formerly, people thought that Spirit was divine and Matter devilish; one Ormuzd, the other Ahriman. Now science and philosophy recognize the parallelism, the approximation, the unity of the two: how each reflects the other like a face corresponding to a face in a mirror: nay, how the laws of the one and the other are one or the same realization . We learn not to be afraid of the truth.
The man of this age must be enrolled in the university of sciences and trends arising from all past periods. He must not be one who can be startled and shipwrecked by every bold or subtle word that malicious and crafty men can utter in his hearing, but he must learn all skepticism and disbelief, and be made the destroyer of all gambling houses and walls. of paper. , and the solver of all opinions, when confronted with Reality from childhood.
A man accustomed to regarding all his circumstances as very changeable, to taking his possessions, his relations with people, and even his opinions into his own hands, and in all this making way for moral principles and laws, and everywhere to find that, - to put is beyond the reach of all scepticism; and it seems that what is most elevated and exalted in our relationship, in our happiness and in our losses, tends constantly to elevate us to a life so extraordinary and, one might say, superhuman.
O PREACHER.
Ascension through degrees only
By immaculate sanctity,
Like an angel blind to committed transgression,
And brightening all souls like the sun.
[Originally written as a drawing room lecture to some seminary students, 1867; later expanded from earlier writings and read in its present form at Divinity Chapel, Cambridge, May 5, 1879. Reprinted fromUnitary Analysisfor January 1880]
In the history of thought, a hint of falsehood shows itself first, not in argumentation and formal protest, but in insincerity, indifference and departure from the Church or a scientific, political or economic institution in other better or worse ways.
The honorable and beautiful traditions in which we were brought up are day by day losing their power over human belief; restlessness and discontent in the religious world indicate that we are in a transitional moment; as when the Roman church split into Protestant and Catholic, or, rather, when paganism split into Christian and heathen. Old forms tremble and new ones are slow to appear; material and industrial activity materialized the age, and the mind, haughty with its sciences, despises religious forms as childish.
In consequence of this revolution in thought, it seems, for the time being, the misfortune of this period that the cultivated mind does not have the happiness and dignity of religious feeling. We were born too late for the old faith and too early for the new faith. I see in these classes, and in these people, in whom I am accustomed to look for inclination and advancement, what is most positive and richest in human nature, and which contains today's activity and tomorrow's security, - I see in them character, but scepticism; a sufficiently clear perception of the inadequacy of the popular religious statement for the needs of his heart and intellect, and an explicit statement of that fact. They have insight and truthfulness; they will not mask their beliefs; they hate that they can't; but I do not easily find more than this. Graceful movements of the soul, - pity, worship, - do not find. Contempt for hypocrisy, pride of personal character, elegance of taste, manners and activities, unlimited ambition of intellect, willingness to sacrifice personal interests for integrity of character - all these they have; but that religious submission and abandonment which gives man a new element and being, and makes him sublime - it is not in churches, it is not in houses. I see the movement, I hear the aspirations, but I don't see how the great God prepares to satisfy the heart in the new order of things. There is no Church, no State; and when we come out of all the inconveniences of the social problem, the oracle still throws no light on the individual way of life. He utters a thousand negatives, clearly and strongly, in all directions; but the holy affirmative hides it in the deepest abyss.
We do not see that heroic decisions will save people from those tides which the deadliest month gathers and levels the moral, emotional, and intellectual nature. It is certain that there will be many dark hours, many imbeciles, periods of inactivity, - solstices in which we do not progress, but stand still. At such times, we can find solace in worshiping the highest power and that alone. We never do anything at all, or we never need to. It seems there was too much doubt, too much waiting, for the best to bear. Perhaps there must be hard choices and determinations before any clear vision.
No age and no person is without feeling, but in real history its glorious manifestations are interrupted and recurrent - an age of belief, of heroic action, of intellectual activity, of men cast in a superior mould.
But to the feelings that permeate the nation, the nation must react. It is resisted and corrupted by this stubborn tendency to personify and place in view what should be the contemplation of Reason alone. The understanding will write the vision in the Creed. Art will embody this disappearing Spirit in temples, paintings, sculptures and hymns. The senses instantly convey awe of the disappearing Spirit to this enduring form. Ignorance and passion merge and degrade. In proportion to a man's unkindness, another appears to him, and not he; that is, the Godhead becomes more objective, until finally absolute idolatry prevails.
Of course, honest sentiments seem to be directed against nominal religion, and real people are hunted down as infidels and burned. Then reason is awakened in the people to such an extent that it tacitly participates with them, that it rejects the fear of the Church; and the age of unbelief follows.
This review was inevitable and helpful. But the sober eye finds something frightening in this empiricism. At first, delighted with the triumph of intellect, the surprise of the result, and the sense of power, we are like scent hunters and soldiers rushing into battle: but when the game wears out, when the enemy is cold in his blood at our feet , we are bothered by our loneliness; we would be pleased to remember the life that offended us so much; the face no longer appears to be the enemy's face.
I say the effect is fading; for, that examination which results in the constant discovery of errors, the flattered understanding presupposes the judgment of all things, and the foresight of the same victories. In the activity of understanding, feelings are dormant. The understanding supposes things above its sphere, and having exposed the errors in the church, concludes that the church is in error; because he has found absurdities to which the feeling of adoration is connected, he makes a mockery of adoration; so that the analysis glowed in disbelief. There is no more faith. We laughed and whistled, satisfied with our power to turn heaven and earth into a rumbling wasteland.
Also, unpleasant is the terrible loneliness of the soul that is without God in the world. Wandering all day in the sunlight among the animal tribes, unattached to anything better; to look at a horse, a cow, and a bird, and foresee an equal and speedy end for him and for them; - nay, the bird, as it darted past with its valiant and perfect flight, would deny his sympathies and declare him an exile. To see men faithfully pursuing their various pursuits, warm-hearted, caring for their children, loving their friends, keeping their promises - what are they to this cold, homeless, fatherless, aimless Cain, a man who hears only the sound of his own steps? in God's brilliant creation? For him it is not creation; to him these beautiful creatures are unhappy ghosts: he doesn't know what to do with them. For him, heaven and earth lost their beauty. How gloomy the day is, and there on the bright lake what a melancholy light! I cannot keep the sun in the sky if you take away the purpose that moves it. The ball is, of course, there, but its power to animate, to light up the heart and atmosphere, is gone forever. It is a lamp wick for the meanest use. words,excellent, honorablethey have lost their meaning; every thought loses all its depth and becomes just the surface.
But religion has a purpose. He does not lose weight or gain weight with the devotee's health. The object of worship remains forever unharmed and identical. We are in transition from the worship of the fathers who built the law into private and personal history, to a worship that recognizes the true eternity of the law, its presence for you and me, its equal energy in what is called brute nature as in what is it's called sacred. The coming age will see God in ethical laws—as humanity begins to see them in this age as self-equal, self-executing, immediate, and self-confirming; they need no coupon, prophet, or miracle, except their own irresistibility—and they will regard natural history, private wealth, and politics, not for themselves, as we have done, but as illustrations of those laws, kindness, and love. . Nature is a very fine canvas; the glory of the One is everywhere.
Every movement of religious thought is of profound importance for politics and social life; and this one of today bodes best as the most expansive of mankind, as it seeks to find imperishable doctrines in every nation and religion. I am always impressed and moved by a good anecdote, any trace of heroism, faithful service. I don't think age or country makes the slightest difference; no, not the language the actors spoke, nor the religion they professed, whether Arab in the desert or French at the Academy. I see that sensible and conscientious men all over the world belong to one religion - the religion of kindness and courage, men of solid truth, men of honesty and feelings for others. My conclusion is that a claim about religion is possible which renders all skepticism absurd.
Man's health and well-being consist in the ascent from surfaces to solids; from dealing with details to knowing the design; from the activity proper to the talents, which are lost because of the desire for ostentation, to the control and strengthening of the talents by the emanation of character. All that we call religion, all that saints and churches and Bibles have sought from the beginning of the world is to suppress this insolent surface activity and encourage man to central and complete activity. The human race is caught up in Saint Vid's dance; your fingers and toes, your limbs, your senses, your talents, are exceedingly active, while a lazy heart gives no prophecy. When it awakens, it will revolutionize the world. Let him speak, and all these rebels will fly to his loyalty. Now, every man earns his own action - professes it, but practices the contrary; he rows with one hand and pours water with the other. Man does not act from one motive, but from many changeable fears and brief motives; it's as if there are ten or twenty fewer people than you, acting at odds with each other, so that most lives result in zero. But when he acts from a motive and all his faculties are true, it is mathematically clear, is it not, that it will show the result as if twenty men had co-operated - it will give new senses, new wisdom of its own kind; that is, no longer facts, nor new combinations, but guesswork, or direct intuition of the state of men and things?
Lessons in moral feeling are, once and for all, a release from that anxiety which robs all life of its joy. He teaches great peace. She comes alone from the highest place. It is that which is in all healthy natures, and strongest in the best and most gifted of men, we know to have been implanted by the Creator of men. The commandment is to do the duty of that moment, and to refrain from doing evil at every moment and in every condition of life. And it is so close, internal, and constitutional to all, that no commandment can be compared with it in authority. All sages consider it the voice of the Creator himself.
I know that there are those for whom the question of what to believe is more interesting because they need to proclaim and teach what they believe.
All positive rules, ceremonial, ecclesiastical, racial, or personal distinctions, are corruptible; only those differences which are in the nature of things, and not things of a positive rule, are valid. Just as the earth we are on is not impassable but can be chemically broken down into gases and nebulae, the universe is an infinite series of planes, each of which is a false bottom; and just when we think our feet are finally on firm ground, the slide is pulled under us.
We have to conform to the new order of things. But is it an accident? The poet Wordsworth even welcomed the steam engine and the railroad; and when they reached his poetic Westmoreland, cutting through every lovely valley, warping every hallowed grove, still he managed to say:—
"In spite of all that Beauty may reject
In your sharp features, nature embraces
Your legitimate descendant in human art and time,
Pleased with his triumphs over his brother Space,
Accept the crown offered by your brave hands
Hopes and smiles of sublime joy."
And we can keep our faith despite the violent generalizations, whether French or German, that block and cut our old parish roads.
In matters of faith, people eagerly fix their eyes on the differences between their faith and yours, while the charm of the study is finding agreement and identity in all people's religions. What is essential for a theologian is, while he is select in his opinions, strict in his pursuit of truth, broad in his sympathies - that he should not allow himself to be excluded from any church. He should take for himself whatever eloquence of St. Chrysostom or St. Jerome or St. Bernard he felt. So none other than Bishop Taylor, George Herbert or Henry Scougal. He sees that what is most effective in a writer is what pleases his mind, the reader's.
Don't be fooled into underestimating the churches that bother you with their fanatical claims. And they were real churches. In their time, they responded with the same need that our rejection of them makes us our own. The Catholic Church was immensely rich in people and influence. Augustine, à Kempis, Fénelon, breathe the spirit that now burns you. So with Cudworth, More, Bunyan. I agree with them more than I disagree. I agree with your heart and motive; my dissatisfaction is with its limitations, surface and language. Their declaration became as incredible as Dante's Inferno. His purpose is as real as Dante's feeling and hatred of vice. Always put the best interpretation at the beginning. Why not Christianity, wholesome, sweet and poetic? It is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, utterly disinterested, speaking the truth, and committed to serving, teaching, and edifying others. Christianity taught the skill, the element, of loving the All-Perfect without petty bargaining for personal happiness. Taught that loving him is happiness - loving him in other people's virtues.
One era in human history is the life of Jesus; and the immense influence for good makes all depravity and superstition almost harmless. Humanity is subordinated to the acceptance of his doctrine and cannot dispense with the welfare of such a pure servant of truth and love.
Of course, a hero so appealing to the hearts of millions drew the hypocrites and the ambitious aboard his train, and they used his name to falsify his history and undo his work. I am afraid that what is called religion, but perhaps bank keeping, does not respect, but conceals, moral sentiments. I submit it to this simple test: is a rich rascal made to feel his rascals among clergymen or men of letters? No? Then he is a thief under a cassock again. What respect can these preachers or newspapers inspire by their weekly praise of texts and saints, when we know that they would have said the same things if Beelzebub had written this chapter, provided it remained where it was in public opinion?
Everything but unbelief, everything but the loss of moral intuitions, which are betrayed in attachment to a form of piety or theological dogma; as if it were a holy liturgy, or a chapel, and not justice and humility and a loving heart and a serving hand.
But beyond the passions and interests that pervert, it is superficiality that impoverishes. Men's opinions lose all value to those who see them as precisely predictable since the founding of their sect. Nothing is so rare, in any man, as his own act. The priesthood is like a pea. I can't tell them apart. It is said: They have bronchitis because they read sermons from their newspapers in a low voice and, looking at the congregation, try to speak in their own voice from a distance, and the shock is harmful. I think they do this, or the opposite, with their thoughts. They stare at Plato, or at the mind, and try to parochialize amplitudes and eternity, and the shock is harmful. It's the old story again: once we had wooden chalices and golden priests, now we have golden chalices and wooden priests.
The clergy always runs the risk of becoming the pupils and pensioners of the so-called productive class. Your first duty is knowledge-based self-control. A man of worldly practice or power requires from the preacher a talent, a strength, like his; the same as his, but fully applied to the priest's things. He does not tolerate the preacher's application to the merchant's things. He wants him to be like he should be if he were a priest. He is sincere and ardent in his vocation and immersed in it. Let the priest or the poet be equally good at theirs.
The mere fact that the pulpit exists, that across the land people wait to hear a sermon on Sundays, affords an invaluable opportunity for young theology students to take these great freedoms. The existence of Sunday and the pulpit waiting for the weekly sermon give you exactly the conditions, À¿$ ÃÄ$, that you want. It must be done, and he is armed to do it. Let him appreciate your talent as a doorway to nature. Let him see your performances only as limitations. So, above all, that he appreciates the sensitivity that he receives, that he loves, that dares, that affirms.
There are always many ignorant youths - though some of them are seven and some are seventy - who want immediate instruction; but, in the usual parochial average, only one person qualified to offer it. Only this person worries me, I only see him. Others are very kind and promising, but are just neutral in the hive - each a possible real bee, but now unimportant. It doesn't mean what they say or think today; It is the weeping and murmuring of the nursery, and its only virtue, obedience. Buckminster, Channing, Dr. Lowell, Edward Taylor, Parker, Bushnell, Chapin, - they are the ones who were indispensable, and the opinions of the floating crowd without any importance.
I don't like the preaching of sensations, - traces of spite, living next to us, an examination of our appearance and what others say about us! You can read this in the newspaper. We come to church properly for self-examination, to go over the principles and see how things are going.nas,with deep and costly facts of law and love. At the same time, it is impossible not to pay attention to the events of the day, the public opinion of the time, the tumultuous clamor of the feasts, the misfortunes and prosperity of our city and country; to war and peace, new events, great personalities, good harvests, new sources, bankruptcies, hunger and devastation. We are not stocks or rocks, we are not thinking machines, but we are indeed connected to the people around us, although not as visibly as Siamese twins. And it was inhumane to feign ignorance or indifference on Sunday to that which makes our blood throb and our countenances downcast on Saturday or Monday. No, these are fair tests by which we can test our doctrines and see if they are worth anything in life. The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of the disease which does not immediately suggest a cure.
Man proposes, but God disposes. We shall not for long have any part or place in this land, in whose affairs we meddle so ardently, and where we feel and speak so energetically about our country and our cause. It is comforting to think that the gigantic evils, which seem so pernicious and incurable to us, will finally end of their own accord and rid the world of their presence, like all crimes, sooner or later. But whether that event be for us sooner or later, we have no excuse for playing our part to the best of our ability, however insignificant our help may be. Our children will be here if we are not; and your children's history will be colored by our actions. But if we have no children, or if the events in which we participate will not see their resolution until the distant future, there is an even deeper fact; that all the justice that we can see and practice is useful to men and imperative, whether we can see that it is useful or not.
The essential basis of a new book or a new sermon is a new spirit. The author is a new thinker, sees the impetus of a more extensive trend than others realize; he never falters but has a winning tone. Because power is not so much in talent as in tone. And if I had to advise a young preacher, I would say: When there's any difference between the foot of the pulpit and the floor of the room, you haven't said what you should say.
Inspiration will have a progression, an affirmation, a step forward, an upward state; it will be a door opener; they will invent their own methods: new wine will make new bottles. Spirit is motive and ascension. It is enough for there to be a deep observer and he will ignore the new action and the new circumstances that disturb him; a new shop or an old cathedral, it's all the same to him. They will find circumstances unchanging, like a deep cloud of mystery over a cause, like a shining glory over an invincible law. Given insight, he will find as many beauties, heroes, and strokes of genius close at hand as Dante or Shakespeare saw. A vivid thought gives me strength to paint it; and the strength of its projection is proportional to the depth of its source. We are happy and enriched; we left feeling refreshed, all supported by their work, however different they may be, and we won't forget to come back for new incentives.
Supposed inconveniences for young priests exist only for the weak-willed. They don't need to consider them. Differences of opinion, the strength of old sects or timid literalists, not being armed with prisons or queues as in more difficult times or countries, are not worth considering, except as providing the necessary stimulus. That grizzled deacon or venerable matron with Calvinist background, you can easily see, could present no obstacle to the march of St. Bernard or George Fox, Luther or Theodore Parker. And though I perceive a deafness to counsel among men, yet the power of sympathy is always great; and affirmative speech, which presupposes assent, often obtains it when the argument fails. Such is also the active force of a good temper. The great sweetness of the temper neutralizes such large amounts of acid! As for the position, the attitude is always the same - offending the timid, and not busy attacking, but from the flanks, I might say, resolute, simply minding their own business. Speak affirmatively; emphasize your choice by completely ignoring everything you reject; seeing that opinions are temporary, but convictions only and eternal - seeing that feeling never loses its pathos or its persuasion, but is young after a thousand years.
The unavoidable observation for us, when we come together to meditate on life and duty, is not so much to prescribe this or that medicine, or to burn our errors of practice, but simply to celebrate the power and beneficence in the midst of which and for which we we live, not critically, but affirmatively.
All of civil humanity agreed to allow one day to think and six to practice. I hope this day will retain its honor and its use. A wise man advises us to make sure that every day, in the midst of hard work and the noise of small things, we read and say two or three sensible words. I would boldly say that every day we must be surprised by a ray of eternity; take refuge for a moment in the great secret we carry in our bosom, the inspiration of heaven. But certainly on this seventh day, let us be children of freedom, of reason, of hope; refresh the feeling; think how spirits, who belong to the universe, think while our feet roam the streets of a small town and our hands work on a small business knot. We shall find a result, I am sure - a certain originality and a certain haughty freedom, arising out of our seclusion and self-community, which the streets, infinitely remote from all fumes and ostentation, can never give, and still more than equal to all physical endurance. . It is true what they say of our New England manure, which never allows us to stand or sit, but carries us through the world like madmen. The most peaceful and protected life cannot save us. We want a few days in, to think about ourselves and put order in our lives from the heart. That should be the use of the Sabbath - to stop this headless race and put us once more in possession, for love or for shame.
The Sabbath changes its forms from generation to generation, but one significant benefit remains. We no longer recite the ancient creeds of Athanasius or Arius, Calvin or Hopkins. The forms are flexible, but the purpose is no less real. The old heart remains as ever with its old human duties. The old intellect is still alive to pierce ideas to the core. The truth is simple and will not be old; it is always present, and insists on being of this time and this moment. Here is thought, love, truth, and duty, as new as the first day of Adam and the angels.
"There are two pairs of eyes in man; and it is necessary that the pair that is below be closed when the pair that is above perceive them; and that when the pair above is closed, those below are opened." The lower eyes see only surfaces and consequences, the higher eyes see the causes and connection of things. And when we go alone, or when we arrive at a house of thought and worship, we go with the purpose of freeing ourselves from appearances, to see reality, the great contours of our destiny, to see that life has no caprice or luck, has no abortion leaps, but growth according to immutable laws under beneficent the greatest influences. The Church is open to the great and the small in all nations; and how rare and lofty they are, how unattainable are the goals he tries to set before people! We came to educate, we came to isolate, to be abstractionists; in short, to open superior eyes to the profound mystery of cause and effect, to know that although the ministers of justice and power are lacking, Justice and Power never fail. The public secret of the world is the art of sublimating the private soul with the inspirations of the great and public and divine Soul from which we live.
O MAN OF WORDS.
Bravely through sun and rain,
Time has its work, and we have ours.
It is so close in size to our powder,
God is so close to man;
When Duty softly whispers 'You must,'
The young man replies, 'I can.'
SPEECH PROVIDED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES OF WATERVILLE COLLEGE, 1863.
Lords of literary societies:
Some of you are leaving today and tomorrow you will receive the College's farewell honors. You will be teachers, you will become doctors, lawyers, theologians; in his time statesmen, naturalists, benefactors; I hope some of you are writers, critics, philosophers; perhaps the rare gift of poetry is already shining, and perhaps even worse. At any rate, before the shadows of these times darken your youthful sensibility and sincerity, let me take the opportunity afforded by your kind request to offer you some advice that an old scholar might unashamedly give young people in regard to careers. of writers. , - the power and joy that belong to her and her high office in difficult times. I give eternal congratulations to the scholar; he drew white luck in life. His own condition defects point to his superiority. He is too good for the world; he is ahead of his race; His role is prophetic. He belongs to the higher society and was born a century or two before his time into the coarse and sensual population into which he was thrown. But the Heaven that sent him here knew it very well and sent him as a leader to lead. Are people confused by the hard times? The unharmed soul is in permanent telegraphic communication with the source of the event. He has prior information, a private dispatch that frees him from the terror that grips the rest of the community. He is a student of natural laws and historical experience; a prophet who with discreet sincerity surrendered himself to Heaven, who through him pours out his will for humanity. It is a theory, but you know how far it is from the fact, that nothing could resist the tide with which the material prosperity of America in recent years has defeated the hope of youth, the piety of learning. The country was bustling with activity, with wheat, coal, iron, cotton; the wealth of the globe was here, a lot of work and few people to do it. Great Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavia sent millions of workers; however, the need was greater. All kinds of skills were sought, and bribes came to people of intellectual culture, - Come, push to our factory. America as a whole showed as much confusion as California had in 1849, when the clamor for gold was first raised. All differences of profession and habit ended up in the mines. The whole world took off their coats and worked in their shirts. Lawyers came and went with pickaxes and wheelbarrows; doctors who became drivers; errant priests were barred from saloons; university professors sold cigars, cakes, matches, and so on. It is the enduring tendency of wealth to attract the spiritual class, not in this gross way, but persuasively and covertly. It is charged that all powerful nations except ours have balanced their work with mental activity, and especially with imagination - the chief human power, the angel of serious and faithful ages. The subtle Hindu, who led religion to ecstasy and philosophy to idealism, produced wonderful epics whose translations in the present century have added new fields of thought. The Egyptian built Thebes and Karnak on a scale that dwarfs our art, and with the paintings on its inner walls, he invited us into the mystery of the religious belief from which he drew so much power. The Greek was so perfect in action and imagination, his poems, from Homer to Euripides, so charming in form and so faithful to the human mind that we cannot forget or outgrow his mythology. The Hebrew nation compensated for the insignificance of its members and territory by its religious genius, by its persistent belief; his poems and stories are carved into the soil of this globe like primeval rocks. On the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, Mohammed, with his fierce temper, left an impression of how deeply he penetrated into the customs, language and poetry of Arabia and Persia! Look at the activity of the imagination in the Crusades: the morning was full of fire shapes; the abyss has been bridged; heaven walked on earth, and earth could see heaven and hell with its eyes. Dramatic "mysteries" were the entertainment of the people. They were served by parliaments of love and poetry instead of the House of Commons, Congress and newspapers. On Puritanism, let Bunyan show how the whole of Jewish history became flesh and blood in these people. Now we agree that we are utilitarians; that we are skeptical, frivolous; that with cheap universal education we have strict theology, but religion is low. The criticisms are many, but not in deep bases, but it lacks an affirmative philosophy. Our deepest philosophy (if it were not contradictory in terms) is skepticism. The great poem of the age is the unpleasant poem "Faust," of which Bailey's "Festus" and Browning's "Paracelsus" are English variations. We have superficial sciences, restless, gossip and aimless pursuits. We run to Paris, to London, to Rome, to Mesmerism, to Spiritualism, to Pusey, to the Catholic Church, as if we did not think, and those who check and guide have a sad feeling that in the change and decay of old beliefs and motives there was no compensation to replace them. Our industrial skill, the art that serves convenience and luxury, has made life expensive and therefore greedy, careful, anxious; they turned their eyes to the earth, not to their thoughts.
Ernest Renan discovers that Europe has met three times at industry expositions, and no song has graced the occasion; and no one noticed the defect. The French prophet of our time, Fourier, predicted that one day, instead of battles and Ecumenical Councils, rival parts of humanity would challenge each other for excellence in the production of little cakes.
“In my youth,” said a Scottish mountaineer, “a Highland gentleman measured his importance by the number of men his domain could support. After a while, it was a matter of knowing the size of the cattle that would be fed. Today we came to count the number of sheep. I imagine that posterity will wonder how many rats and mice they will feed.”
Dickens complained that in America, as soon as he arrived in one of the western cities, a committee was waiting for him and invited him to give a lecture on temperance. Bowditch translated Laplace, and when he moved to Boston, the Hospital Life Assurance Company insisted that he do their annuity tables. Napoleon knows the art of war, but he must not be put in charge. Linnœeus or Robert Brown should not be engaged in the cultivation of currants and cucumbers, although they are excellent botanists. A shrewd State Street stockbroker visited a mild-mannered countryman possessed of all the virtues, and in his irreverent speech said, "Now, with your character, I could collect all that money at once and make a very good deal out of it."
There is a prophetic trend in the world that nations are dying by suicide. A sign of this is the decay of thought. Niebuhr gave impressive examples of this fatal omen; as in the loss of power of opinion which followed the disasters of the Athenians in Sicily.
I cannot forgive the scholar for his homeless dismay. Represents intellectual or spiritual strength. I want him to lean on the spiritual hand; live by your strength, not your weakness. A scholar who champions the cause of slavery, arbitrary government, monopolies, oppressors is a traitor to his profession. He ceased to be a scholar. He is not a company for pure people. The worst moments just show him how independent of the times he is; just to facilitate and bring out the splendor of privilege from him. The disease bothers the family, but the doctor sees it as a temporary affliction, which he can stop and remove. The fears and anxieties of people who watch the market, the crops, the abundance or scarcity of money, or other superficial happenings, are not for him. He knows that the world is always like him; that the forces that sustain and permeate it are eternal. Air, water, fire, iron, gold, wheat, electricity, animal fiber, have not lost an iota of power, and no rottenness has crept over the spiritual force which biases and points to limitless nature. Bad times, — what are bad times? Nature is rich, lush, and mocks the weak forces of destruction. Man makes no greater impression in his wealth than the caterpillar or the locust, whose little damage, though noticeable in the orchard or village, is insignificant in the immense exuberance of summer. There is no idle power in nature. Every decomposition is a recomposition. War disorganizes, but it needs to be reorganized. Weeks, months pass—a new harvest; Commerce sprouts and new cities, new houses, all rebuilt and dormant by permanence. Italy, France - a hundred times these countries were trampled by armies and burned: a couple of summers, and they smile with abundance and give new people and new incomes.
If the churches are worn out, it is because a new heaven is being formed. You are here as bearers of the powers of Nature - like Roger Bacon with his secret of gunpowder, with his secret of balloons and steam; like Copernicus, with his secret of true astronomy; like Columbus, with America in his diary; like Newton, with his gravity; Harvey, with his editing; Smith, with his law of commerce; Franklin, with lightning; Adams, with Independence; Kant, with pure reason; Swedenborg, with his spiritual world. You are the bearers of the ideas that will shape the mind and therefore the history of this breathing world, as it will be and not otherwise.
Every man is potentially a scholar and needs no good so much as this right thinking.
"Calm pleasures here Notice, magnificent pains."
Coleridge follows "three silent revolutions", the first of which was "when the clergy turned away from the Church". A scholar was once a priest. But the Church clung to rites, and the scholar clung to mirth, both low and high, and therefore separation was a common fault. But I think it's a rift that needs to be healed. The true scholar is the Church. Only the duties of the intellect are to be possessed. Down with these dressers and sycophants! let us have manly and divine men, fearful lawgivers, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, who turn the churches of the world from their traditions and penetrate them through original perception. The intellectual lives in eternal victory. Just as water falls in the rain from the tops of mountains and flows down valleys, plains and wells, so thought falls first into the best minds and flows from class to class, until it reaches the masses and starts revolutions.
Nature says to the American, “I understand measurements and numbers; I calculate the ellipse of the Moon, the ebb and flow of water, the curve and errors of planets, the balance of attraction and repulsion. I measured your weight and added the powers you need. I give you land and sea, forest and mine, elemental forces, nervous energy. When I add difficulty, I add intelligence. Make sure you maintain and rule the continent for humanity. You did one thing right. You offered a piece of land in the desert to each son of Adam who cultivated it. Other things you began to do - to cast off the chains which the whining hypocrites have bound to the weaker race. You have to put your lives and fortunes on the line on principle. The ambassador is obliged to protect the dignity of the Republic he represents. But what does the scholar stand for? The organ of ideas, the subtle force that creates nature, people and states; — a comforter, a support, which transmits impulses of light and electrical shocks, guidance and courage. So let your habits be formed and all your savings heroic; no spoiled brats, no drones, no epicureans, but a stoic, formidable, athletic constitution, who knows how to be poor, loves work, and does not lash his youthful intelligence with tobacco and wine; preserving your youth. I want a young man with a gun and a complete man; no helpless angel to be slapped in the face, but a man dipped in the stix of human experience and thus made invulnerable - self-help. The redeeming characteristic of the Athenian sophists, Hippias and Gorgias, is that they made their own clothes and shoes. Learn to harness a horse, row a boat, camp in the woods, cook dinner. As it happened, I was at West Point recently, and after passing the test in science class, I went to the barracks. The chamber was in perfect working order; the mattress on the iron camp bed rolled up, as if ready to be taken down. I asked the first cadet, "Who makes your bed?" "I." "Who brings you water?" "I." "Who shines your shoes?" "I." It was like that in every room. These are the first steps to power. Learn from Samuel Johnson or David Hume that a writer's primary duty is to secure his independence.
Stick to your order. About thirty years have passed since the days of the Reform Act in England, when on the walls of London you everywhere read the inscriptions: "Down with the Lords." At this time, Earl Grey, who was the leader of the Reformation, was questioned in Parliament about his policy towards radical measures. He replied, "I will keep my order." Where there is no vision, the people perish. The cultured class is to blame, people of knowledge and opinion. There is a very low sense of duty: the merchant is faithful to the merchant, the nobleman in England and Europe maintains his order, the politician relies on his art and combinations; but the scholar does not remain under his command, but obeys the people of this world.
Gentlemen, I am here to commend you for your art and profession of thinkers. It's real. This is the secret of power. It is the art of command. All superiority is this, or is connected with this. "Everything the world admires comes from within." Thought makes us human; rate us; distributes society; distributes the work of the world; it is the fertile source of all arts, all riches, all pleasures, all greatness. Men are what they believe they are. Men are what they think, and a man who knows any truth that other men have not yet discerned, is the teacher of all other men with regard to that truth and its wider relations.
Intellect is measured by its opposition to any accumulation of material force. There is no mass that he cannot overcome and dispose of. The efforts of this force are eminent experiences, — of a long life all that is worth remembering. These are the moments that balance the years. Does anyone hesitate between the power of thought and the power of the institution? Does anyone doubt that a good general is better than an artillery field? You see the political revolution that accompanies the book. Look at armies, institutions, literature, as they appear in the aftermath of some wild Arab dream.
There is a proverb that says that when the Mamluk cavalry approached the French lines, Napoleon ordered the grenadiers to advance and the donkeys to advance.scholarsfall into a hollow square. Made a good story and circulated that day. But how is it now? The military expedition was a failure. Bonaparte himself deserted, and the army returned home as best they could, all to no avail; not a trace of him remains. Of these, only the surveys of thosescholarson the antiquities of Egypt, including the great work of Denon, which led to all subsequent studies by English and German scholars on that basis. Pytheus of Aegina was the winner in the Boys' Pankration, at the Isthmian Games. He sought out the poet Pindar and asked him to write an ode in his praise, and asked what the price of a poem was. Pindar replied that he should give him one talent, about a thousand dollars of our money. "Talent!" cried Pytheas; "Well, for that much money I can erect a bronze statue in the temple." "Very possible." When he thought better of it, he went back and paid for the song. And now not only have all the bronze statues in the temples of Aegina been destroyed, but the temples themselves and the city walls themselves have completely disappeared, while Pindar's ode, in praise of Pytheas, remains intact.
Betrayal of Scholars! They are idealists and must defend freedom, justice and the public good. The scholar is bound to uphold all virtues and all freedoms - freedom of trade, freedom of the press, freedom of religion - and must open up all the rewards of success and all the ways of nature to free competition.
The country complains loudly about the ineffectiveness of the army. It was mismanaged. But before it wasn't just the army, the population was poorly managed. Clergy, spirit guides, scholars, seers have betrayed your trust.
Trust in yourself. There is respect for your teachers, but every age is new and has problems to solve, unsolvable until the last age. Men over forty are not judges of a book written in a new spirit. Neither your teachers, nor the universal teachers, the laws, customs or dogmas of the people, neither the saint nor the sage can be compared with the advice that is open to you. No, not nations, no, not even lords, not even any individuals or any heroes, but himself, the great equality of truth of a single mind, - as if, within the narrow walls of the human heart, the wide realm of truth, the world of morals, the judgment by which the universe is judged, they found a place to exist.
Our people have this frivolity and indulgence: they are afraid of being offended, they don't want to be misunderstood; they don't, of all things, want to be in the minority. God and nature are completely honest, and art must be equally honest. It is not enough that the work exhibits a skillful hand, ingenious artifice, and admirable polishing and finishing; it must have a dominant motive at the time and state in which it was made. In this we must see the artist's great conviction, which led him to do as he did, and not otherwise; nothing frivolous, nothing he can do or not do, as he chooses, but to some extent he must do it right there; he could not free his neck from that yoke and save his soul. And that design should shine through the entire performance. Honesty proves to be an immeasurable asset in perilous times. I don't believe all the legends about great achievements or actions of unprincipled people. Very little trust should be placed in the usual stories which circulate about the learning of this great senator or that great lawyer, his Greek, his varied literature. This ice won't last. Reading! - will you say that this senator or this lawyer, who stood by and allowed the infamous laws to pass, was a reader of Greek books? This is not a question; but to what purpose did they read? I give them credit for this reading that appears in their opinions, tastes, beliefs and practices. They read it so they would know, right? Well, these people didn't know. They were wrong; they completely ignored what every fifteen-year-old boy or girl knows perfectly well - the rights of men and women. And this babbler, between his dictionaries and the Leipzig editions of Lysias, has lost his knowledge. But the president of the bank nodded to the president of the insurance office and said that in Virginia Springs this forum idol had exhausted the classic authors' chest. There's always a preliminary question, how did you get to that side? You are a very elegant writer, but you cannot write what you gravitate to.
It is impossible to escape the questions that surround our time. We all shared the new enthusiasm for the fatherland and for freedom that swept like a whirlwind through all souls at the beginning of the war and brought, ennobling us, a compensation for their misfortune.
War, looking for the roots of strength, immediately comes to the moral aspects. In quiet times custom smothers this discussion as sentimental and brings the demon impudent, as from time immemorial. The war raised us to generous sentiments. War ennobles the age. We don't often get a moment of grandeur in these busy, awkward lives, but the young man's behavior taught us a lot. Let's not belittle America again now that we've seen what kind of people it will tolerate. The battle, with the sword, cut many a Gordian knot in two that all the wisdom of East and West, North and Frontier statesmen could not undo.
It is with joy and deep respect that I learn that this college has sent its full quota into the field. I learned with sadness, but with a pain of honor, that you had your sufferers in battle and that the young nobleman returned wounded and maimed. Times are dark but heroic. The times develop the power they need. Boys are heroes. Women showed tender patriotism and inexhaustible charity. And with each new faction threat, the people's vote was unexpectedly certain. But the problems that are already arising are paying the price. Slavery is broken, and irremediably so, if we use it to our advantage. For such a gain, to end once and for all this plague of all our free institutions, a generation may be sacrificed; perhaps yes; for this continent to be clean and for a new era of equal rights to emerge in space. Who would not, if it could be assured that a new dawn of universal liberty should break over our race in the lapse of a generation, - who would not consent to die?
O STUDIOUS.
For reflection, not for praise,
thought compensates
whereby I sell days,
They will be happy to sell it to you.
And wanting to grow old,
Deaf and dumb, blind and cold,
Melting matter into dreams,
The panoramas I've seen
And everything that shines or appears
In essence, in the Law.
The sun and moon will fall
Like a sower in your brain,
There revived to be born again
ADDRESS GIVEN BEFORE THE WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON SOCIETIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, JUNE 28, 1876.
Gentlemen:
The Athenians swore, owing to a certain crisis in their affairs, that they would value wheat, vines, and olives within the borders of Attica. The territory of scholars is even greater. A stranger, but yesterday for everyone present, I'm already at home, because the writers' society is a university that is not confined within the walls of a monastery or college, but gathers a distant and lonely student in his closest friendship. The writers are happy to acknowledge those connections that find the homeless and strangers welcome where they are least wanted. But as we came to know the laws of life, we saw the same. We are used to these surprises. This is just one action of a more general law. In meeting strange faces we find that the love of letters makes us friends, so in strange thoughts, in worldly habits that harden us, we find with some surprise that learning, truth and beauty have not let us go; that the spiritual nature is too strong for us; who are excellent influences that men of all ages have calledMusa,or some related name, come warm us up and be honest; that the face of Nature remains irresistibly attractive. We move away from the territorial monuments of Attica, but here there is still wheat, olive trees and vineyards.
I am not speaking now of that intellectual conscience which is formed in gentle natures, and gives us much pain on account of our sloth and unfaithfulness: - the influence of which I speak is of greater intensity. Forged with this intellectual awareness, we measure our tasks as scholars, and screw each other with energy and faithfulness, and our sadness is suddenly overcome by the compassion of blessing. The beauty, the inspiring, the happy festive principle, the leader of gods and men, who attracts with her beauty, and not with consideration of advantages, comes and gives a new face to the world. I think it is the special service of scholars in a careful and sad generation to be (as poets were called in the Middle Ages) teachers of Cheerful Science, detectors and designers of hidden symmetries and unseen beauties; heralds of civility, nobility, learning and wisdom; affirmers of a law, but as those who must affirm it in music and dance; they themselves express that steady, cheerful temper, infinitely far removed from sadness, which reigns in the realms of chemistry, vegetation, and animal life. Every natural force excites; true talent first delights its possessor. The famous musician used to say that people don't know how much he delights in playing more than others; for, if they knew, his hearers would rather demand from him than give him a reward. The scholar is here to fill others with love and courage, affirming his trust in the love and wisdom that is at the heart of all things; confirm noble feelings; hear them where he would have them spoken, from the depths of time, from the obscurities of barbarous life, and publish them again:-to disturb none, but to draw all men to the truth, and keep them spiritual and sweet.
Language can hardly exaggerate the beauty of the intellect flowing in the faculties. This is the world-creating power embodied in man, and sending back the rays of heaven and earth, setting north and south, and the stars in their places. Intellect is the science of purpose and limits; yet he sees no limit to the eternal course of law according to nature. All sciences are but new applications, each translatable into another, of the one law that is your mind.
This, gentlemen, is the subject of which I shall speak - the natural and constant function of the Scholar, as he is not a permitted or accidental occurrence, but an organic factor of nature. He is here to be an observer of the real; self-centered amid the superficial; here to respect the domain of serene necessity and be its student and apprentice leading everything to its goal; here to sober up, not for the cares of life, as men say, no, but for the depth of your draughts from the cup of immortality.
One is tempted to confirm the service and attributes of scholars a little more willingly, because of the frequent depravity of the class itself. Men are ashamed of their intellect. Men devoted both by profession and partiality to study, priest, chemist, astronomer, metaphysician, poet, talk hard and worldly and share a passion for cities. The poet and the citizen perfectly agree when they speak of the wise life. The poet advises his own son as if he were a merchant. A poet with poets does not reveal a kindly weakness. They all introduce themselves and are just as ruthless as bankers about real life. They don't tolerate literature; art is just a nice word for appearance in the absence of matter. And they sit pale over their stoves and talk hoarsely about the evil of books and the effeminacy of booksellers. But at a single sound of a trumpet in the woods, or a rush between the stones of the hill brook; at the sound of some subtle word that falls from the lips of an imaginative person, or even at the solitary reading of some moving image of a wise poet, this difficult conclusion springs from memory; the sun shines, and the worlds turn to the music, and the poet replaces all this craven self-denial and God-denial of the literary class with the belief that the world will bow on its knees to a poetic success. He immediately connects with a pearl hunter and a diamond merchant. Like them, he will gladly waste days and months, properties and credits, in the deep hope that at last there will come a refreshing, rewarding, immense success, which in a moment will give him universal dominion. And rightly so; for if his wild prayers are answered, if he succeeds, his conquest is to pierce the brazen skies of use and limitation and let in the air of pure eternity that burns this limbo of shadows and chimeras in which we live. Yes, nature is too strong for us; she will not be denied; she has balms for our wounds and calluses for our follies. She doesn't talk to us, but she comes up with a new captivating experience and makes the old days funny. Every poet knows the ineffable hope and represents its audacity.
I am not inclined to exaggerate temporal differences, but at present it appears that in former times learning and intellectual achievement secured the possessor greater position and authority. If it were just a reaction to excessive expectations of literature, now disappointed, it would be justified censorship. It was superstitious to ask too much of philosophers and the literary class. Sophists, Alexandrian grammarians, Queen Anne's intelligence, philosophers and diffusion - societies have not helped us much. Allowed, freely allowed. People go from one superstition to the opposite superstition, and the practical people of America make themselves look wonderful. The stranger of time haughtily asks for new ideas; believes that ideas do not lead to the ownership of shares; they are messy and feminizing.
Young men, I warn you against the noise of these self-congratulatory frivolous activities - against these busy bodies; against unreasonable work; against talkative, intrusive, rich and official people. If only their work had a good ending! The action is lawful and good; may he be honored forever! correct, original, private, necessary action, which springs new from the heart of man and goes to beneficial and yet invaluable ends. What; but not a petty buzz and rush, a meaningless repetition of yesterday's buzz and rush; accepting other people's methods and mistakes; an exaggeration, and an occupation which pretends to honor the action, but resembles the spasms of holy vision. I cannot respect the actions of these people, because they themselves do not respect. They were better and more respectable in bed and in sleep. All the best in this class, all who have any insight or generosity are often disgusted and don't want to put it behind them.
Gentlemen, I do not wish to restrict your impulses to action: I would not stop them with a wave of my hand. I don't want to see you as feminized dresses, grabbing the world with your fingertips, or for your life to be the way it is for many, more optical than practical. Very different: I would prefer you to experiment boldly and use your energies, but not, if I can prevail with you, in conventional ways. I would like your energy to flow into the issues and emergencies that arise from your personal character. Nature will guide you to opportunities and needs soon, and will bring each of you a full hour, a great opportunity. Love, righteousness, eternal glory will come to each of you in the loneliest places with your great alternatives, and Honor watches to see if you will dare to grasp the palms.
I am not against action, I just prefer no action to abuse and reject the abuse of the termpracticalfor these lower activities. Let us hear no more about practical men, or I will say something about them, namely, that the scholar finds in them an unexpected acceptance of his most paradoxical experience. In their eyes it is a confession, and if they flaunt their business and public importance, it is for the purpose of excusing and belittling themselves for not being disciples and obeyers of those divine laws. Talk to them frankly and you'll find you have little to say to them; that the Spirit of the Age stood before you with influences impossible to match or resist. Dry goods dealers, stockbrokers, lawyers and manufacturers are idealists and differ from philosophers only in the intensity of their accusations. We are all contemporaries and bones of one body.
The shallow uproar against theorists comes from the weak. Capable men can sometimes develop a contempt for thinking which no capable man ever feels. Because what is the one thing in the history of this world that interests all people in proportion to how many people there are? What but the truth and constant progress in its knowledge and courageous obedience to it in right action? Any man or woman who can, willingly or unwittingly, give them any insight or hint about these secrets, they will listen. The poet writes his verse on a piece of paper, and the desire and love of all mankind immediately seizes him, as if it were Holy Scripture. What need has he to cross your doorstep? Why is he interfering in politics? Your idle thought, your dream of yesterday has already been told in the Senate. What the Genie whispered to him at night, he announced to the young at dawn. They are used for driving, sea and land crossings. The locomotive engineer is waiting for him; the steam whistles on the docks and the wheels turn to go. This unusual favoring of poets is wonderful, almost scandalous. I don't want to apologize. I admit a great prejudice. It just goes to show that there is a gap between our perception and our image, the eye is so wise and the hand so clumsy, that all mankind has agreed to value man according to his power of expression. For him, weapons, art, politics, commerce were waiting like servants, until the lord of the manor arrived. Even nature's demonstrations seem to have not come to an end for millennia, until this interpreter appears. "I," said Kepler with a big heart, "can wait a hundred years for a reader, as Almighty God has waited six thousand years for an observer like me."
The genius is a poor man and has no home, but behold, this proud owner who built the palace and furnished it with such care, opens it and begs you to make him honorable by going in there and eating bread. Where is the palace in England whose occupants are not very happy if it can be home to Pope, Addison, Swift, Burke, Canning or Tennyson? Or if wealth has spirit and wants to throw off the yoke and assert itself, - oh please let it try! Will they raise their fences too high and make Alma's too narrow for the wise man to enter? Will he be independent? I am inclined to admit the isolation he seeks, to learn that he is not independent but parasitic.
There have always been found, in the most barbarous tribes, and also in the most character-destroying civilization, some traits of faith in genius, as the exemption of clergy or bards or artists from taxes and tolls imposed on others by men; or in a civil capacity; or in an enthusiastic gift; or in restoration; as if men wanted to emphasize that genius and virtue should not pay for house, land, and bread, because they have a real right to these and all things - the first mortgage coming into force before the right of the present owner. Because they are the first good, by which Plato confirms that "all things are because of him, and he is the cause of all that is beautiful."
This worship is a restoration of the natural order; for, as the most solid rocks are composed of invisible gases, as the world is made of condensed light and suspended electricity, men know that ideas are the fathers of men and things; there was never anything that did not come from thought. The scholar has a deep ideal interest in the moving spectacle around him. He knew the color system in his egg. We have - right? — the right attitude towards markets and brokers, currency and currencies. "Gold and silver," says one of the Platonists, "grows in the land of the gods of heaven - an effusion of them." The unspoken dollar itself ultimately has a high origin in moral and metaphysical nature. Union Pacific stock isn't exactly private property, but the quality and essence of the universe is in it too. We are less interested in ships or in stores, in manual work or in menial tasks; in any object of nature, or in any work of man; in any relation of life or customs of society? A scholar must show, in each, identity and connection; he must show its origin in the human brain and its secret history and problems. He is the world's lawyer and can never be superfluous where so great a variety of questions are always raised for solution, and have been for years.
I go on to say that the allusions we have just made to the extent of his functions, to the way in which everyday events will find him at work, may show that his place is not a sinecure. The scholar, when he comes, will be known for the energy that will animate all who see him. The work of ambition and greed will stand in the way of his. In the right hands, literature is not used as a consolation, broken and broken, but as a decalogue. In this country, we like results and shortcuts to them; and more in this department. In our experience, learning is not learned, nor is genius wise. Scholar's name is taken in vain. We, who are to be channels of that indispensable Power which never sleeps, must give no rest to our diligence. Other people plant and build, bake and stabilize, run and sail, lift and carry, each one so that he can calmly perform the beautiful function that helps all. Will he play, as their gazes follow him from afar in awe, crediting him with delving into great fields of thought and conversing with supernatural allies? If he doesn't light his torch or collect oil, he will be afraid to go through the workshop; he will not dare to hear the music of the saw or the plane; the mate will scold, the mate will hiss at him; he cannot look the blacksmith in the eye; the reapers and the reapers will shame him in the field. A speculative man, a scholar, is a true hero. He is courageous because he sees the omnipotence of what inspires him. Is there only one courage and one war? I don't know how to handle a sword and a gun; may I not therefore be courageous? I thought there was as much courage as men. Is the shooter the only hero? Is man just the butt of a gun or the handle of a Bowie knife? Men of thought fail to fight evil because they wear armor different from theirs. Let them give up foreign methods and foreign courage from now on. Let them do what they can. Let them fight with their strength, not their weakness. It seems to me that a thoughtful man needs no armor but this one - concentration. One thing is decided for him, that he will come to an end. He is not there to defend himself, but to convey his message; if his voice is clear, then clear; if hoarse, then hoarse; if he is broken, he can at least scream; shut up, he can still write; hurt it, maim it, cut off its arms and legs, it can still crawl towards its object on its stumps. The corruption of our generation is that people value a long life rather than simply valuing it as a means of expressing feelings.
The great English patriot Algernon Sidney wrote to his father from prison shortly before his execution: "I have always had it in my mind that when God has placed me in such a state that I cannot save my life except by doing an indecent thing." he shows me that the time has come when I must renounce." Beauty belongs to feeling, and it always deviates from those who deviate from it. The hero rises above all comparison with his contemporaries and with centuries of people, because he does not he appreciates age, land, money, and power, and will oppose all mankind to the call of that private and perfect Right and Beauty in which he lives.
Man is a torch carried by the wind. The ends I have indicated made the scholar or spiritual man indispensable in the Republic or Commonwealth of Men. Nature could not do without a seer and an interpreter. But he could not see or teach without the organ. Then the same need that would have created him reappears in his magnificent gifts. There is no power in the mind, but in turn it becomes an instrument. The descent from genius to talent is part of the natural order and the history of the world. Embedding must be. We cannot eat granite or drink hydrogen. They must be broken down and recombined into corn and water before they enter our body. There is a great deal of spiritual energy in the universe, but it is not tangible to us until we can transform it into a human being. There's plenty of air, but it's worthless until we can turn it into sails and use it to carry us and our cargo across the sea. So it's paid for with hundreds of thousands of our money. Lots of water too, lots of sea, lots of sky; who cares about it? But when we get it where we want it, and in measured quantities, at the mill wheel or at the oar, we'll be buying by the millions. There's a lot of wild nitrogen and unfixed carbon, but it's nothing until we make bread and soup out of it. Thus we find him in superior relations. There's a lot of wild rage, but it doesn't stop until it's dealt with, may I say? and bottled in people; a little clean, not a lot, for each head. How many young geniuses do we know, and nobody but us will ever hear of them because they lack a bit of talent!
Ah, gentlemen, I love talents and achievements; Legs and arms of genius. As Burke said, "It is our duty not only to make the law known, but to make it stand." Therefore I delight to see Divinity in distribution; see people who can make it to the end. These discerning faculties belong to man. I love to see them play and see them trained: this memory brings in its caves the images of the entire past and exposes them at the moment when they can serve the owner; — the mathematical combination skill, which carries the working plane of heaven and earth into the formula. I am inclined to believe, with Emperor Karl V., that "how many languages a man knows, so many times is he a man." I love to see a man with that virtue which no obscurity or disguise can hide, who wins all souls with his way of thinking. I am fascinated by people decorated and armed with human skills, who could alone, or with a few like them, reproduce Europe and America, the fruit of our civilization.
It is excellent when an individual has matured to the point of touching both the center and the edge, so that he is not only broadly intelligent, but carries advice in his bosom for today's emergency; and alternates the contemplation of the fact in the pure intellect, with the complete conversion of the intellect into energy; Jove, and lightning flew from his hand. Maybe I appreciate the power of achievement a little more because there seems to be a bit of a shortage in America in that regard. I don't think there are people more intellectual than ours. They are very worried and curious. But there is a sterility of talent. Those iron personalities, like those in Greece and Italy and once in England, formed to strike fear in kings and attract the eager service of thousands, seldom appear. We have general intelligence, but no cyclops weapons. A very small intellectual force makes a disproportionately large impression, and when one observes how avidly our people entertain and discuss a new theory, native or imported, and how little thought produces so great an effect, we may draw a favorable conclusion as to their intellectual tendencies. and spiritual. It seems that two or three people who would add great constructive energy to a high spiritual goal would come with them, would take the earth with them.
In making this statement about expensive achievements for a scientist, I mainly want to conclude about the dignity of his work according to the splendor of his appointments. Not cheap equipped. The universe was plundered to equip it. He will forge the sharpest weapons from the crudest ore. But if weapons are valued for their own sake, if your talents assume independence and come to work for show, they cannot serve you. It was once said of an eminent Frenchman that he "drown in his talents." The danger of any good skill is the joy of playing it for pride. Talent often develops at the expense of character, and the more it grows, the more mischief and deceit; so that at present everything is wrong, talent is confused with genius, dogma or system with truth, ambition with greatness, ingenuity with poetry, sensuality with art; and young people, coming in with innocent hope, and looking around at education, at vocations and jobs, at teachers and religious and literary classes - finding that nothing outside corresponds to the noble order of the soul, become confused and become become skeptical and alone. Hope is taken away from youth unless, by the grace of God, there is enough strength in their instinct to say, “Everything is wrong and a human invention. I declare again and again from heaven that truth exists new, beautiful, and useful forever." Order is heaven's first law. These gifts, these senses, these faculties are excellent while subordinated; all wasted and mischievous when they take over and they do not listen. Of what use is strength, cunning, beauty, musical voice, birth, breeding or money to a maniac? However, the society in which we live is prone to tantrums; sometimes he he is a maniac all his age, by birth, breeding, beauty, cunning, strength and money. And there is only one defense against this principle of chaos, and that is the principle of order, or the courageous return every moment to infinity. common sense, motherly mind, wise instinct, pure intellect.
When a man begins to devote himself to a certain function, like his logical ability, or memory, or oratory, or arithmetic; the progress of his character and genius to; he ran to the end of his line; to seal the book; the development of that mind is stopped. The scholar got lost in the showman. Society is childish, and is blinded and deceived by weapons, without examining the cause for which it was designed; like boys with drums and troop colors.
The objection of the people of the world to what they call a morbid intellectual bent in our youth today is not hostility to their truth, but to that, the lack of it, that idealistic views unfit their children for work in their sense, and do not qualify them. for any complete life of the best kind. They threaten the validity of the treaty, but do not prevail enough to establish a new kingdom to replace the treaties, oaths, and estates. “We've seen to the bone what you can't do; now show us what you can and what you want to do", asks the practical man, and with good reason.
We are not afraid of the new truth - never the truth, new or old - no, but counterfeits. Everyone hates stupidity and shortcomings, not new methods. The astronomer is not funny as an astronomer, but as long as he is not an astronomer. Be who you are: be as joyful and sovereign. Plotinus is unapologetic, he says bluntly, "sense knowledge is truly ridiculous." "The body and its properties belong to the realm of nothingness, as if necessarily more bodies are produced where lack of being occurs in the greatest degree." "Matter," says Plutarch, "is scarcity." Let the ideas man be as direct and fully engaged as possible at this point. Do you have a thought in your heart? There has never been such a need as now. When we read the newspapers, when we see the impudence with which money and power achieve their goals and prevail over honesty and good intentions, patriotism and faith seem to scream like ghosts. We will not speak for them, because speaking for them seems so weak and hopeless. Let's stick to our opinion and die in silence. But a true orator will make us feel that states and kingdoms, senators, lawyers, and rich men are cobwebs and caterpillars, when seen in the light of this despicable and imbecile truth. Then we felt how cowardly we were. The truth itself is great. And the speaker becomes a fool and a shadow before that light that shines through him. It shines back and forth, diminishes and nullifies everything, and the prophet feels with such joy his lost personality in this victorious life. The spiritual nature thus shows itself in its opposition to any accumulation of material force. There is no mass that can counteract this. That makes a good man against humanity. That is the secret of eloquence, because it is the end of eloquence in half an hour of speech - perhaps in a few sentences - to persuade multitudes of people to renounce their opinions and change the course of life. They do not advance like the people with whom they came, but humiliated, condemned and converted.
We have many religious revivals. We once had what was called the Renaissance of Letters. I want to see a revival of the human mind: to see how men's sense of duty extends to the cultivation and exercise of their intellectual powers: their religion must accompany their thinking and sanctify it. Anyone who carefully examines his own thoughts will find that our science of the mind has not gone very far. He will find that there is someone in him who knows more than he does, a certain stupid life in life; the simple wisdom behind all acquired wisdom; somewhat uncultured or educated; it is not modified or replaceable; a mother mind that does not learn from experience or from books, but already knew everything; he does not prosper, but he was wise both in youth and in old age. More or less obscured, but still remains the same in all, speakingOh, It is,orSim,no to all proposals. it's really magnificentOhand your bigSimthey are more musical than any eloquence. No one has found the limit of their knowledge. Any subject presented to him is already well known to him. His righteousness is perfect; its appearance is catholic and universal, its light as omnipresent as the sun. He throws no organs away, he rests in the presence: and yet he is trusted and obeyed by his happy nature, makes himself active and prominent, and devises new means to his great ends.
So the scholar who has only literary weapons is left without furniture. He must have as many talents as possible; memory, arithmetic, practical power, good manners, temper, a lion's heart, are all good things, and if he has none of these he can still rule, if he has a mainmast - if anything. But he must have a source of funds and be based on need. Because surely the months bring you to the exam day when nothing is abandoned or excused, and for which no teacher, no book, no lecture, and almost no preparation can be of less use. They will have to answer some questions that, I must say frankly, cannot be postponed. For all men, all women, time, their country, their condition, the unseen world are examiners:WHO they are vas? What he does vas? He can vas to take what vas desire? AND leaves method you your knowledge? He can vas ver trend you your life? He can vas please help any alma?
Can he answer these questions? can he dispose of them? Happy if you can silently answer them in the order and time of your life! Happy more than you, benefactor of men, if you can answer them in works of wisdom, art or poetry; granting the general mind of men organic creations, to be the guidance and delight of all who know them. These questions speak of Genius, that power which is below and above all talent, and which proceeds from the constitution of every man: Genius, which is the emanation of that of which it speaks; whose private counsels are not tinged with selfishness, but are laws. Talented people fill eyes with their pretense. They go to one of their camps and loudly convince society that what they are doing is a necessary thing for all people. They have a talent for argumentation and turn a small disagreement into a heated argument. But the world is big, nobody will go there the day after tomorrow. The gun they aimed at can't defend anything but itself, not even itself any longer than a man next to it. What is the use of artificial positions? But Genius doesn't like to weave sand, nor do tricks, but throws himself into real elemental things, which are powers, self-defense; who first survive and then forever tirelessly resist everything that opposes them. Genius has the truth and sticks to it, so that what he says and does is not on a back road, visited only out of curiosity, but on the great roads of nature, which existed before the way of Appius and by which all souls must travel. Genius only delights in assertions which are true in themselves, which attack and wound those who oppose them, whether those who brought them here stay or not; - who are living men, and daily declare a new war against every lie and custom, and will not let the offender go; which society cannot get rid of or forget, but who stand there and don't obey anyone's orders, but are frowning and fearful, and will and must finally obey and do so.
A scholar must be prepared for bad weather, poverty, insults, fatigue, a reputation for failure, and many problems. He must have a lot of patience, ride at anchor and defeat all the enemies that his small arms cannot reach, by a great resistance of submission, of cessation. He must know that, ultimately, he is not here to work, but to be worked on. He must eat the insult, drink the insult, dress and be shod in the insult until he learns that this bitter bread and this shameful dress are also healthy and warm, in short, he is indifferent; he has the same chemistry of flattery and fat life; that they are also a shame and a pain to anyone who has them. I think there is a lot that can be said to discourage and dissuade a young scientist from his career. Speaking freely. Take everything you can off the list. Sift the grain, scare away the lightest souls. We will only keep the heavily armed. Let those come who cannot help coming and who see that there is no choice here, no advantages or disadvantages in comparison with other occupations. Because the great Necessity is our protector, who divides the sun and the shadow according to immutable laws.
Yes, he has his dark days, he has weakness, wait, he has bad company, storms of worries, unpleasant worries, unpleasant company flood him. Then let him know them. He didn't agree with frivolity, nor with distraction. The practical objective is always superior to the literary one. He will not submit to humiliation, but he will carry those crosses with what grace he can. He still needs to turn down as many brilliant opportunities as he can, back off and wait. So, in this penury and thoughtlessness, you will find a purer glow than ever was clothed in displays of intelligence. I invite you not to cheap joys, to the fluttering of satisfied vanity, to soft and rosy comfort; nay, but to nudity, to power, to enthusiasm, to the mountain of vision, to true and natural supremacy, to the company of the great, and to love. Give me nakedness and poverty that I may know them as sure messengers of the Muse. Not in abundance, not in an advanced and prosperous state, she delights. The one who would sacrifice on his altar should not leave a few flowers, an apple or some symbolic gift. No; he must give up orchards and gardens, prosperity and convenience; he can live on treeless moors; sometimes hungry and sometimes rheumatic with a cold. The fire recedes and concentrates into a pure flame, pure as the stars it rises.
But, gentlemen, there is apparently no end to these extensions. I've exhausted your patience and just started. I may have been wiser to stick to my first intention of limiting my illustration to one subject, but it is much easier to say many things than to explain one. Well, you will see the course of all my thoughts, namely, that a scholar must be much more than a scholar, that his ends give value to all means, but he must subdue and maintain his methods; that his use of books is occasional and infinitely subordinate; which he should read with pride, as one who knows the original, and therefore cannot value the copy too highly. In like manner he must lightly hold every tradition, every opinion, every person, because of his devotion to the Eternal Spirit who unspeakably dwells with him. He will have a high opinion of his destiny. He is here to know the secret of Genius; to become, not a reader of poetry, but Homer, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Swedenborg, at the source, through it. If one man could communicate his faith to another, if I could prevail in communicating incommunicable mysteries, he would see the breadth of his dominion; — that whenever you ascend in your true and native path, you receive the keys of Nature and history, and ascend the same steps to science and joy.
PLUTARCH.
Alma
It has a company of its own category:
Be great, be true and all Scipians,
Katosi, mudri patrioti Rima,
I will contact you and stay with you
And comfort you with my high society.
He planted for joy and beauty
With the joy of fairy gardens,
And the foreboding of fantasy haunted him
Strange with men and women.
[This work was originally printed as an introduction to PlutarchMoral,edited by Professor William W. Goodwin and published in 1871 by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co, by whose courtesy it has been included in this edition.]
It is incredible that a writer so well known as Plutarch, not only to scholars, but to all men of reading, and whose history can be so easily compiled from his works, should not have accurate recollections of his life, not even the dates of his death. birth and death, he should have come to us. Strange that the author of so many famous biographies waited so long for his. It is presumed that he was born around the year 50 of the Christian era. He was introduced as a teacher by the emperor Trajan, who dedicated one of his books to him, who lived a long time in Rome with great respect, who received the dignity of consul from Trajan, and who appointed him governor of Greece. He was a man whose true superiority needed no such flattery. However, the simple truth is that he was not Trajan's teacher, who dedicated no books to him, was not consul in Rome, nor governor of Greece; he seems never to have been to Rome, except on two occasions, and that in the service of the people of his native Choerone; and though he found or made friends in Rome, and read lectures to some friends or scholars, he did not know or learn the Latin language there; with one or two dubious exceptions, he never cites a Latin book; and although he is a contemporary, in youth or in old age, of Persius, Juvenal, Lucan and Seneca, Quintilian, Martial, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder and the Younger, he does not name them, and in turn his name is never named. mentioned by any Roman writer. The community of personal letters and news seems to have been even rarer at that time than the lack of printing, railways and telegraphs would suggest.
But this neglect of his contemporaries was made up for by his immense popularity in modern nations. Although his books were never known to the world in their own Greek language, it is interesting that the "Lives" were translated and printed in Latin, and later in Italian, French and English, more than a century before the original "works" were published. even printed. For while the "Lives" were translated at Rome in 1470, and the "Morals" piece by piece soon after, the first printed edition of the Greek "Works" did not appear until 1572. Hardly current in their own Greek, these found interpreters. scholars in the scholars of Germany, Spain and Italy. In France, amid the most turbulent civil wars, Amyot's translation aroused general attention. His ingenious version of "Life" of 1559, "Morals" of 1572 had considerable success. King Henry IV. wrote his wife, Marie de Medici: "vivid Dieu.By the living God, you could not have sent me anything that could be more pleasant than the news of the pleasure you took in this reading. Plutarch always delights me with new news. To love him is to love me; because he was the teacher of my youth for a long time. My good mother, to whom I owe everything and who, she said, did not want to see her son a famous fool, she put this book in my hands almost when I was still a child in her womb. He was like my conscience and whispered in my ear many good suggestions and maxims for my conduct and management of my affairs.” Even earlier, Rabelais cites him with due respect. Montaigne, 1589, says: “We fools would be lost if this book had not pulled us out of the mire. By this grace of his we now dare to speak and write. Ladies can read to teachers. "This is our breviary." Montesquieu derived his definition of law from him and, in his ownhe thinks,declares: “I have always been fascinated by Plutarch; in his writings there are circumstances relating to persons, which give great pleasure; and add examples. Saint Evremond was reading Plutarch to the great Condé under a tent. Rollin, for so long the historian of antiquity in France, unhesitatingly drew his history from him. Voltaire respected him and Rousseau recognized him as his master. In England, Sir Thomas North translated the Lives in 1579 and Holland the Morals in 1603, in time for them to be used by Shakespeare in his plays and read by Bacon, Dryden and Cudworth.
Then, more recently, there has been a considerable revival in France of a taste for Plutarch and his contemporaries; ahead, we might say, with the distinguished critic Sainte-Beuve. M. Octave Gréard, in a critical work on "Morals", carefully corrected popular legends and built his true biography on the basis of the works of Plutarch himself. M. Leveque made an exposition of his moral philosophy, entitled "Doctor of the Soul", inMagazine of Two The worlds;and M. C. Martha, chapters on the genius of Marcus Aurelius, Persius, and Lucretius, in the same journal; while M. Fustel de Coulanges traced the original domestic religion from its roots in the Aryan race, then in its Greek and Roman descendants.
Plutarch occupies a unique place in literature as an encyclopedia of Greek and Roman antiquity. Everything distinguished in fact or fiction, in thought, in character, in institutions, in science - natural, moral or metaphysical, or in memorable sayings, attracted his attention and reached his pen with more or less fullness of record. It is, among prose writers, what Chaucer is among English poets, a repertory for anyone who wants a story without seeking it firsthand—the compensation of all accepted traditions. And all this without any superior intellectual gift. He is not a deep mind; he is not a master of any science; he is not a lawgiver, like Lycurgus or Solon; not a metaphysician, like Parmenides, Plato or Aristotle; he is not the founder of any sect or community, like Pythagoras or Zeno; he is not a naturalist, like Pliny or Linnœus; not the mental leader of a generation, like Plato or Goethe. But if he didn't have the greatest powers, he was still a man of rare gifts. He had that universal sympathy for genius which makes all his victories its own; though he never used verse, he had many of the qualities of a poet in the vigor of his imagination, the rapidity of his mental associations, and his keen, objective eye. But what makes it special is that it is a prime example of illuminating the intellect with the power of morality. Though he is the kindest of charities, this generous religion gives himflight attendantlike Goethe's.
Plutarch was well born, well educated, well conditioned; a self-respecting, kind man, who knew how to improve a good education through travel, dedication to private and public business; a master of ancient culture, he read books with fair reviews; extremely sociable, he was a king in his own house, surrounded himself with chosen friends and knew the value of good conversation; and declares in a letter written to his wife that he "hardly finds an erasure, as in a well-written book, in the happiness of his life."
The reach of the mind pleases the writer. The reason for Plutarch's great popularity is his humanity. A man of society, of business; vertical, practical; a good son, husband, father, and friend,—has a taste for the common life, and knows the court, the camp, and the court, but also the smithy, the farm, the kitchen, and the cellar, and every dish and use, and with the look of a sage or a poet. Thought defends him from any degradation. He doesn't get lost, because the attractions come from within, not from without. A poet in verse or prose must have a perceptive eye, but an intellectual co-perception. Plutarch's memory is long and his horizon broad. Nothing touches man without him feeling what is his; he is tolerant even of vice, if he considers it genius; worldly enough to give credit to the devil, and would have embraced Robert Burns when he cried:
“Oh wad vi then' a thought eu to repair!"
He is a philosopher with philosophers, a naturalist with naturalists, and enough of a mathematician to leave some of his readers, now and then, a great distance behind, or respectfully skip to the next chapter. But this scholastic omniscience of our author inspires a new respect, for he is expected to understand his own diagram.
He goes on to suggest Montaigne, who was the best reader he ever encountered, though Montaigne surpassed his teacher in the point and surprise of his sentences. Plutarch had the religion Montaigne wanted and which protected him from licentiousness; and though Plutarch is equally clear, his moral sense is always pure. What better praise has any writer received than that which Montaigne considers "honest in giving things and not words", adding dryly: "it irritates me that he is so exposed to the spoils of those who know him". It is one of the blessings of literary history, the bond that inextricably unites these two names over fourteen centuries. Montaigne, while grabbing Ætienne de la Boèce with one hand, extends the other towards Plutarch. These distant friendships enchant and honor us on all sides, and represent the best example of universal citizenship and fraternity of the human mind.
I don't know where to find a book - to use Ben Jonson's phrase - "so charged with life" and in the mostly ethical chapters, which tend to be heavy and sentimental. No poet could illustrate his thought with newer or more striking similes or happier anecdotes. His style is realistic, picturesque and diverse; his sharp, purposeful eyes that see everything that moves, glitters, or threatens in nature or art, or thoughts or dreams. Indeed, twilights, shadows, omens and ghosts have a charm to him. He believes in witchcraft and the evil eye, in demons and spirits - but he prefers, if he wants, to talk about it in the morning. His liveliness and exuberance never leave him hanging or lashing out at an incident. I admire his fast-paced, ramshackle style, as if he has so many anecdotes about his heroes that he is forced to suppress more than he counts to keep up with the busy story.
Its surprising merit is the ingenious ease with which it treats its varied subjects. There are no traces of labor or pain. He gossips about heroes, philosophers and poets; virtue and genius; of love and destiny and empires. He takes pleasure in reciting what is best in his reading: the chatty story. But he is no courtier, nor is Boswell: he is always manly, far from flattery, and would be welcome among the sages and warriors of whom he relates, as one who has a birthright to admire and recount these deeds and moving speeches. I consider him a better professor of rhetoric than any modern teacher. His superstitions are poetic, illusory, affirmative. A poet could spend all day rhyming with passages from Plutarch, page by page. Undoubtedly, this superb proposal for the modern reader owes much to foreign air, Greek wine, religion and the history of ancient heroes. Thebes, Sparta, Athens and Rome enchant us with the disgust of the passing hour. But your own joy and robust health are also magnetic. In his vast quotations and allusions, we quickly fail to distinguish what he quotes from what he invents. In memory of him, we sail into the ports of every nation, enter every private property, and we do not cease to discriminate against owners, but we give him the praise of all. Everything is Plutarch, by right of eminent authority, and all property belongs to this Emperor. This lightness and fullness make his narrative a delight, and this is overlooked by more careful historians. However, it stimulates curiosity, sometimes creates a need to read them. He rejects any attempt at rivalry with Thucydides; but I suppose there are a hundred readers where Thucydides finds one, and Thucydides must often thank Plutarch for that one. He has preserved for us a multitude of precious phrases, in prose or verse, from authors whose books have been lost; and these embalmed fragments, thanks to his loving selection alone, became the proverbs of later mankind. I hope it is only my vast ignorance which leads me to believe that they have not survived from their pages - not only Thespis, Polemos, Euphorion, Ariston, Evenus, etc., but also fragments of Menander and Pindar. In any case, reading the fragments he rescued from the lost authors, I picked up one more example of a holy concern that has been happening in our time, and is still looking and going.the papyrusof ruined libraries and buried cities, and called attention to what the ancients might call the civility of Fate, - we should say, more commendable, a benevolent Providence, which uses the violence of war, earthquakes and altered watercourses, to save underground through barbarous periods the relics of ancient art, and thus enable us to witness the inversion of the alphabets of ancient races, and the deciphering of forgotten languages, so as to complete the annals of the ancestors of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
His enthusiasm for poetry leads him to happily quote the speech of Gorgias, "that the tragic poet who deceived was fairer than he who did not deceive, and he who was deceived was wiser than he who was not deceived."
It is the consequence of this poetic quality in your mind that I confess that, in reading it, I take up details and carry away a vague recollection of the argument or general design of the chapter; but he is no less welcome, and leaves the reader with pleasure and a need to complete his studies. Many instances of nervous expression and happy allusion may be given, which point to the poet and orator, though he is not ambitious in these titles, and holds fast to the safety of prose narration, and only shows his intellectual sympathy with them; but I can't help quoting a sentence or two that no one who reads them will forget. Speaking of the style of the Pythian oracle, he says:
"He does vas that's it notice, some one to want to say, what a grace leaves It is you sapfina measures, eu as they enthusiasm eu tickle o ears eu costumes of o listeners? While o Sibyl, s whether disturbed faces, pronouncing phrases no total imagined eu serious, em drug em namirisan, continued whether glass a mil years through o grace of o Divinity e he speaks within that."
Another gives an insight into his mystical tendencies:-
"Water It is morning, looking for Epaminondas eye o path of Liga burial, e found e Liza tive taught em as distant as o not portable mysteries of our industry, eu e o warm Doemon e waited already liza, presided they em EU e he can to knock already o pilot of o navigation of o brod. O ways of life they are grande, all you several they are men managed after o Godmon. When Teanor tive He said It is, about view carefully already Epaminondas as EU about designed a recently is looking for you dele nature eu Tendencies."
And here is his sentiment on superstition, somewhat summed up in Lord Bacon's quote on it: "I thought it better that men should say, There was no man like Plutarch, than that they should say that there was a Plutarch who would eat their children." as soon as she was born, as the poets speak of Saturn."
The chapter "On Happiness" should be read by poets and other sages; and the power of his pen appears in the chapter "Whether the Athenians were more warlike or more learned" and in his attack on usurers.
There is, of course, a big difference in the time these speeches were written, and therefore in their value. Many of them are just drafts or notes for chapters in preparation, never digested or finished. Many are notes for classroom disputes. His miserable rage against Herodotus may have been a youthful essay: he struck me as cautious and industrious; or perhaps, in the school of rhetoric, where Herodotus's subject was the day's lesson, Plutarch was sorted to be on the opposite side.
The simplicity of Plutarch, as of ancient writers in general, arising from the habit of writing for one sex only, has a great gain in brevity and, in our new civilizing tendencies, may tend to correct a false delicacy.
We are always interested in a man who treats his intellect well. We expect this from philosophers – from Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza and Kant; but we know that metaphysical studies in minds of wide horizons and incessant inspiration have their dangers. We sometimes wonder whether a metaphysician can treat the intellect well. The central fact is a superhuman intelligence, pouring into us from its unknown source, to be received with religious reverence and defended against any mixing of our will. But this tall muse comes and goes; and the danger is that, when the muse is lacking, the student tends to supply her place with microscopic subtleties and logomachy. It is fatal to spiritual health to lose wonder. "Let others argue," said St. Augustine; "I wonder." Plato and Plotinus are enthusiasts, who respect the race; but the logic of sophists and materialists, whether Greek or French, fills us with disgust. While we expect this admiration and reverence of the philosopher's spiritual power in his closet, we praise it in the man of the world; — a man who lives in easy relations with existing institutions, and yet points to his perception of these high oracles; as well as Plutarch, Montaigne, Hume and Goethe. These people immediately step out of the ordinary and are not wealth parasites. Sometimes they might compromise, go out to dinner, give and receive compliments; but they keep open the fountain of wisdom and health. Plutarch is equally faithful to this center. It hasn't lost its charm. He is a distinguished idealist, who does not hesitate to say, like another Berkeley, "Matter is itself scarcity"; and again, "The sun is the cause of Apollo's ignorance of all men, by sense drawing the rational intellect from what is to what appears." He maintains that "souls are naturally endowed with the faculty of foresight"; reveals in memory, its miraculous power to resist time. He believes that "Alexander invaded Persia with more help from Aristotle than from his father Philip". He believes that "those who have their own ideas are a poor judge of others, the truth is that the Eleans would have been the most correct judges of the Olympic Games if they were not Elean players". He says of Socrates that he tried to unite reason and things and make truth consist of sober reason. He, along with Plato, marvels at the nail of pain and pleasure that binds the body to the mind. Mathematics gives him an indescribable pleasure, but he loved the proportion that teaches us to calculate what is fair, equal; and not what is equal, just.
From philosophy, he is more interested in results than in method. He has a fair instinct for a teacher's presence and would rather sit as a scholar with Plato than a debater; and, true to his practical character, he wants the philosopher not to hide himself in a corner, but to recommend himself to men of public respect and governmental genius: "for if he once possessed such a man with the principles of honor and faith, he would uses the compendious method, doing good to one, to bind a large part of mankind." It is moderation, not eclecticism, that makes him hostile to the strict Stoic, or the Gymnosophist, or Diogenes, or any other extremist. This vice of theirs will not prevent you from quoting every good word you utter. He is an eclectic in the sense that Montaigne was - willing to be an onlooker, not a dogmatist.
In many of these chapters it is easy to infer the relationship between Greek philosophers and those who looked to them for instruction. This teaching was not a game or routine, but strict, sincere, and gentle. The role of each class is just as important as the role of the GM. They are like baseball players, for whom the pitcher, bat, catcher and scout are equally important. And Plutarch believed, along with Ariston, "that neither the bath nor the lecture has any purpose unless it is purgative." Plutarch takes so much pleasure in reality that he has none in verbal discussions; he is impatient with sophisms and despises epikarmic debates: as if yesterday the debtor owed nothing today, as if he were another man; So the one who was invited to dinner yesterday arrives the next night as an unwanted guest, because he is a completely different person.
Except as historical curiosities, little can be said for the scientific value of the "Philosophers' Opinions," the "Questions," and the "Symposium." These are, for the most part, very coarse opinions; many of them so childish that one would believe that Plutarch hastily adopted the notes of his younger auditors, some of them misreporting the teacher's dogma, who brushed them aside asto the memofor future revision, which he never gave, and were published posthumously. There are hints of cutting-edge science here and there. You may extract from this record the wild speculations of shepherds and travelers, statements which are predictions of facts established by modern science. Normally, when Thales, Anaximenes or An-Aximander is quoted, this is a really good estimate. Explanation of the rainbow, the flood of the Nile andway,etc., are righteous; and bad guesses are no worse than many of Lord Bacon's.
His natural history is that of a lover and poet, not a physicist. His humanity lovingly bowed to find the virtues he loved in animals too. “Knowing and not knowing is affirmative or negative about a dog; to know him is to be his friend; not knowing you, your enemy." He quotes the saying of Thucydides that "not only does the desire for honor never grow old, but still less the inclination to society and affection for the state, which alike in ants and bees continue to the end . last place."
But, although curious about the school's questions about the nature and origin of things, his extreme interest in every character trait and his broad humanity constantly lead him to Morality, to the study of Beauty and the Good. Hence his love for heroes, his rule of life and his clear convictions about the high destiny of the soul. La Harpe said that "Plutarch is the most natural moral genius that ever lived".
It is almost inevitable to compare Plutarch with Seneca, who, born fifty years earlier, was for years his contemporary, though they never met, and their writings may have been unknown to each other. Plutarch is a genius, with an infinite interest in all things human and divine; Seneca, professional philosopher, writer of phrases and, although he maintains a high path, is less interesting, because less human; and when we closed his book, we forgot to open it again. There is a certain violence and lack of sweetness in his opinions. He doesn't have Plutarch's sympathy. He is tired of constant didactics. He doesn't live happily. Can not the common lover of truth enjoy the virtues of those he meets, and the virtues they propose, so that at some point he is completely satisfied? Seneca, however, was a more worldly man than Plutarch; and, by his conversation with Nero's court, and his own skill, like Voltaire's, in living with businessmen, and imitating their address in business by a large accumulation of his own property, he learned to temper his philosophy with facts. He had ventured far—apparently too far—because of such a clear conscience he essentially possessed. Yet we owe famous maxims to this wonderful moralist; as if the scarlet vices of Nero's time had the natural effect of driving virtue to its highest antagonisms. "Seneca," says L'Estrange, "was a heathen Christian, and is very good reading for our heathen Christians." He was a Buddhist in his cool abstract virtue, with a certain impermanence beyond humanity. He called pity "the error of narrow souls". And yet what noble words we owe him: "God divided man into men to help one another;" and again, "A good man differs from God in nothing but duration." His thoughts are fine, as long as he has the right to express them. Plutarch, meanwhile, with all the virtues under heaven, maintained that the height of wisdom was to philosophize, and not to appear to do so, and to cheerfully attain the same ends as the most serious ones propose.
Plutarch thought that "truth is the greatest good that man can receive and the most beautiful blessing that God can give". "When you are convinced in your mind that you cannot offer or do anything more agreeable to the gods than to entertain a correct idea of them, then you will shun superstition as no less evil than atheism." He quotes Euripides to assert: "If the gods do something dishonest, they are not gods", and Antigone's memorable words, in Sophocles, regarding moral sentiments:
"Why didn't it start now or yesterday
These thoughts, whatever they are, I still can't
There will be a man your first entry met."
Your belief in the immortality of the soul is another measure of your profound humanity. He reminds his friends that the Delphic oracles provided several answers which were essentially the same as those he had previously given to Corax the Naxian:-
"It seems profane impiety
To learn that human souls die."
He believes that the doctrine of God's providence and that of the immortality of the soul rest on the same basis. He believes that it is impossible for a man whom the gods love not to be happy, or for a wise and just man not to be the favorite of the gods. He was hated by the Epicureans, who believed that the soul perishes when it is separated from the body. "The soul, unable to die, suffers in the body like caged birds." He believes "that children's souls pass immediately to a better and more divine state".
I can easily believe that an anxious soul can find in Plutarch's chapter entitled "An unattainable pleasure by Epicurus" and his "Letter to his wife Timoxena" a sweeter and more comforting argument for immortality than in Plato's Phœdon; for Plutarch always deals with the question from the human rather than the metaphysical side; how Walter Scott took on boys and youth, in England and America, and through them their fathers. His great sense of duty led him to his severe delight in heroism; stoic resistance to low yield; fight with luck; respect for truth; his love for Sparta and heroes like Aristides, Phocion and Cato. He insists that the greatest good is at work. He thinks that the inhabitants of Asia became one's vassals because they could not pronounce a single syllable; What is no. His sense of devotion to right reason is so strong that he fights happiness whenever he names it. In Rome, she thinks her wings have been clipped: she is no longer standing on a ball, but on a cube the size of Italy. He thinks that Alexander won his battles in Asia and Africa because of superior virtue, and the Greeks won theirs against Persia.
But this stoic in his struggle with happiness, with vices, womanhood and idleness, is as gentle as a woman when other strings are played. He is the kindest of men. "Raising a trophy in the soul against anger is what only a great and victorious force is capable of achieving." — "Anger takes the mind away from the door and locks the door." He is tender almost to the point of tears when he writes about "Friendship", about "Raising Children" and about "Brotherly Love". “There is no treasure,” he says he, “fathers can give to their children, like a brother; It is a friend that nature gives, a gift that nothing can give; once lost, it cannot be replaced. The prophet Arcadian, mentioned by Herodotus, was obliged to make a wooden leg instead of the one that had been cut off. A brother, at odds with his brother, who looks for a stranger in the street to replace him, is like one who will cut off his own leg to give himself a wooden one.”
All your judgments are noble. He believed, like Epicurus, that it is better to do than to receive kindness. "That polite, kind, benign disposition and behavior is not as pleasant, as required or as liked by any of those we talk to as it is by those who have it." There really is no limit to his generosity: "It would be generous to lend our eyes and ears, nay, if possible, our reason and courage to others, while we are idle or asleep." Its exaggerated, imaginative humanity is reminiscent of Charles Lamb, though it vastly surpasses it. When the guests left, he “left a lamp burning, as a sign of respect for fire, because nothing is as animalistic as fire. It moves and feeds on itself, and with its radiance, like a soul, it reveals and makes everything visible, and in its extinction it shows some force that seems to come from the vital principle, because it makes noise and resists, like a dying animal. or violently slaughtered; and praises the Romans who, when the feast was over, "took good care of the lamps and did not take away the food they gave them, but allowed them to live and shine with it".
I can almost regret that the learned editor of this republication has not preserved, if only as a piece of history, Mr. Morgan, the editor and partly the writer of this 1718 translation. In his dedication to the work, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Wm. Awakened, he tells the Primate that “Plutarch was the wisest man of his time, and if he were a Christian, one of the best too;all for he was dele stand destiny to do bloom you they dana of ignorance, Who, 't It is a favorable opinion to do anything e o O almighty to want Never my what; e our almas It could to be s amor PHILOSOPHER together you o warm state of blessing."The puzzle in a worthy translator's mind between his theology and his reason reappears in the puzzle of his sentence.
I know that some critics dismiss the chapter "Apothegms of the Noble Commanders" as not being Plutarch's original work; but the thing is good, and so agreeable to his taste and genius, that if he had found it, he would have adopted it. If he did not compose the work, many, perhaps most, of the anecdotes were already scattered throughout his works. If I am not sorry that a work that is not his is attributed to him, I am sorry that he himself suffered such destruction. What a trilogy has been lost to mankind in the lives of Scipio, Epaminondas and Pindar!
His delight in generosity and self-sacrifice made his books, like Homer's Iliad, a bible for heroes; and wherever the Cid is enjoyed, the legends of Arthur, Alfred the Saxon, and Richard the Lionheart, Robert the Bruce, Sydney, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Cromwell, Nelson, Bonaparte, and the Chronicles of Walter Scott in prose or verse, - there Plutarch, to whom is told the story of Leonidas, of Agesilaus, of Aristides, Phocion, Themistocles, Demosthenes, Epaminondas, Caesar, Cato, and others, sits as giver of the crown of the noble knight and laureate of the ancient world.
The chapters "On Alexander's Happiness" in "Morals" are an important addition to the portrait in "Lives". The combination of sublime courage in Alexander and the refinement of his pure tastes, making him the bearer of civilization in the East, is in the spirit of an ideal hero and endears him to Plutarch. This prince kept Homer's poems not only for himself under a pillow in his tent, but also took them to the delight of the Persian youth, and also introduced them to the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. He persuaded the Sogdians not to kill, but to take care of their aged parents; Persians to respect and not marry their mothers; Scythians bury and do not eat their dead parents. What a fitting fruit and monument of his better days was his city of Alexandria, the birthplace or home of Plotinus, St. Augustine, Synesius, Posidonius, Ammonius, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Origen, Aratus, Apollonius, and Apuleius.
If Plutarch delighted in heroes and maintained a balance between the stern Stoic and the indulgent Epicurean, his humanity shines no less in his dealings with his personal friends. He was a gracious host and guest, and was happy to bring select companions to dinner. He knew the laws of conversation and the laws of good fellowship as well as Horace, and he wrote them with such frankness and grace that they are good reading today. Guests whom the artist did not invite to the private pension, but were introduced by the guest as his company, were invited by the Greekshadows;and it is disputed whether it was proper to bring them, and he treats it openly, but concludes: “Therefore, when I extend an invitation, as it is difficult to violate the customs of the place, I permit my guests to bring shadows; but when I am invited like a shadow, I assure you I refuse to go. He has an objection to introducing music to parties. He thought it wonderful that a man who had milk in his breast and all the delights befitting a feast should play the flute and the harp, and by this external means noise destroys all the sweetness that is his own and proper.
I cannot close these notes without expressing my sense of the valuable service the Editor has rendered its Author and its readers. Professor Goodwin is a silent benefactor of the book wherever I compare editions. I did not know how careless and perverse the old book was in parts, until, on a recent reading of the old text, finding something absurd or unintelligible, I referred to the new text, and found a clear and exact statement in its place. This is Plutarch's justification. Correction refers not only to names of authors and places that have been grossly altered or misspelled, but also to inexcusable liberties taken by translators, whether through negligence or foolishness.
A testament to Plutarch's skill as a writer is that he resists translation very well. In spite of its carelessness and its many errors, which, I doubt not, have tried the patience of its present editor and proofreader, I confess that I like this old version because of its strong English style. The work of some forty or fifty University men, some of them imperfect in their Greek, is a monument to the English language in a period of singular vigor and freedom of style. I hope that the Commission of the Philological Society of London, charged with the preparation of a Critical Dictionary, will not pass over these volumes, which display the richness of their language to greater advantage than many books held up as models. It runs through a whole series of conversations in the street, in the market, in the cafe, in the courts, in the palace, in the college and in the church. No doubt there are many vulgar phrases and many misprints; but it is the talk of business and conversation, and in all pitches, from the lowest to the highest.
To these translators we owe many keen insights into their authors' wit and humor, sometimes even to the point of adding a point. I note one that, although the translator justified it in a note, the Editor's harshest criticism did not maintain. "If there were no sun, we might, in spite of all the other stars, spend our days in Venerable Darkness, as Heraclitus calls it." I find humor in the expression that may account for its dubious accuracy.
It is a credit to our Republic to publish a book which can compel ambitious young men, before they mount the platform of county conventions, to read the "Laconian Apothegms" and the "Apothegms of the Great Commanders." If we could keep the secret and only communicate it to a few selected candidates, we could be confident that through this noble infiltration, they would easily win over all competitors. But since it was the desire of these old patriots to fill all of Sparta or Rome with their magnificent spirit, not just a few leaders, we hasten to offer them to the American people.
Plutarch's popularity will return in rapid cycles. If in this decade he is excessively read, so that his anecdotes and opinions become commonplace, and the novelties of the day are sought out for variety, his excellent values will awaken the opinions and thoughts of the best minds, and his books will be reprinted and read again by the next generation. And so Plutarch will be rediscovered from time to time as long as there are books.
HISTORIC GRADES OF LIFE EU WORDS you NOVI ENGLAND.
"From old things everything is old,
Of the good things, none is good enough; —
Let's show we can help with framing
A world of other things.”
The old ways were giving way. A kind of tenderness grew in people, previously unnoticed. Children were repressed and kept in the background; now they were considered, petted, and pampered. I remember the remark of a witty physician who remembered the troubles of his own youth; he said, "It was a disgrace to be born when children were nothing and to live until men were nothing."
There are always two parties, the party of the Past and the party of the Future; establishment and movement. Sometimes resistance is revived, schism permeates the world and appears in literature, philosophy, church, state and social mores. It is not easy to date these periods of activity precisely, but in this area one thing has been noticed, say 1820 and twenty years after that.
It seemed to be a war between the intellect and the affection; the division in nature, which divided all the churches of Christendom into papal and protestant; Calvinism in the old and new schools; Quakerism in the old and the new; brought new divisions in politics; as a new conscience touching temperance and bondage. The key to this period seems to be that the mind has become aware of itself. Men became reflective and intellectual. There was a new awareness. Earlier generations acted on the belief that bright social prosperity was the blessedness of man, and uniformly sacrificed the citizen to the state. The modern mind believed that the nation existed for the individual, for the care and education of each man. This idea, crudely written in revolutions and national movements, had much more precision in the philosopher's mind; the individual is the world.
This realization is a sword that has never been unsheathed before. It divides and separates bone and marrow, soul and body, yea, almost a man from himself. It is the age of interruption, dissociation, freedom, analysis, letting go. Every man for himself. The speaker refrains from speaking in any other name; she answers only for herself. Social feelings are weak; the sense of patriotism is weak; worship is low; natural feelings weaker than they were. People develop philosophies about homeland, parents, and relationships. There is universal resistance to the ties and ligaments that were once considered essential to civil society. The new breed is rigid, stubborn and rebellious; they are fanatics for freedom; they hate tolls, taxes, turnstiles, banks, hierarchies, governors, yes, almost laws. They have necks of inexpressible tenderness; he pulled his hair. They rebel against theological and political dogma; against mediation, or saints, or any nobility in the invisible.
Old age tends to loneliness. The association with time is accidental, momentary and hypocritical, the separation intrinsic and progressive. Association is only for power, - for means; the goal is the growth and independence of the individual. In the old days, society was in flux. There was a sacred band, the Theban phalanx. There can be none now. Colleges, military bodies, or unions might be imagined for a moment inseparable from their wine; but it is a painted rim and has no circumference. The age of arithmetic and criticism has arrived. It was enough to destroy old faith structures in all segments of society for several centuries. Astrology, magic, palmistry disappeared a long time ago. The last ghost has been laid to rest. Demonology is running out. The prerogative, the government, is crumbling every day. Europe is littered with wreckage; constitution once a week. In social mores and morals, the revolution is equally evident. In the courts, crimes of fraud have taken the place of crimes of coercion. The shareholder took the place of the belligerent baron. The nobles will no longer have, as feudal lords, the power over life and death over the serfs, but now, in another form, as capitalists, they will eat them with all love and peace as before. No, government itself becomes the refuge of those it was invented to contain. "Are there bandits on the road?" asked a traveler in France. "Oh no, go easy on that one," said the innkeeper; "Why should these men keep the highway, when they can steal just as efficiently and much more freely in the office?"
In literature, the effect appeared in a decisive trend of criticism. The most significant literary work of that period has this introversion as its hero and theme: I am thinking of the poem about Faust. In philosophy, Immanuel Kant made the best catalog of human abilities and the best analysis of the mind. Hegel too, especially. In science, the Frenchspecialist,Precise, relentless, with barometer, pan, chemical test and calculator in hand, he travels to every nook and cranny, weighing, analyzing and reporting. And chemistry, which is the analysis of matter, taught us to eat gas, drink gas, step on gas and eat gas. The same decomposition changed the whole face of physics; as in all arts, manners. Authority is falling, in church, college, courts, colleges, medicine. The experience is credible; antiquity has become ridiculous.
It was characterized by a certain predominance of the intellect in the relationship of forces. The warm, dark spirit of Earth that made the power of ages past more powerful than she knew, with instincts instead of science, like a mother giving food from her own breast instead of preparing it with chemical and culinary skill - the hot was black from feeling and vegetation - everything disappeared; another clock chimed and other shapes appeared. Instead of a social existence shared by all, there was now separation. Every man for himself; led to find all his resources, hopes, rewards, companionship, and divinity within himself.
Young people were born with a stab in the brain, a tendency to introversion, to self-dissection, to the anatomization of motives. The popular faith of our fathers has experienced many severe new-age shocks; of Arminians, which was the modern name for apostates from Calvinism, sixty years ago; after the English philosophical divines, Hartley and Priestley and Belsham, followers of Locke; and then I must say much later than Swedenborg's slow but extraordinary influence; a man of extraordinary mind, though, I think, infected with a certain suspicion of insanity, and therefore generally rejected, yet having singular power over an important intellectual class; then the powerful influence of the genius and character of Dr. Channing.
Germany gave us vain criticism till 1820, when Edward Everett returned after five years spent in Europe, and brought to Cambridge his rich results, which no one was so qualified to present and commend with the natural charm and brilliance of his rhetoric. . He first introduced us to Wolff's theory of the Homeric writings, with Heyne's critique. The novelty of learning lost none of the skill and genius of their intercourse, and the rudest student found a new morning opening up for him in the lecture hall at Harvard Hall.
There was an influence on the youth of Everett's genius almost comparable to that of Pericles in Athens. He had an inspiration that did not go beyond his head, but that made him a master of elegance. If any of my readers were at that time in Boston or Cambridge, they would easily remember her radiant beauty of person, her classical style, her large heavy eyes, marble lids, which gave an impression of mass which the insignificance of her form required; fit lips; a voice of such rich timbres, of such precise and perfect expression, that, although somewhat nasal, it was the smoothest, most beautiful and most correct of all the instruments of the time. The word he said, the way he said it, became current and classic in New England. He had a great talent for collecting facts and bringing those he had to bear with ingenious happiness on the subject of the moment. Let him rise to speak on any occasion, a fact has always appeared which, with some other fact well known to the public, constituted the most remarkable and happy coincidence. It has been remarked that for a man who has thrown so many facts he has rarely been convicted of error. He had a lot of special learning and all of his learning was available for class purposes. All of this was a new lesson, wonderfully accepted and encouraged by the young people. It has been communicated with so much coolness and gravity from so dominant a platform, as if in the consciousness and consideration of all history and all learning - adorned with so many simple and austere beauties of expression, and enriched with so many excellent digressions and meaningful quotations, that, though nothing could be imagined in advance less attractive or less suited to the green boys of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, with their immature reading of Latin and Greek, than exegetical discourses in the style of Voss, Wolff, and Ruhnken, on Orphic Remnants and antitheses. -Homeric, but this learning immediately occupied the highest place of our imagination in our uninhabited American Parnassus. All his hearers felt the extraordinary beauty and dignity of the manners, and even the rudest were glad that they had gone in time to hear the manners, when they found that the subject was not for them. In the classroom he eschewed all embellishment and indulged in a game of minute scholarship in a style of perfect simplicity. In the pulpit (for he was then a priest) he redeemed himself and his auditor by self-denial from the professorial chair, and, with a still childlike simplicity of manner, gave free rein to his extravagant, unusual, and rich fancy.
Then all the richness of rhetoric was displayed, such as we have never seen in this country. Amazing how memorable words were created that were just nice pictures and didn't cover any new or valid thoughts. It abounded with phrases, wit, satire, brilliant allusions, unforgettable quotes, bold imagery, parables, and even a sort of challenging experiment in his own wit and skill in giving prophetic weight to a Hebrew or rabbinic word; - feats which no man could better accomplish, such was his self-control and the certainty of his conduct. His whole speech was music, and with such variety and inventiveness that the ear never tired. His poetic quotes were particularly beautiful. He was fond of quoting Milton, and with such sweet modulation that it seemed to give as much beauty as he lent; and everything he quoted will be remembered by all who heard him, with an inseparable association with his voice and genius. He had nothing in common with vulgarity and infirmity, but speaking, walking, sitting, he was as withdrawn and unusual as a star. The slightest anecdote of his behavior or conversation was eagerly picked up and repeated, and every young scholar could recite brilliant phrases from his sermons, accompanied by the mimicry, good or bad, of his voice. That influence went farther, for he who was heard with fluttering hearts and shining eyes in bright and crowded churches, did not let his hearers go when the church was dismissed, but the bright image of that eloquent form followed the boy home. bedroom; and not a sentence was written in the academic exercises, nor an attempted declamation in the college chapel, but he showed the omnipresence of his genius to young minds. With that every young man became his advocate, and the boys filled their mouths with arguments to prove that the orator had heart. This was the triumph of rhetoric. No intellectual or moral principles should be taught. They weren't thoughts. When Massachusetts was full of his fame, he was not said to have put any truth into circulation. But his power was in the magic of the shape; it was in the graces of conduct; in the new perception of Greek beauty, to which he opened our eyes. There was in that person that ending which is women's and which distinguishes every piece of genius from the work of talent - that the latter are more or less ripe in all degrees of perfection according to the time allotted to them, but the works of genius in its first and smallest form are still whole. In every public address there was nothing to satisfy its listener, no trace of late hours and anxious unfinished learning, but the goddess of grace breathed the last fragrance and brightness into the work.
With a series of lectures which were abundantly and elegantly attended during two winters in Boston, he began a popular literature and lecture series, which in this area at least produced important results. Every day it gains more importance and becomes a national institution. I am sure that this purely literary influence was of the greatest importance to the American mind.
At the pulpit, Dr. Frothingham, an excellent classical and German scholar, had already introduced us, albeit judiciously, to the critical theological genius of Eich Horn. And Professor Norton a little later gave form and method to similar studies in the then new school of theology. But I think the main source of the religious revolution was modern science; starting with Copernicus, who destroyed the pagan fictions of the Church, showing humanity that the earth we live on is not the center of the universe, around which the sun and stars revolve every day and therefore serves to be the platform over which the Drama of Divine Judgment was enacted before the assembled angels of Heaven - "the abyss of divine vengeance" Saurin called it - but a small fragment of a planet revolving around the sun in our system, which was too small to be visible at a distance from the many stars we look at. Astronomy has taught us our insignificance in nature; it showed that our sacred as well as our profane history was written in great ignorance of laws, which were far greater than we knew; and has caused a certain enlargement and elevation of our views of the Deity and his Providence. This correction of our superstitions has been confirmed by the new science of geology, and by a whole series of discoveries in all departments. But now we have also seen that man's religious nature was unaffected by these errors in his understanding. Religious feeling has done nothing of greatness or grandeur, far from it; triumphed over time as well as space; and every lesson of humility, righteousness, or charity, which ignorant saints of old had taught him, was still forever true.
Whether because of these influences or because of the reaction of the general mind against the overly formal science, religion, and social life of the preceding period, there was, in the first quarter of our nineteenth century, a certain sharpness of criticism, an urge for reform, which manifested itself in all quarters. Appeared in the popularity of Lavater's Physiognomy, now almost forgotten. Gall and Spurzheim's Phrenology laid a heavy hand on the mysteries of animal and spiritual nature, dragging every sacred secret into a street show. The attempt was crude and repugnant to scientists, but it had a certain truth to it; a connection was felt where the teachers denied it, and it led to a truth that had not yet been revealed. In the wake of this intruder came mesmerism, which invaded the most hidden sanctums, tried to explain miracles and prophecies, as well as creation. What could be more repugnant to a contemplative philosopher! However, against all expectations, it was followed by a certain success. He was human, he was ingenious, he asserted unity and connection between distant points, and as such he was an excellent critic of the narrow and dead classification of what passed for science; and the joy with which he was received was a human instinct which no true philosopher would fail to use. But while society remained torn between old-school bitterness and new-school daring, a higher tone was heard. Iconoclasts received unexpected help from above. The German poet Goethe rebelled against the science of the time, against French and English science, declared war on the great name of Newton, proposed his new and simple optics: in botany, his simple theory of metamorphosis; — everything revolves around the leaf; every part of the plant, from the root to the fruit, is just a modified leaf, the branch of a tree is nothing more than a leaf whose serrations have become branches. He extended this to anatomy and animal life, and his views were accepted. The rebellion became a revolution. Schelling and Oken presented their ideal natural philosophy, Hegel their metaphysics and extended it to civil history.
The result in literature and in the general mind was a return to law; in science, in politics, in social life; contrary to the dissolute ways and politics of earlier times. Age was moral. Any immorality is a deviation from nature and is punished with loss and natural deformation. Popularity of the Constitution of the Man of Combe; the humanity that was the goal of all the numerous works of Dickens; the tendency even of Punch's caricature was on the side of the people. There was a breath of new air, much vague anticipation, the awareness of a power that had not yet found its definite aim.
I attach great importance to two articles by Dr. Channing, one on Milton and one on Napoleon, which were the first specimens in this country of the great criticism which gave strength and fame in England to the Edinburgh Review. They were widely read and, of course, immediately fruitful in provoking imitations that elevated the style of journalism. dr. Channing, while alive, was a star of the American Church, and we thought then, if we do not already think, that he left no successor in the pulpit. He could never be denounced, because his eye and his voice could not be printed, and his speeches lose the best when they are lost. It was created for the public; his cold temper made him the least profitable private company; but all America would be impoverished if he wanted it. We could not spare a single word he uttered in public, not even the reading of a Scripture lesson or a hymn, and it is curious that his writings in print are almost the history of the times; because there was no great public interest, political, literary, or even economic (for he wrote about the Tariff), about which he left no printed record of his courageous and considered opinion. A poor invalid all his life, he is still one of those men who vindicate the power of the American race to produce greatness.
dr. In 1840, Channing consulted George Ripley about whether it was possible to bring together educated and thoughtful people and create a society worthy of the name. He had previously discussed a similar purpose with Dr. John Collins Warren, who recognized the wisdom of the project and pledged to help him carry out the experiment. dr. Channing drove to Dr. Warren on the night marked with great thoughts to open. He found a well-chosen group of gentlemen of various eminences; mutual greetings and introductions took place, and they were pleasantly chatting about indifferent subjects, and slowly approaching their great expectation, when the side door was opened, the whole company rushed to a supper of oysters, crowned with excellent wines; and thus ended the first attempt to establish an aesthetic society in Boston.
A little later, Dr. Channing opened his mind to Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and with some care they invited a limited number of ladies and gentlemen. I was honored to be present. Although I remember the fact, I don't remember any immediate consequences of this attempt, nor any connection between it and the new ardor of the friends who at that time began to be attracted by a sympathy for study and aspiration. Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. in serious conversation. . With them there was always a familiar form, a pure idealist, not literary at all, not a practical talent, not a book writer; a rather cold and contemplative man for alliances of friendship, with rare simplicity and greatness of perception, who read Plato as an equal and inspired his companions only insofar as they were intellectuals - while men of talent complained of a lack of point and precision. of this abstract and religious thinker.
Those friendly conversations were, of course, incomprehensible to some in the company, and they took their revenge with their little joke. One declared that "it seemed to him to go to heaven on a swing"; another reported that, at a complicated point in the speech, a friendly Englishman with a high-pitched voice interrupted with the question: “Mr. Alcott, a lady close to me wants to know if omnipotence negates the attribute?
I think there was a general belief in Boston at that time that there was some kind of show going on.to doctrineto establish certain opinions and inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, and religion, in whose design the supposed conspirators were quite innocent; because there was no concert, only here and there two or three men or women reading and writing, each one alone, extraordinarily excited. Perhaps they just agreed that they fell with pleasure and sympathy on Coleridge, Wordsworth and Goethe, then on Carlyle. Other than that, his education and reading were unremarkable, but they had an American shallowness, and learning was lonely. I imagine everyone was surprised by this rumor about a school or sect, and certainly the name Transcendentalism, as no one knows who first applied it or when. As these people came to know each other on the common occasions of society, strong friendships must have been formed, which, of course, were unique in proportion to their warmth: and perhaps those people who were best friends with each other were the most intimate. and had no ambition to publish their letters, diaries or conversations.
Thereafter, conversational meetings, in very little form, from house to house, of men who studied, loved books, and kept a watchful eye on all intellectual light wherever it came from. Nothing could be less formal, but the company's intelligence, character and varied capabilities gave it a certain familiarity and perhaps aroused curiosity as to its objectives and results.
Nothing more serious came of it than a modest quarterly called "The Dial", which enjoyed obscurity for four years under the direction of Margaret Fuller, and later someone else. All his newspapers were free contributions and it was more a friendly work among a restricted circle of students than an organ of any party. Perhaps its writers were its main readers: it contained, however, some noble works by Margaret Fuller, and some editions were immediately sold out due to the works of Theodore Parker.
Theodore Parker was our Savonarola, an excellent scholar, in open and affectionate communication with the best minds of his time, but a popular tribune and a staunch reformer who encouraged and defended all the causes of mankind with and for the lowliest of mankind. He was not an artist. Highly refined people can easily lose the element of beauty in it. What he said was mere fact, he almost offended you, so bald and indecisive; he cares little. He fully represented practical truth; and so on until the last one. He made the most of every day and hour of his short life, and his character appeared in its last moments with the same firm control as it did in the midst of his days of strength. I usually apply to him the words of a French philosopher who speaks of “the man of nature who abhors the steam engine and the factory. Its huge lungs breathe independence with the air of the mountains and forests."
The vulgar politician broke free from this circle as the "sentimental class". State Street had an instinct to void contracts and threaten stock stability; and he didn't like rough manners. Society always values, even in its teachers, harmless people, subject to conventional polishing. A priest who would live in the cityIt couldhave devotions butmorato have good taste, while a certain John the Baptist often came among them, wild of the woods, rough, hairy, careless in his dress, and quite contemptuous of the etiquette of cities. In those days a pilgrim walked the land stopping at every gate where he hoped to find an audience for his doctrine, which is, Never give or receive money. He was a bad printer, and he explained with simple warmth the conviction of himself and of five or six young men with whom he agreed in opinion of the immense perversity of our treacherous currency. He thought that everyone should work on some necessary product, and as soon as he had made more than enough for himself, be it grain, paper, cloth, or boots, he should give the goods to each seeker, and on returning to his neighbor for take whatever item he had to spare. Of course, we were curious to know how he sped up his neighbor experiments, and his anecdotes were interesting and often very believable. But he had the courage required by such a strict return to Arcadian customs, and he learned to sleep, on cold nights, when the farmer on whose door he knocked refused to give him a bed, in a cart covered with a buffalo blanket under a shed. - or under the stars, when the farmer denied the shed and the buffalo cloak. I think he persisted in his courageous practice for two years, but he did not expand his church of believers.
These reformers were a new class. Instead of the ardent Puritan souls, eager to hang a Quaker, burn a witch, and banish a Romanist, these were gentle, peaceful, even genial-natured souls, who even cast their eyes on Fourier and his officers. It was a time when the air was full of reforms. Robert Owen of Lanark came here from England in 1845, and gave lectures or lectures wherever he found an audience; the kindest, most optimistic, sincere man. He had not the slightest doubt that he had found socialism correct and perfect, or that all mankind would adopt it. He was then seventy years old, and he was asked, “Well, Mr. Owen, who's your student? How many people are there who have their views and will stay after you leave to put them into practice?” "None," was his reply. Robert Owen met Fourier in his old age. He said that Fourier had learned from him all the truth he had; the rest of his system was imagination, and that of bankers. Owen made the best impression with his rare benevolence. His love for men made us forget his “Three Mistakes”. His benevolent construction of men and their actions was unchanging. He was the best Christian in his polemics with Christians, and with great generosity he interpreted the acts of the "Holy Alliance" and of Prince Metternich, with whom he persistentlyin the doctrinegetting interviews; "Ah," said he, "you can trust that, there are tender hearts and good wills to serve the people, in palaces as well as in colleges."
And I respect the generous ideas of socialists, the magnificence of their theories and the enthusiasm with which they promoted them. They seemed to be inspired people of their time. Mr. Owen preached his doctrine of work and reward, with the fidelity and devotion of a saint, to the sluggish ears of his generation. Fourier, almost as wonderful an example of the French mathematical mind as La Place or Napoleon, turned really vast arithmetic to the question of social misery, and placed men under the obligation which a generous mind always gives, conceiving high hopes and making high demands. as a human right. He measured what everyone should and could enjoy, not soups or charity concerts, but the refinement of palaces, the wealth of universities, and the triumphs of artists. He meant nobly. Man has a right to fresh air and the air of good conversation in his education, and not, like us or many of us, to smelly and musty rooms, cats and fools. Fourier carried the entire French Revolution in his head and much more. Here was arithmetic on a grand scale. His coding goes where coding has never gone before, namely into stars, and atmospheres, and animals, and men and women, and all character classes. It was the most amusing French novel and could not fail to suggest the vast possibilities of reform to the coldest and least optimistic.
We had an opportunity to learn something about these socialists and their theory from the sect's tireless apostle in New York, Albert Brisbane. Mr. Brisbane pushed forward its doctrine with all the strength of memory, talent, honest faith and assertiveness. As we listened to his exposition, it seemed to us the sublime of mechanical philosophy; because the system was the perfection of arrangement and invention. The strength of the agreement could not go further. The merit of the plan was that it was a system; which had not the bias and character of hints and fragments like the more popular schemes, but was coherent and comprehensive of facts in a marvelous degree. He was not intimidated by distance, size or remoteness of any kind, but walked through nature with a giant's stride, skipping no facts but weaving his great Ptolemaic web of cycles and epicycles, phalanges and phalansteres, with commendable diligence. Mechanics has been pushed so far that it runs into spiritism. We cannot help but be amazed at the strange coincidences between Fourier and Swedenborg. The former genius was shamefully misapplied, a mere pittance. Now he must prepare to raise the social status of man and correct the disorder on the planet he inhabits. The Sahara desert, the Campagna di Roma, the frozen polar circles, which poison the temperate regions with their pestilential or hot or cold air, accuse man. Society, concert, cooperation, is the secret of the Paradise to come. Due to the isolation of people nowadays, every job is meticulous. By agreeing and allowing each worker to choose their own work, it becomes a pleasure. The "attractive industry" would quickly subdue, with adventurous science and persistent cultivation of the soil, pestilential areas; it would equalize the temperature, give health to the globe, and cause the Earth to supply the solar system with "healthy and unimportant fluids" as it now supplies harmful fluids. The hyena, the jackal, the gnat, the beetle, the flea, were all beneficial parts of the system; the good Fourier knew what these creatures would be if the mold had not slipped through the bad state of the atmosphere; caused no doubt by the same perverse and unimportant liquids. All these will be corrected by human culture, and the useful goat and the dog and the innocent poet moth, or the decaying wood-eating tick, will take their place. It takes sixteen hundred and eighty men to make one Man, complete in all faculties; that is, make sure you have a good carpenter, a good cook, a barber, a poet, a judge, an umbrella, a mayor and alderman, and so on. Your community should consist of two thousand people, to avoid accidents of omission; and each community must occupy six thousand acres of land. Now imagine a country planted with fifty hundred of these phalanxes side by side - what crops, what architecture, what dining rooms, what bedrooms, what reading rooms, what concerts, what lectures, what gardens, what baths! What is not in one will be in the other, and many will be within your reach. Then know that Constantinople is the natural capital of the world. There, on the Golden Horn, the Archiphalanx will be established; the Omniarch will reside there. Only Aladdin and his sorcerer, or the beautiful Scheherazade, in these prosaic times that precede the scene, can describe the material opulence that gathers there. Poverty will be abolished; there will be no more deformities, stupidity and crime. Ingenuity, grace, artistry will abound, and there is no doubt that in the realm of "The Attractive Industry" all men will speak in blank verse.
We certainly listen with great pleasure to such joyful and magnificent images. The skill and seriousness of the representative and his friends, the comprehensiveness of their theory, their apparent frankness of action towards the end they wished to achieve, the indignation they felt and uttered in the presence of so much social misery, have earned our attention and respect. It contained so much truth and promise in its attempts to carry out so many valuable instructions that we are committed to watching every step in its progress. And yet, in spite of the assurances of his friends that it was new and widely set apart from all other schemes for the regeneration of society, we could not exempt him from the criticism which we apply to so many projects of reform with which the brain of the time teem. Our feeling was that Fourier omitted no fact except one, namely Life. He treats man as a thing of plastic, something that can be raised or lowered, matured or slowed down, molded, polished, made solid, liquid or gaseous, as the leader wishes; or perhaps like a vegetable, from which, though now a poor cancer, through dung and exposure a very good peach may in time be produced, - but skips the faculty of life, which begets and despises system and breeders of the system; that escapes all conditions; that creates or displaces a thousand phalanges and New Harmonies with each pulsation. There is an order in which, in a healthy mind, abilities always appear and which, according to the strength of the individual, they strive to realize in the surrounding world. The value of the Fourier system is that it is a statement of that order externalized or transferred to its correspondence in facts. The error is, that this particular order and series must be imposed, by force or preaching and voices, on all men, and brought into rigid execution. But what is true and good must not only be started by life, but must be led to its questions by life. Could not the creator of this project also believe that a similar model is in every mind, and that the method of each associate, as well as the method of its Special Committee and General Office, can be trusted, no. 200 Broadway? No, it would be better to say, let us be lovers and servants of what is just, and immediately every man becomes the center of a holy and benevolent republic, which he sees as including all men in its law, like that of Plato and Christ. Before such a man, the whole world becomes Fourierized or Christized or humanized, and, in obedience to his most private being, he finds himself, according to his intuition, though against all sensible odds, acting in strict accordance with all others who followed their particular light. .
Yet, in a day of petty, sour, and fierce schemes, is one admonished and animated by a project of such amicable ends, and of such bold and generous proportions; there is a courage and intellectual force in him that is overwhelming and commanding; confirms the presence of so much truth in theory, and so much is destined to be fact.
He defended a singular courage, the adoption of Fourier's system, even if in a limited way, with his books before the world only defended by the thin veil of the French language. Stoic said, Be patient, Fourier said, Surrender. Fourier was of the opinion of St. Evremonde; abstaining from pleasures seemed to him a great sin. Fourier was very French indeed. He worked under a misunderstanding of woman's nature. Fourier's marriage was a calculation to secure the greatest number of kisses allowed by the weakness of the human constitution. He was false and prudish, full of absurd French superstitions about women; not knowing how serious and moral his nature always is; how chaste is your organization; as a legitimate class.
The community is worse because it must inevitably turn into charlatan leaders, constantly struggling to live up to the expectations and admiration of this eager throng of men and women who are looking for who knows what. Unless he has the Cossack rudeness to get rid of what doesn't belong to him, he must be a charlatan.
It was easy to see what the fate of this beautiful system must be in any serious and comprehensive attempt to establish it in this country. As soon as our people learned of the doctrine of marriage held by this master, it would immediately fall into the hands of a lawless crew, who would rush in troops for such fair play, and, like the dreams of poetic men in the first outbreak of the old French Revolution, , to make theirs disappear in mud and blood.
Of course, in every theory there is a tendency to go to extremes and forget about limitations. In our free institutions, where every man is free to choose his house and his trade, and where every possible method of labor and acquisition is open to him, thousands are easily enriched, as in no other country. Then property proves too much for one man, and men of science, art, intellect are sure to degenerate into selfish housewives, addicted to wine, coffee, stove heat, gas light, and fine furniture. Then things instantly change the other way and suddenly we find that civilization has sung prematurely; that what we hailed as triumphs were betrayals: that we opened the wrong door and let the enemy into the castle; that civilization was a mistake; that nothing is so vulgar as a large warehouse of rooms full of furniture and utensils; that, given the circumstances, the best wisdom is an auction or a fire. As foxes and birds are entitled to this, with a warm moat that protects from the weather, and nothing else, - a loft for protection from the sun and rain is a house that does not burden the owner's time and thoughts, and that he can go out when the sun is hot and challenge the thief. This was Thoreau's doctrine, which said that the Fourierists had a sense of duty that led them to dedicate themselves to second best. And Thoreau gave the purest ethics in flesh and blood and persistent Saxon belief. He was more real and practically believed in them than anyone in their company, and he strengthened him every moment with an affirming experience that could not be passed over. Thoreau himself was a practical response, almost a refutation, to the theories of the socialists. He didn't need a phalanx, nor a government, nor a society, almost not even a memory. He lived impromptu from hour to hour, like birds and angels; he brought each day a new proposal, as revolutionary as yesterday's, but different: the only idle man in his city; and independence from him made all others seem like slaves. He was a good Abbot Sampson and carried advice in his bosom. "Again and again I congratulate myself on the so-called poverty, I could not emphasize this advantage too much." "What you call nakedness and poverty, to me is simplicity. God could not be unkind to me if He tried. Above all, I like to have each thing only in its season, and enjoy it without it the rest of the time. The greatest advantage of all is having no advantage at all. I never got over my surprise at being born in the most distinguished place in the world, and at that very moment." There's an optimist for you.
I regard these philanthropists as the effects of the age in which we live, and, along with many other good facts, as the flowering of the period, and the anticipation of the good fruit that is ripening. They were not the creators they believed in, but were unconscious prophets of the true state of society; the one to which the tendencies of nature lead, the one that always settles down for a healthy soul, though not in the way it is painted; but they were descriptive of what was actually done. Large cities are phalansteries; and theorists have derived all their arguments from facts that have already occurred in our experience. The cheap way is to make every man do what he was born to do. A merchant to whom I described Fourier's project thought that not only should it work, but that the agricultural association should both fix the price of bread and force individual farmers to join in self-defence, like the big commercial and manufacturing companies. they had done. done. Society in England and America is trying again in small sections, in co-operative associations, in cheap dining halls, and in the economies of clubs and cheap reading rooms.
It so happened that here in one family there were two brothers, a brilliant and prolific inventor, and next to him his own brother, a businessman, who knew how to run his college and make it immediately and permanently profitable. Why shouldn't a similar partnership between the inventor and the man of executive talent be established everywhere? Every thinking person is surrounded by people wiser than he is, even if they don't know how to write. He and they can't be together? The talents complement each other. Beaumont and Fletcher and many French novelists knew how to exploit these partnerships. Why not have a bigger one, and with more different members?
Housewives say, "There are a thousand things in everything," and if we studied all the changes to be made, all the defects to be avoided in a building or work of art, from its maintenance, composition, location, colors, there would be no end. But the architect, acting out of necessity to build a house for his purpose, finds help, he knows not how, in all these merits of details, and avoids, though in the dark, the dangers that might have shipwrecked him.
FLOW FARM.
The West Roxbury Association was formed in 1841 by a company of members, men and women, who purchased a farm at West Roxbury, of about two hundred acres, and took possession of it in April. Mr. George Ripley was the president, and I think Mr. Charles Dana (later known as one of the editors of the New York Tribune) was the secretary. Many members received shares by paying cash, others held them through their work. The old house on the site was expanded and three new houses were built. William Allen was first and for a time chief of the landowners, and the work was distributed in committees organized for men and women. There were many more or less lucrative jobs that these members found or brought here - shoemakers, carpenters, seamstresses. They had good scholars among them, so they accepted students for education. In some cases, the children's parents wanted to live there and were accepted as tenants. Many people attracted by the beauty of the place and the culture and ambition of the community joined them as tenants and lived there for years. I think the number of this mixed community soon reached eighty or ninety souls.
It was a noble and generous movement in the projectors, to try the experience of living better. They felt that our way of life was too conventional and expensive, not allowing everyone to do what they were talented at, and not allowing people to combine cultivating the mind and heart with a reasonable amount of daily work. At the same time, it was an attempt to elevate others with themselves and to share the advantages they should have with others who are now deprived of them.
No doubt there was a great diversity of character and purpose among the members of the community. It consisted mainly of young people - some middle-aged and no old men. Those who inspired and organized it were naturally people impatient with routine, monotony, perhaps you would say with the miserable satisfaction of the society around them, so timid and skeptical of any progress. It would then be said that in society impulse reigned, without centripetal equilibrium; perhaps not hard to say, an intellectual sans-culotism, an impatience with the formal and routine character of our educational, religious, social, and economic life in Massachusetts. However, there was enormous hope in these young people. There was nobility; there were selfless victims who made up for the recklessness and recklessness of their comrades. Young people lived a lot in a short time, and some of them left with perhaps broken bodies. Fortunately, there were also several serious character health effects, which, they assured me, were always felt.
George W. Curtis of New York and his brother of Oxford, England, were members of the family from the beginning. Theodore Parker, a close neighbor of the farm and Mr. Ripley, was a frequent visitor. Mr. Ichabod Morton of Plymouth, a common man who had for many years conducted a successful fishing business, - an eccentric, with a lingering interest in education and very democratic beliefs, came and built a house on the farm, and he, or members of his family, continued there to the end. Margaret Fuller, with her cheerful conversation and great friendliness, was a frequent visitor and always corresponded with her friends. Numerous ladies, who should be named to be praised, have given the place character and varied appeal.
In and around Brook Farm, whether members, tenants or visitors, there were many remarkable people, in character, intellect or achievement. I remember a young man of the most subtle mind, I think I should say the most subtle observer and soothsayer of character, that I ever knew, lived, read, wrote, talked there, perhaps while the colony held together; his mind fed and overfed with the sublime in genius, whether in poetry or art, drama or music, or social achievement and elegance; man no. business or practical purposes, the student and the philosopher, who found his daily pleasure not with his elders or his exact contemporaries, but with good young men who skated, played ball, or chased birds; forming the closest friendships with such and finding pleasure in the exultant exploits of boys; however, he was the chosen advisor to whom the guardians would correct any disturbance or difficulty that occurred and receive wise advice from him. Beautiful, subtle, inner genius, fragile body and girlish habits, but withresourcefulnesslike a general, never confused. He lived and thought, in 1842, such worlds of life; everything depends on the thought of Being or Reality as opposed to consciousness; hating the intellect with the ferocity of Swedenborg. He was an abbot or spiritual father, because of his religious bias. He read Aeschylus, Plato, Dante, Calderon, Shakespeare and modern romances and novels. There was also Hawthorne, with his temper cool but kind if he failed to do this temporary home justice. There was an excellent doctor of music, who since then has been leading his literature in our metropolis. The Reverend William Henry Channing, now from London, had studied socialism in France and England early on and was fully sympathetic to that experience. An English baronet, Sir John Caldwell, was a frequent visitor and more or less directly interested in leaders and success.
Hawthorne drew some sketches, not very cheerful ones, I think; I prefer to say, quite unworthy of his genius. No friend who knew Margaret Fuller could recognize her rich and brilliant genius under the somber mask which the public thought was intended for her in that unhappy story.
The founders of Brook Farm are to be commended for making what all humans try to do a pleasant place to live. All visitors, even the most demanding ones, found the most pleasant abode there. It is certain that freedom from domestic routine, variety of character and talent, variety of work, variety of means of thought and instruction, art, music, poetry, reading, masquerading, did not admit of indolence or despondency; broke the routine. In their testimonies, they agree that for most members it was education; for many, the most important period of their lives, the birth of valuable friendships, their first introduction to the richness of conversation, their training in behavior. It is said that the art of writing was extremely cultivated. Letters always flew not only from house to house, but also from room to room. It was an eternal picnic, the French Revolution in miniature, the Age of Reason in a frying pan.
In American social communities, gossip has found such openness and momentum that it has become despotic. The institutions were whispering galleries, where the beloved Saxon privacy was lost. I believe that married women have uniformly decided against the union. For them, it was like a brass and lacquer hotel life. The joint school was good enough, but they had serious objections to the joint kindergarten. The eggs could have been hatched in the oven, but the hen, on her own, preferred the old method. A hen without her chicks was only half a hen.
It was an unusual experience of the patrons and leaders of this famous community, in which the agreement with many parties was that they should give so many hours of instruction in mathematics, music, moral and intellectual philosophy, and so on, - that in each case the newcomers -comers showed that they were very aware of the advantages of society and certainly used all means of teaching; their knowledge increased, their manners refined - but in that proportion they became uninterested in the work, and the heads of departments accused them of a certain indifference and selfishness.
In practice, virtue is always considered to be intermittent, punctuated, nonlinear, or cubic. Good men are as bad as bad guys if steady performance is required; the conscience of the conscientious runs through their veins, and the most precise in some details are broad in others. It was very kindly said that the people that all people most would trust in advance were not responsible. They saw the need to do this work, but they did not, and this naturally fell to the few religious workers. There is no doubt that in many there was a certain strength drawn from the fury of dissent. So Mr. Ripley told Theodore Parker, "Here's your fine friend - he would weed corn all Sunday if I let him, but all of Massachusetts couldn't get him to do it on Monday."
Of course, every visitor has already discovered that there is a comic side to this shepherds' and shepherds' paradise. There was a stove in each chamber and everyone could burn whatever wood they wanted to saw. The ladies caught a cold on wash day; so it was decided that the shepherd lords would wring and hang the laundry; which is exactly what they did. And sometimes it happened that when they danced at night, a lot of clothespins fell out of their pockets. Members of the country were obviously surprised to note that one man plowed all day and another looked out the window all day, and perhaps drew a picture of himself, and both were paid the same wages at night. One would find some modest pride in its advanced state, marked by the frequent phrase, "Before we left civilization."
The question that comes to mind occurred to Fourier long before: "How is the dirty work done on this charming Elysée?" And a long time ago, Fourier exclaimed, "Ah! I have," and jumped up and down with happiness. “Don't you see,” he cried, “that nothing pleases a Caucasian child so much as dirt? See the mud pies all the kids will make if you let them. See how much more they like to spill the pudding on the tablecloth than in their pretty mouths. Children from six to eight years old, organized into companies with flags and uniforms, will perform this last civilizing function."
There was an oddity about Brook Farm that there was no head. In every family there is a father; in each factory, a foreman; in the shop, master; in a boat, captain; but there is no authority on this farm; each was the master or mistress of his actions; happy and unhappy anarchists. They expressed, after much dangerous experience, the conviction that open conduct was the best defense of good manners and morals between the sexes. People cannot live together in any way, except out of necessity. The only candidates who will come forward will be those who have tried to experiment with independence and ambition and have failed; and no one else will trade for the most comfortable equality an opportunity for supremacy. Then all the communities fought. Few people can live together on their own merits. There must be kinship, or a common business, or a common interest in their business, or some other external connection.
The Brook Farm Company existed, I think, for about six or seven years, and then it fell apart, the Farm being sold, and I believe all the partners walked out with a pecuniary loss. Some of them have spent years accumulating it. I think everyone, by this point, considered it a failure. I don't think I can look at it that way right now, but probably as an important chapter in my experience that has lifetime value. What knowledge of themselves and one another, what varied practical wisdom, what personal power, what character studies, what accumulated culture many members owe to this! What a mutual measure they took for each other! It was a close union, like that of a ship's cabin, of priests, young university students, merchants, mechanics, sons and daughters of farmers, with men and women of rare occasion and delicate culture, but united by feelings shared by all, some of they ardently shared, about the honesty of the life of work and the beauty of the life of humanity. The chief saw refined manners in people who were his friends; and the romantic lady or scholar saw a constant strength and skill in men which would have disgusted them, but which these powers were now expended in the direction of their own theory of life.
I remember these few selected facts, none of which were particularly interesting, but symptomatic of the time and country. I am glad to think that our American mind is not now eccentric or rude in its strength, but is beginning to show the quiet strength, drawn from the wide and bountiful sources, peculiar to the Continent and to educated people. If I owe much to the special influences I have indicated, I am no less aware of that excellent and growing circle of masters in art, music and science, who today delight the intellect of our cities and this country, - whose genius is not accidental but normal, and with a broad cultural base, and thus inspires the hope of a constant force that advances towards itself, and day without night.
O CHARDON TWO CONVENTION.
[O dial, vol. iii., str. 100.]
In the month of November, 1840, a Convention of Friends of Universal Reformation met at Chardon Street Chapel, Boston, following a notice in a newspaper, signed by several individuals, inviting all people to a public discussion on the institutions of the Sabbath, the Church and service. The convention organized itself by choosing Edmund Quincy as its moderator, spent three days in deliberation on the Saturday, and adjourned to the next day in March, for the discussion of another matter. Thus, in the month of March, three days of sessions were held in the same place, on the subject of the Church, and a third meeting was scheduled for the following November, which was held accordingly; and the Convention again debated the remaining subject of the priesthood for three days. This Convention never printed any report of its deliberations, nor did it intend to arrive at any result by expressing its meaning in formal resolutions; —the stated objects of those people who felt the greatest interest in their meetings were simply the elucidation of truth through free discussion. At that time, the daily newspapers carried brief summaries of the progress of the works and the speeches of the main speakers. These meetings attracted wide public attention and were discussed in various circles on all notes of hope, sympathy, joy, alarm, disgust, and joy. The composition of the assembly was rich and diverse. The peculiarity and breadth of the call brought together, from all parts of New England, and also from the Middle States, people of all shades of opinion, from the most fearful orthodoxy to the wildest heresy, and many people whose church was of one member. church. There was a great variety of dialects and customs; there was a lot of confusion, eccentricity, and bizarreness, as well as fervor and enthusiasm. If the meeting was confusing, it was picturesque. Madmen, Madwomen, Men with Beards, Dunkers, Muggletons, Dodgers, Moaners, Agrarians, Seventh Day Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians and Philosophers - all rose to the top in turn and seized their moment, if not their hour, in which they would rebuke, pray, preach, or protest. The faces were a study. The bravest innovators and defenders of the old thing to death sat side by side. The still living merit of the oldest New England families, shining after a few generations, found the founders of the family, a new merit, which appeared and extended the forehead to a new breadth, and lit the clown's face with holy fire. The assembly was characterized by a predominance of a certain simplicity, savage strength and seriousness, while its councils were attended by many of the most intellectual and cultured people. dr. Channing, Edward Taylor, Bronson Alcott, Mr. Garrison, Mr. May, Theodore Parker, H.C. Wright, Dr. Osgood, William Adams, Edward Palmer, Jones Very, Maria W. of renown, were present, some of them being participants. And there was no shortage of public telephones; Mrs. Little and Mrs. Lucy Sessions played a pleasant and memorable part in the discussion, and that flea convention, Mrs. Abigail Folsom, was too ready with her endless scroll. If there was no parliamentary order, there was life and guarantee of that constitutional love of religion and religious liberty which in all periods characterizes the inhabitants of this part of America.
There was much wearisome talk in each of the sessions those three days, but lightened by significant passages of sheer eloquence, much vigor of thought, and especially by displays of character and victories of character. These men and women were looking for something better and more satisfying than a vote or a definition, and they found what they were looking for, or a promise of it, in the attitude taken by individuals in the face of innumerable resistances to the insane parliamentary routine. to use; in the heightened confidence in principle and the prophetic dignity and transformation which attend, even in the midst of opposition and ridicule, a man whose mind is made to obey the great commander within, and who does not anticipate his own action, but confidently awaits a new emergency. for a new adviser. By no means the least value of this convention, in our eyes, was the scope it gave to Mr. Alcott, and the no less instructive lesson was his gradual but sure elevation of spirit, in spite of the incredulity and derision with which he was initially received, and in spite, we may add, of his own failures. Furthermore, although no decisions were made and no action was taken on all the important points discussed in the discussion, the Convention brought many important personalities together face to face and provided the opportunity for memorable interviews and conversations, in the hall, in the lobbies. or around the door.
EZRA RIPLEY, D. D.
We love the honorable house our fathers built for God: Their thanks are laid up in heaven, Their dust is loved by the grass.
From the humble dwellings around An imaginary train set off And in the church a blessing was found That filled their homes again.
[This sketch was written for the Social Circle, a club in Concord now more than a century old, said to descend from the Committee for Safety in the Revolution. Mr. Emerson had been a member for many years and was very fond of the weekly evening meetings, which were held during the winter in members' homes. After the death of Dr. Ripley, one of the first members and related by marriage, Mr. Emerson was invited to prepare the usual Memoirs for the Club Book.]
Ezra Repley was born May 1, 1751 (OS) in Woodstock, Connecticut. He was the fifth of nineteen children born to Noah and Lydia (Kent) Ripley. Seventeen of these nineteen children were married, and the mother reportedly died leaving nineteen children, one hundred and two grandchildren, and ninety-six great-grandchildren. His father was born at Hingham, on the farm purchased by his ancestor, William Ripley of England, in the town's first settlement; whose farm was occupied by seven or eight generations. Ezra Ripley farmed the farm until the age of sixteen, when his father wanted him to qualify as an elementary school teacher, not thinking he could send a son to college without harming other children. With this view, the father agreed with the late Rev. Dr. Forbes of Gloucester, then minister of North Brookfield, to prepare Ezra for college until he was twenty-one years old, and to enable him to work during that time. enough to pay for her tuition, clothes, and books.
But when he was ready for college, the son was not content with teaching, which he had tried the previous winter. He early showed a desire to learn and could not satisfy it without public education. Always inclined to watch preachers and often trying, at just five or six years of age, to imitate them in preaching, now that he had become a professor of religious studies, he ardently desired to be a preacher of the gospel. He had to face great difficulties, but through the kind providence and patronage of Dr. Forbes, he entered Harvard University in July 1772. The onset of the Revolutionary War largely disrupted his college education. In 1775, its final year, the college transferred from Cambridge to Cambridge. Studies were very interrupted. Many students went into the army and the class never returned to Cambridge. In this class of 1776 were an extraordinarily large number of distinguished men: Christopher Gore, Governor of Massachusetts and Senator in Congress; Samuel Sewall, Chief Justice of Massachusetts; George Thacher, Supreme Court Justice; Royall Tyler, Chief Justice of Vermont; and the late scholar Dr. Prince of Salem.
Mr. Ripley was ordained minister of Concord on November 7, 1778. He was married on November 16, 1780, Mrs. Phoebe (Bliss) Emerson, then a widow of thirty-nine, with five children. They had three children: Samuel, born May 11, 1783; Daniel Bliss, born August 1, 1784; Sarah, born April 8, 1789. Died September 21, 1841.
To these facts, collected chiefly from my own diary and presented almost in my own words, I can only add a few lines from memory.
He was identified with the ideas and forms of the Church of New England, which expired about the same time as he did, so that he and his peers appeared to be the background of the great camp and army of the Puritans, which, however, in their last days, lapsing into formalism, at the height of his power he planted and delivered America. It was a pity that their old meeting places had been modernized in his time. I am sure all who remember both will associate their form with what was sepulchral and idle in the old, cold, unpainted, uncarpeted, square pew church, with four iron gray deacons in their little box under the pulpit. ,— with Watts' hymns, with long prayers, rich diction of the times; and no less with a musket fire from the movable seats. He and his contemporaries, the ancient New England clergy, believed in what was called a special providence - certainly, as they thought, a very special providence - following the limitation of King David and the Jews, who thought that the universe existed only or primarily to your church and community. Perhaps I cannot better illustrate this tendency than by quoting an entry from the diary of his predecessor's father,[Rev. Joseph Emerson.]Minister of Malden, written on the blank pages of the almanac for the year 1735. The Minister writes on January 31st: “I bought a shay for 27 pounds 10 shillings. May the Lord comfort and bless my family." The following March he notes: "I had a safe and comfortable journey to York." But on April 24 we found: "The Shay overturned, my wife and I were in it, but none of us was much injured. Blessed be our merciful Guardian. A part of the hut, while lying on its side, passed over my wife, but she was scarcely injured. What a wonderful preservation." Then again, on May 5th: "Went to beach with three children. The animal, startled as we all left the gazebo, fell and broke. I wish (I hope so) that the Lord will teach me how to properly repent of this Providence, the make proper remarks about her and influence her accordingly. Was I right to be shay? Was I not proud or too inclined to this expediency? Am I showing the faith in God's care and protection that I should be doing? Shouldn't I be more in my study and less prone to hobbies? Am I not retaining more than is necessary for pious and charitable purposes?” Well, on the 15th of May we have this: "Shay brought it home; it cost thirty shillings to mend. In that sense, it has favored beyond expectation." May 16: "My wife and I traveled together to Rumney Marsh. The beast was startled several times." And finally, we have this entry, June 4th: "I have given my shay to the Reverend Mr. White."
The same faith made what was strong and what was weak in Dr. Ripley and his associates. He was a perfectly honest man, punctual, strict, but just and merciful, and if he made his manners a straitjacket for others, he wore them himself every year. Graduated in this church and very well qualified due to his natural talent to work there, that did not cross his mind. He looked at every person and thing from the parish's point of view. I remember when a young boy, driving with him through Concord and passing each house, told the story of the family that lived there and, in particular, told me anecdotes about the nine members of the church who split the church in a era of its predecessor, and showed me how each of the nine had an accident or a bad ending. His prayers for rain and lightning, "lest they lick our spirits"; and for fair weather; and against sickness and madness; "that we were not tossed hither and thither until dawn, that we were not afraid of ourselves and others;" are well remembered and his own belief that these petitions should not be overlooked and were entitled to a favorable response. Some of those around me will remember a time of great drought in this neighborhood, when the late Reverend Mr. Goodwin offered to relieve the doctor of duty to lead the prayer; but the doctor, suddenly remembering the station, declined his offer with a little humor, as if with an expression which he said to the whole community: “It is not the time for you Cambridge lads; the case, sir, is getting serious. I'll pray myself." One afternoon in August, as I stood on his haystack helping him and his man to gather the hay, I well remember their pleading, almost reproachful, gazes fixed on the sky when a storm was raging. about to spoil his hay. He scraped very quickly, then looked up at the cloud and said, "We're in the Lord's hands; watch out for your crabs, George! We're in the Lord's hands;" and he seemed to say, "Thou knowest me; this field is mine - Dr. Ripley's - thy own servant!"
He used to tell a story about one of his old friends, a priest from Sudbury, who, while attending a Thursday lecture in Boston, overheard the priest praying for rain. As soon as the service was over, he went to the supplicant and said, "You Boston preachers, as soon as the tulip withers under your windows, go to church and pray for rain, until Concord and Sudbury are under water." I once went with him to the house at Nine Acre Corner to attend the funeral of the father of the family. On the way he mentioned to me his fears that the eldest son, who would now inherit the farm, was becoming intemperate. Soon we arrived, and the doctor addressed each of the mourners separately: "Sir, I offer my condolences." "Ma'am, I sympathize with you." “Sir, I met your great-grandfather. When I came to this town, your great-grandfather was a good farmer in this town, a member of the church, and an excellent citizen. His grandfather followed him and was a virtuous man. Now his father will be taken to the grave, full of work and virtue. There is no one in this great family but you, and it behooves you to carry on the good name and usefulness of your ancestors. If you fail,— 'Ichabod, the glory is gone.' Let's pray." He was a real man and could always say manly things. I remember the brief speech he made to me when the last blood tie that bound me and my brothers to his home was broken by the death of his daughter. In parting, he said: “I want you and your brothers to come to this house as you always have. You won't like being excluded; I will not like to be neglected.
When "Put" Merriam, after his release from the state prison, had the nerve to call out to the doctor as an old acquaintance, in the midst of general conversation Mr. Frost came in and the doctor immediately said, “Mr. Merriam, my brother and colleague, Mr. Frost, came to tea with me. I deeply regret the causes (which you know very well) that prevent me from asking you to stay and break bread with us”. With the doctor's opinions, it was a matter of faith to say so much. He was respectful and friendly to society, and patient, continual civility, showing all attention to the end, which means what is called good old-school manners. His hospitality was in line with Charles Lamb's rule and "was good to the end". His affection for women has always been strong and has never waned with time. He claimed the privilege of age, he was very addicted to kisses; he spared neither maid nor wife nor widow, and, as a lady thus favored remarked to me, "it looked as if they would make a meal of you."
He was very credulous, and as he didn't read books or magazines, he didn't know anything beyond the columns of his religious weekly paper, the tracts of his sect, and perhaps the Middlesex Yeoman. He was an easy mistake for any ironic agent, be he colonizer or antipapist, or charlatan with iron combs, or tractors, or phrenology, or magnetism, who passed by. At the time when Jack Downing's letters were all over the newspapers, he repeated to me at table some details of that gentleman's intimacy with General Jackson, in a manner which immediately gave me the impression that he took it all for granted. So as not to mislead him, I hurried to remember a few details that showed the absurdity of things, like the Major and the President going skating on the Potomac, etc. . night; "and I am not sure that he did not die believing in the reality of Major Downing. Surviving from the 19th of April, to the end, bear witness to his story as he wrote it.
He was so amiable and amiable a man, his character so transparent, and his merits so intelligible to all observers, that he was held in high esteem in this community. He was a natural gentleman, without pomp, but polite, hospitable, virile, and public-spirited; its social nature, its open house to all people. We remember the remark of an old farmer who came here from Maine, that no horse from the east of the country would pass the doctor's door. Travelers from the west, north, and south testify alike. He had a serene and open face to the visitor, because he loved men, and had neither studies nor occupations that society could interrupt. His friends were his study, and seeing them freed his talents and language. Order, prudence, and plenty resided in his house. There was no waste or distractions. He was generous, just and generous. The ingratitude and meanness of his patrons did not exhaust his sympathy; he bore the insult, and the next day his beggar's basket, his horse, and the invalid's wagon were at the door. Although he knew the value of the dollar as well as most people, he still liked to buy higher and sell lower than others. He signed up for every charitable cause and there is no objection to telling others that he was the most sympathetic man in town. The late Dr. Gardiner, in a funeral sermon about a parishioner whose virtues did not really come to mind, said frankly, "He was good in the fire." dr. Ripley had many virtues, but everyone will remember that even in his old age, when the fire bell rang, he immediately mounted his horse with his buckets and bags.
Even in his fireside conversation he exhibited those qualities of artifice and judgment, softening ever and now into elegance, which distinguish a scholar, and which, under better discipline, might mature into a Bentley or a Porson. He had foresight, when he opened his mouth, that is, and marched straight to the conclusion. In the discussion in the Lyceum sacristy, his sentence structure was admirable; so pure, so natural, so short, his words fell like stones; and often, though wholly unconscious of it, his speech was a satire on the loose, voluminous, and drawn-out sentences of other speakers. He sat down when he finished. A man of anecdotes, his conversation in the room was mostly narrative. We remember the remark of a gentleman who listened with great pleasure to their conversation at the time the Doctor was about to go to Baltimore and Washington, that “the man who told the story so well was in the company of kings and John Quincy Adams. "
The sage and the savage fought in it more fiercely than in any of my acquaintances, each receiving the sway in his turn and by means of rather sudden addresses: "Save us from the extreme cold and these violent sudden changes." "Society will meet after Lyceum, because it's hard to get people together at night - and there's no moon." "Mr. N.F. is dead, and I hope to hear of Mr. B's death. It is cruel to separate old men from their wives in this cold weather.
With a very limited knowledge of books, his knowledge was outside experience, Indian wisdom, observation of facts that country life for nearly a century could provide. He observed with interest the garden, the field, the orchard, the house and the stable, the horse, the cow, the sheep and the dog, and all the usual objects which occupy the peasant's mind. He kept his eyes on the horizon and knew the weather like a sea captain. Common experiences of people, birth, marriage, illness, death, burial; common temptations; common ambitions; -he studied them all and sympathized with them so well that he was an excellent companion and counselor to all, even the humblest and most ignorant. In extraordinary moods, in moods of heightened enthusiasm or speculation, he had no sympathy and did not pretend to. He was honest and firm in his aim, and his trail was never far behind. His conversation was strictly personal and suitable for entertainment and occasion. The eminent skill he had in uttering difficult and unspeakable things; in telling a man or a woman what all their friends have refrained from telling, in discovering a bandage for a sore spot, and in applying the surgical scalpel in a truly surgical spirit. If a man was a womanizer, or a spendthrift, or a longtime bachelor, or suspected of some hidden crime, or quarreled with his wife, or strangled his father, or there were any clouds or suspicious circumstances in his conduct, the good shepherd he knew the direct way to that point, believing himself entitled to a full explanation, and whatever relief to the consciences of both parties which simple speech could bring about was safely secured. In all these passages he justified himself before conscience, and generally also before the love of the persons concerned. He was more competent at these investigative speeches thanks to his knowledge of family history. He knew everyone's grandfather and seemed to treat each person more as a representative of his house and name than an individual. More local and personal anecdotes of this village and its environs perished in it than any survivor possesses. This intimate knowledge of the family, this ability to speak and, even more, his friendliness, made him unrivaled in his parish visits, persuasions and prayers. He gave in to his feelings and said the best things in the world in a moment. He was very, very lucky in his prayer, now lost forever, which defied all rules of all rhetoricians. He didn't know when he was good at prayer or preaching, because he had no literature or art; but he believed and so he spoke. He was extremely loyal by nature and not prone to adventure or innovation. By education, and even more by temperament, he was wedded to the old ways of the New England Church. Not speculative, but affectionate; pious, but with an extraordinary love of order, he accepted heartily, though in the mildest form, the creed and catechism of the fathers, and showed himself to be a modern Israelite in his attachment to Hebrew history and religion. He was an easy man to read because his whole life and conversation were consistent. A good observer can reliably predict all his opinions and actions after a short acquaintance. My Cambridge colleague, Frederick King, told me through Governor Gore, who was the doctor's colleague, that he was called Holy Ripley in college.
And now, in his old age, when all the old Hebraism and its customs are fading away, it is fitting that he too should go - it is more fitting that at the fall of the law a loyal man should die.
MARIJA I'm not in a good mood EMERSON.
Yesterday you never smiled,
Today passes in time,
Still, in the name of God, I
The next day up front and can challenge;
Though I am weak, but God, when he prays,
I cannot withhold your conquering help.
Oh me! that was my childhood thought,
If He makes my net a stain
In the honest image of life's pleasure,
My heart would find the right person.
But oh, those waves and leaves, -
When happy, the stoic nature suffers, -
There is no human speech so beautiful
As your murmur lulls me to sleep.
On this altar God built
I give up my vanity and my guilt;
Neither hope nor passion can move me,
Hearing now the sublime lament
What sounds the northern mountains sing,
Nature's funeral high and dark, -
Black splendor of the clouds,
The summer of mourning laid in shrouds.
Many days will be born and die,
Many angels roam,
And passing by, light up my sunken lawn,
Mcist maybe surfing the ocean,
Forgotten amid magnificent tombs,
Still shrouded and hidden by summer flowers.
On earth I dream; "I'm dying to be:
Time! don't shake your bald head at me.
I dare you to hurry,
Or that my turn is flying too fast.
[Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, o my friend of Strafford eu of Pym, It is Then described after sir toby Mateus:]
"Then It is of this alto a one eu dignity that's it just to do to search for, all almost to do desire, o friendship of any creature. They to whom then It is satisfied to do to choose they are of as they are of o majority distinct state oba for can eu job, — that's it s any design according to whether ter especially, or of an advantage or curiosity, all whether nature values feliz people. Then rather o conversation of men to do e of women; that's it all then he can conversation already o way s whether woman friends, all then It is this Brief reasonable e then he can define eu as then wills; e superiority shorten all equality. Then conversations s they WHO they are majority emphasis for from them conversational authority. Of Amor book to want then speech, to hear to do all dele mistakes eu assessment dele can: eu to want to take a deep interest for people of celebrity."
[Mr. Emerson is a powerful influence in his and his siblings' lives. This article was read before the "Woman's Club", in Boston, in 1869, under the title "Amita", which was also the original title of "Aspiration of the Nun", in her poems; a verse translation of a passage from Miss Emerson's diary. Part of this poem forms the motto of this chapter.]
I want to face the invitation with which the ladies honored me by offering them a portrait of real life. It is a representative life such as could scarcely have arisen in New England; an era that is long gone and that I don't think any guy has survived. Maybe I'm mistaken and overestimating his interest. For me it has a value similar to that which many readers find in Madame Guyon, in Rahel, in Eugénie de Guérin, but it is purely original and hardly admits of duplication. So it is the offspring of Calvinism and New England, and it marks the precise time when the strength of the old faith yielded to the influence of modern science and humanity.
I have found that I can only bring this portrait to you through a selection from my heroine's diary, assuming an outline of her time and place. I present some of the thoughts and monologues of a poor, lonely village girl - a 'good soul', as she called herself -, who grew up from youth to old age amidst few opportunities and a generally very humble society.
Mary Moody Emerson was born shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution. When introduced to Lafayette in Portland, she told him that she was "armed" at the Concord Fight. Her father, a Concord minister, a warm patriot in 1775, was chaplain to the American army at Ticonderoga: he took his little girl, before he left, to her mother at Malden, and told her to keep the child until he come back. . . He died the following year in Rutland, Vermont, of military fever, and Mary remained at Malden with her grandmother and, after her death, with her father's sister, in whose home she grew up, rarely seeing her brothers and sisters in Concord. This aunt and her husband lived on a farm, they were getting old, and her husband was a quiet and peaceful man. The niece had a lot of work every day, and there was not always enough bread in the house.
One of his duties, it seems, was to watch for the approach of a deputy sheriff, who might confiscate the spoons or arrest his uncle for debts. Later, another aunt, who went mad, was brought here to end her days. More and more sad work for this young woman. She had no friends, lived in complete seclusion with these old men, seldom animated by short visits from her brothers and sisters. Her mother remarried, married the minister who succeeded her husband at Concord Parish,[Dr. Ezra Ripley,]and now she had a young family growing up around her.
The aunt became very attached to Maria and convinced the family to give her the child as a daughter, accepting under certain conditions to take care of her future interests. She would leave the farm in her will. This promise was kept; she took possession of the estate many years later, and his dealings with her caused him no little trouble, though they added much piquancy to her letters in later years. It ended up being sold and its price invested in part of a farm in Maine, where for years she lived as a tenant with her sister. It was in a picturesque country, within reach of the White Mountains, with a small lake in front of it, at the foot of a high hill called Bear Mountain. Not far from the house there was a stream that flowed over the granite floor like the Franconia Flume, and all around were noble woods. Every word she writes about this farm ("Elm Vale", Waterford), its affairs and anxieties connected with it, its joys and ecstasies in religion and nature, as interesting as the novel, and to those who hereafter read her letters, will do with your obscure kind of airs.
She spent all of her youth and early adulthood in Malden, making it a habit to visit her brothers and sisters' families whenever necessary. Their willingness to serve in times of illness or pressure was known to them and immediately confirmed, and their attachment to the young men and girls growing up in these families was sure of any trait of talent or character. Her sympathy for the young men she was fond of was almost passionate, and certainly her arrival in every house was a holiday.
At first she read Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards and always the Bible. Later Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Primo, Harder, Locke, Madame De Staël, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. No one can read their handwriting, or recall the conversation of men of the old school, without seeing that Milton and Young had in their minds the religious authority, and not the lesser merely amusing quality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, - how honorable and organic they are like nature in your mind! What is the subject of your mind and life for the best novel? When I was reading Dante the other day, and paraphrasing it to more properly denote Christ or Jehovah, who did I remember? Who but Mary Emerson and her eloquent theology?
She had a deep sympathy for the genie. When she was available, as with Byron, she had nothing less, as she mourned and tried to condemn him. But she loved it when it refined her character. She liked to observe that the greatest geniuses died unaware of their power and influence. She wanted the sneer to shine through. "My opinion," she writes, "is that a mind like Byron's would never be satisfied with modern Unitarianism—that the fiery depths of Calvinism, its sublime and mysterious choices for eternal bliss, beyond angels and all miracles that accompany it, alone would be fit to fix your imagination.
Her intelligence was so fertile and used only to attack that she never used it to show off, any more than a wasp would display its stinger. She was always concerned with the will, not the sentence. However, certain expressions, when they marked an unforgettable mood in her experience, later returned to her, and he would have apologized if he had told Dr. R - or Uncle L - such and such, at such and such a period of his life. life. But they were extremely true when they were first uttered. His whole language was happy, but unrepeatable, unattainable by talent, as if it had emerged from a dream. She calls herself "a little pilgrim, whose only talent is sympathy". "I love that kind of apathy that it's a triumph to overcome."
He wrote to his nephew Charles Emerson in 1833: - “I could never decorate a garden. If I were in anything but dismal deserts, I would idolize my friends, despise the world, and be arrogant. I never expected relationships and marriage. My taste was formed in romance and I knew it wasn't meant to please. I love God and his creation like I never could. I hardly feel the sympathies of this life enough to stir the pool. That in general, except for one ease, and even that is a relationship with God through you. "So it was in my first, happiest days, when you were by my side."
Scarcity is the muse of your genius, - Scarcity and death. I suggested that his epitaph read: "Here lies the angel of death." And wonderfully how she varies and poetically repeats that image on each page and day, but no less tender and sublime does she return to the other, - to the greatness of humility and scarcity, such as she is; "The chief testimony I have had to the divine principle of action and feeling is in the disinterested joy I feel in the supremacy of others. For the love of superior virtue is my own gift from God." “Where was your own intellect if others had not lived?”
She had many acquaintances among dignitaries at the time; and here and there in her moving from town to town in Maine and Massachusetts, in search of a new shipping place, she found some sensible or godly preacher, or both. For, on arriving at any new house, she would probably first go to the priest's house and beg his wife to accept boarding; and as the Minister quickly discovered that she knew all her books and many others, and made wise guesses about her character and capabilities, she would easily arouse his curiosity, as a person who could read her secret and foresee her fate.
She delighted in success, youth, beauty, genius, behavior. When she found a young man who interested her, she immediately moved closer and closer to him or her, with sympathy, flattery, ridicule, anecdotes, wit, reproach, and burst into the castle. No one was attracted or moved by her interest, wit, and wide knowledge of books and eminent names. She said that she gave full force to these sudden intimacies, as she knew she would soon need to be disgusted, and decided to spend her finer hours. "Society is astute at detecting those who don't belong in its ranks and rarely wastes its attention." She alternately surprised, lured, punished and condemned her companion, and very quickly. But no youth or intelligent young man could meet her once without remembering her with interest and learning something valuable." Despise trifles, elevate your aims: do what you fear to do: greatness of character must come from greatness of motive: these were the lessons incited by a living and ever new language. But if her companion was boring, her impatience knew no bounds. She instantly grew tired of boring conversations, so she asked to be read and thus got rid of the visitors. Whether the voice or reading tired her, she would ask a friend to do an assignment for her and so dismissed him. If her companion was a little ambitious and asked her opinion on books or things she didn't want to raise her hands rudely, she didn't hesitate at deterring the intruder with "How's your cat, Mrs. Tenner?"
"I was disappointed," she writes, "not to find my little Calvinist without a companion, a cold little creature who lives alone in society and is looked up to as a paragon of genius." I accomplished the mission by secretly undermining his vanity, or trying to. Unfortunately! never done but numbing suffering.” From the country he writes to the city sister: "You cannot help saying that my epistle is a flagrant example of selfishness." To which I can only reply that in the countryside we talk so much more to ourselves that we almost forget about everyone else. The very sound of their bells and the noise of their carriages tend to deter selfishness.” "This seems to be a world where one prefers to tempt the humor of others rather than enjoy the virtues of others."
It has had the misfortune to spin faster than any other top. She would run into or out of a carriage, into or out of a house, to a conversation, to a thought, to the figure of a stranger - ignoring all the degrees by which her companions measure her steps: and though she could very happily pass on a planet where others moved with equal speed, here she took offense at the servants of all her neighbors and disgusted them with her impatience. She could keep up without a human being. her nephew[C. C. E.]wrote of her: "I am glad that my friendship with Aunt Mary is maturing. Like watching a great tragedy, reading a true poem or a novel like "Corinne", then in her company the mind is electrified and purified. It is not a book law of practical commandments, nor a precise summary of any philosophical system, divine or human, but a Bible, diverse in its parts, but one in its spirit, in which sentences of condemnation, promises and covenants of love make the vain wisdom of the world The power of god".
Our Delphian was fantastic enough, God knows, but he could always be tamed by a long honest talk. If there had been thought and eloquence, she would have listened like a child. Her aspiration and prayer will begin, and the capriciousness and ill-temperedness which she unconsciously indulged in owing to an unhealthy habit, will burn in the glow of her pure, poetic spirit, which ardently loved the Infinite.
She writes: "August 1847: Vale.—My oddities were never planned—effect of an incalculable constitution, first, then by isolation; and as to dress, by duty. To be unique by choice, without unique talents and virtues, is so ridiculous as ungrateful.” "It's so universal that all classes avoid contact with me that I don't blame anyone. The fact generally increased pity and self-esteem.” "As a traveler enters a beautiful palace and finds that all the doors are closed, and he has only allowed the use of a few avenues and passages, so from the cradle I have wandered into the chambers of social feelings, or into the cabinets of naturals. moral philosophy, the recesses of ancient and modern teachings. All say - abstain from entering the world of the initiates by birth, wealth, talents and patronage. I bear it with pleasure, for it is the echo of a decree from on high; and of the roadside hedges where I get accommodation, and from the air that comes out when the crowd enters these noble halls, while I am at the door, I receive a pleasant view that is the merit of an infinite sky where palaces are prepared for the poor".
"To live to give pain and not pleasure (the latter is so delicious) seems the spidery necessity of my existence on earth, and I went my strange way with joy, saying: "Will the clay ask? But in all real cases, it is difficult, and we lose sight of the first need, - here, too, in the midst of red work with failure in all great, great and infinite ends. Still with disinterested intentions, though uncontrollable due to respect for others.”
When Mrs. Thoreau visited her one day, wearing pink ribbons, she closed her eyes and talked to her like that for a while. Little by little she said, "Mrs. Thoreau, I don't know if you noticed that my eyes are closed. "Yes, ma'am, I noticed." "Perhaps you would like to know the reasons?" "Yes I should." "I don't I like to see a person your age guilty of such frivolity in her dress."
When her beloved pet, E. H., was in the valley and went for a walk in the woods with Hannah, her niece, Aunt Mary was afraid they were lost and found a man in a neighboring house and begged him to go look. for them. The man left and came back saying he couldn't find them. “Go and shout, 'Elizabeth!'” The man, on the contrary, refused this favor, as he did not know Miss Elizabeth. H. She was very offended and exclaimed: “God has given you a voice to use in the service of your fellow men. creatures. Go now and call 'Elizabeth' until you find them." The man immediately went and did as he was told, and on finding them apologized for having called, saying what Miss Emerson had told him.
When some of my acquaintances were in her neighborhood and visited, I told them that it was not a whistle that every mouth could blow, but a wholly clan musical instrument, a pibrosh, for example, which only a native climber could draw music.
In his twenty years' solitude, with a minimum of books and only sermons, and a copy of "Paradise Lost", with no cover or title page, so that later, when he heard much about Milton and looked for his work, discovered that it was her book she knew so well - she was forced to find her companionship and solace in nature. She speaks of "her attempts at Malden to rouse the soul amid the dreary scenes of dreary Saturdays, when nature was like a pulpit."
“Maiden, November 15, 1805.—What a rich day, I was so absorbed in the search for truth that I disdained to touch the novel I had wanted for so many years. How distasteful is fiction to a mind touched by immortal visions! November 16th. — My expectations are so low that he enjoys the industry for a week. A rose before dawn every morning; visited once out of necessity, and again for books; read Butler's analogy; commented on the Holy Scriptures; I read it in a little book, - Cicero's letters, - some: played Shakespeare, - washed, scrubbed, cleaned the house and baked. Today he doesn't remember a mistake or a sacrifice, but he never felt the full content of the day's work. It is a sweet pleasure to submit to circumstances while you are superior to them.
"Malden, September, 1807.—An ecstasy of feeling which I would part with, in days more devoted to higher discipline. But when Nature beams with such excessive beauty, when the heart throbs with hope in its Author—it feels that it is connected with him more than by any bonds of Creation - she exults, perhaps too tenderly for the state of probation. But in the dead of night, approaching morning, when the stars of the east shine, or seem to shine with indescribable brilliance, a brilliance that pierces the mind with wonder and curiosity - so no matter how surprised, who can fear? From Saturday, Aunt B -[o lud tia]was brought here. Oh! terrible sight! instinct perhaps triumphs over reason and all dignified self-respect, in its eagerness for recovery and the smallest means connected therewith. No one else's desire holds her, not caring. But that doesn't worry me, I will happily return to God. His name is my greatest confidence. Your mere presence is an indescribable pleasure.
“Yesterday I walked five miles or more, lost in mental or heart existence, due to fatigue, - suitable for the company I was, all kindness and purest virtue. The lady is celebrated for her intelligence, but she was never so good to me. On my morning walk, I met a lady, a stranger, - talked about Ms. T. My mind expanded with a new, innocent pleasure. Oh! is virtue and that dear heavenly meekness bound by any necessity to the lower rank of refined men, who would willingly sympathize with the exalted? But not so, I believe. It seems to me that mediocrity is farther from eminent virtue than from extreme position; though still it must depend on the nature of the heart. The average mind will be disturbed, whether in extreme wealth or poverty, praise or blame, society or loneliness. A feverish desire to be noticed perhaps in all these cases wounded the heart of common refinement and virtue."
He later writes of his early days in Malden: "When I look back on the revolutions of nations - that retribution which seems to last forever in this part of creation - I remember with great pleasure that of all the trouble I suffered in my childhood and being of the others felt it was more the order of things than their individual fault. Providence and prayer were all, for I was impressed with my poor impractical aunt. Poor woman! Could her own temper in childhood or years have been restrained, what happiness for her , who had a warm heart; but for me it would have prevented those first lessons of courage, which your whims taught me to practice. If I had advanced in life, what being proud, enthusiastic, even a fever, I could have been. I love to shine , flattered and flattered, anxious and involved with others, frail and feverish like me.”
She alludes to the early days of her solitude, sixty years later, on her own farm in Maine, sadly speaking the thoughts suggested by the rich autumn landscape around her: “Ah! when I went out in the afternoon Nature was so sad and weary that I felt her whisper to me, 'Even these leaves which you use to think my best emblems have also lost their charm in me, and I am weary of my pilgrimage - weary that he himself it must again be clothed in the splendor of winter, and immediately be in bed in flowers and waterfalls. Oh, if there be a better power than I - and if there is, declare my own fearful fetters - when will He suffer my lights to go out, my tides to cease until the eternal ebb? Oh for the transformation! I am not infinite, nor do I have power or will, but limited and imprisoned, a tool of the mind, even of the beings I feed and adorn. Vital, I do not feel: not active, but passive, and I cannot help the creatures that seem to be my offspring, - myself. But I'm tired of you being ungrateful, now you want to look for more. I soothed your thorny childhood, though you didn't know me, and you were laid in my nakedest desolation. Still, I consoled you when you left for work, fed you my marshmallow, the first day of finished bread. Furthermore, I led you when you did not even know the syllable of my active Cause (nothing else than if it were dead and eternal matter) to that Cause; and from that lonely heart I learned to say, in early womanhood, Just live with God - 'that's ecstasy'."
“This morning rich in existence; the memory of my aunt's past misery in deep poverty and her most unhappy temper; from the bitter days of youth and old age, when my senses and reason seemed but means to work, or to learn my unpopular fate, and that - but no more; — joy, hope and resignation unite me to the One whose mysterious Will governs everything, and the darkest and the lightest are equally welcome. Oh! if this state of mind continued, one would not wish for death." "I felt, until the age of twenty, that Christianity was as necessary to the world as existence; - I did not know that it was recently published or partially received. Later: "I could have those hours I spoke of in my fresh youth, Obeying God is joy, though there was no other world, I should rejoice, though I return to dust."
"Stupidity follows me like a shadow follows form. Yet I have devoted my whole life to finding a new truth that will connect me closer to God. And the simple principle that made me say, in youth and extreme poverty, that if He made me a blot on the fair face of His Creation, I should rejoice in His will, I was never equaled, though I return in long life. Helpless as angels. I end the days in good health and joy without rising now. As I thought that they were lost! If the most liberal views of the divine government lead me to think that nothing is lost that leads me into His now hidden presence, I may be in danger of losing, and causing others to lose, that reverence and composure which are so necessary.”
A talented, educated, well-to-do man, whom she respected, approached her and offered her marriage. The proposal gave her pause and much thought, but after considering it she rejected it, on what grounds I know not: but several allusions to it in her diary suggest that it was a religious act, and it is easy to see that she I could hardly swear sympathy in her religious abandonment to any other partner than a rarely found partner.
"In 1807 January 19th, Malden[alluding to to do o sales of whetherLast night I said two sentences about that stupid place that I bitterly regret - not because they were inappropriate, but because they arose out of anger. When we don't have any barriers, it's hard to manage our feelings. But this will teach me. It humbles me more than anything I've ever known, to find myself for a moment under the influence of hope, fear, or especially anger over interest. But I got over it and responded kindly to repeated provocations. What is it? My uncle was the means of reducing my property. It's funny to hurt him for it. He demanded his fair share. But finally, tonight, the deal is done, and I'm pleased with myself: — my dear has done well. I've never been so happy about a little thing. Happy start to my business, although selling a place seems like one of the worst things for me to do right now.”
"Jan. 21. Tired now and then of objects that are so boring to hear and see. Oh, the power of sight, then the delicate nerve power that receives the impressions of sounds! If ever blessed with a social life , let the emphasis be grateful. If I could treat myself to music sometimes, it would remind me that there aresons.Silent in this hard time with watchful years, weak and tormented, it's wonderful, my spirit: hopes I can't have. It is not an appearance, but it is dark in the land, as to knowledge and joy outside: but the appearance of a deathbed reflects a brightness over everything else.
"The night is fine, but I dare not enjoy it. The moon and stars chide me because I have dealt with vile fools. Should I be so worried about saving a few dollars? I was never so ashamed. I told you what ecstasy I could give them." to the poor? Phew! self-preservation, dignity, confidence in the future, contempt for trifles! Alas, I am ashamed. I instantly took revenge - for bothering me."
"Jan. 30. Went to see Captain Dexter. sick. Promised never to put that ring on again. A month that began so mundane ended miserably.
"It was the choice of the Eternal that gave the radiant seraphim his joys, and me my vile prison. I adore him. His will has given my chiefs to shine in wisdom, friendship, and ardent aspirations, while I spend my youth, its last vestiges, in the greatest shadows of ignorance and utter misery of society. I praise Him, though when my bodily strength fails, it is a trial not easy to describe.”
"It is true that I must stir the very sails for coins - a duty assigned to my pride; and, indeed, so poor are some of those appointed to join me in the weary path of the needy, that benevolence requires no self-denial. I can venture on a diet of bread and water! I might have lived without reckoning, as in the first half of my life, when my poor aunt lived. I had ten dollars a year for clothes and charity, and I never remember being in want, though I had none, only two or three helps in these six years running my house. That ten dollars was earned by my dear father, and there is a hundred dollars left, and I can't stand it, and I don't know what to do. Yet I don't would breathe until - or - my desires. Only now I wouldn't allow myself to pay the hotel bill. They have enough to do. Besides, I'll manage to depend on anything. Better anything than a dishonest dependency, which steals from the poorest and spoils the friendship of equal bonds."
In 1830, in one of her distant homes, she blames herself for a sudden passion she had to visit her old home and friends in town, where she lived for a time with her brother.[g. emerge pai]and later with his widow. "Do I want to be in Boston? 'Would I weary, would I disappoint; I, who had so long despised the means, that I ever considered it a kind of rebellion to seek them? Yet is not a worm's ancient desire so greedy as[my]find me in my old haunts".
1833. “The difficulty of getting a low-boarded seat for a lady is obvious. And sometimes I'm tired. Yet how independent, how much better than staying with friends! And sometimes it seems to me that I am emptied and shelled, that I carry for the ignorant seeds that no idle wind can distribute so well." "It is hard to fight for the health that is used every day to ask for final closure." , poor victim, dragged by the strictest provisions of the natural laws that kill? I will still believe.” "There was great truth in what an enthusiastic devotee said, that if God threw him into hell, he would still join his hands."
“Newburyport, September, 1822. High noon, solemn and rapturous, a prophecy of the approach of the Presiding Spirit of Autumn. God save my sanity! Alone, feeling strongly, completely, that he deserved nothing; according to Adam Smith's idea of society, 'did nothing;' doing nothing, they never hope; and still joyful in existence, perhaps striving to beautify an individual of God's creation.
"Our civilization does not always improve our poetry. It is dotted and spiced with our complexity of art and invention, but it lacks some of the magnificence which belongs to the Doric rather than the philosophical age. In a religious contemplative audience it would have less external variety, but more means. simple and grandiose; some pulsations of created beings, some sequences of actions, some lamps placed in the firmament allow us to talk about Time, create epochs, write histories, - do more, - date God's revelations to man. But these lamps serve to measure some of the moments of eternity, to share the story of God's operations in the birth and death of nations, worlds. It is a good name for our concepts of breath, suffering, pleasure, action. We personify it. We call it all the names of fleeting, dreamy, fading images. It is nothing away. We exist in eternity. Dissolve the body and the night is gone, the stars are out, and we measure duration by the number of our thoughts, by the activity of reason, by the discovery of truths, by the acquisition of virtues, by the approach of God. And the grey-haired god casts his shadows in all directions, and his slaves catch, now this, now that, one in a halo casting poetry, or pebbles or insects or bubbles around him. Sometimes they climb, sometimes they crawl into the cruelest holes - but they are all alike in disappearing, like the shadow of a cloud."
To his nephew Charles: “War; what do i think about it? Why, to your ear, I think it is so much better than oppression, which, if it laid waste the whole geography of despotism, would be a sign of great and glorious importance. Channing portrays its miseries, but does he know those of a worse war - the personal animosities, the pinching, bitter warfare of the human heart, the cruel oppression of the poor by the rich, which mars the old worlds? How much better and fairer are cities invaded and burned! They just release blood that corrupts into worms and dragons. The trump card of the war would be harmony in the considerations of theologians and statesmen, as the newspapers reported. It was the glory of the Chosen People, nay, they say there was a war in heaven. War is among the means of discipline, the coarse improvers, and is no worse than conflict with poverty, malice, and ignorance. War devastates people's consciences, but it spoils peace no less. And if you tell me of the miseries of the battlefield, with the sensitive Channing (whose love of life I am ashamed of), what a few days of agony are, what to say of the vulture she gave birth to, the tomb and the parson hero , compared to the long years lying in bed and the desired departure? To widows and orphans - Oh, I could state the facts of the long years of imprisoned minds and hearts, through which uneducated orphans pass!
"O time! You sloth. Thou whose power cast down the greatest and crushed the worm, rest upon thy gray throne, equal in power to thy troubles and thy graves. When will their routines give way to higher and permanent institutions? When their trophies and their his name and all his magical forms lost in the Genius of Eternity? In Eternity, without false promises, without fantastic illusions, without riddles hidden by its veils, without its spidery webs, which deceive and destroy. He hastens to finish his work colorful, in which the terrible Gorgons play, despite the holy spirits.'T is already moth-eaten and its slats tremble, while the beams of the loom tremble.
"Sitting down. 25. Long live the requiem of the passing time! Never has a future heir attended a royal funeral with greater satisfaction. But his hope is not mine. Because in a tired womb, the numbers of the same sad hour are fertile, colorful by the memory of defeats in virtue, by the prophecy of others, darker, blind, and diseased Yet He who formed thy web, who spun thy ancient warp, Graciously gave man to cast His shuttle, or feel himself to do so lo, And lighten the woof filled with many rainbow flowers, - Toils, nay - fleeting toils, that they will wither like flowers in fairer soils; - he attuned his mind in such harmony with the harp of the universe, that never it lacks the chords of hope's music. 'It is not the nature of existence, while God exists, to be without a slight excitement. When the dreamy pages of life seem turned and folded to utter weariness, even this idea of who fills the hour with overflowing virtues, it lifts the beholder to other worlds, and he adores the eternal purposes of Him who raises up and overthrows, blows down to the dust, and rises to the heavens. There is a strange defect in Brougham's title of a System of Natural Theology, when the moral constitution of the beings for whom these devices are made is not recognized. The wonderful inhabitant of the building, who for times unknown was the mechanic, was left out for that part where the Creator placed his lighted candle, appointed a governor. Not to complain of the chaotic state of poor old Earth, which the geologist has brought so close in his long and dark transformations. Yet her youthful charms, adorned by the hand of Moses' cosmogony, will linger around the heart, while poetry will succumb to science. However, there is a dark music in the turmoil of times so far away. And the bare bones of this poor embryo of Earth can give an idea of the Infinite much, much better than when they are dignified by art and industry: - its oceans, when they conquer the symbols of endless ages, than when they are covered with the burden of war and oppression. How great is your preparation for souls - souls who were supposed to feel the Divine, before science dissected the emotions and applied its steely analysis to that state of being which admits of neither psychology nor element.
"September 1836. Vale. A mystical dream that dissolves during the season. Oh, to dream deeper; to lose a few more external objects! Yet its influence is so insignificant that duty is sometimes lost sight of. Mourning it's better than going around talking acting like a sleepwalker. Yes, all this solitude with the Being that creates the powers of life! Even fame, which lives in other states of virtue, is pleasing. Usefulness, if it requires action, seems less like an existence than a desire to be absorbed in God, retaining conscience. Count the desolations of the journey - the secret martyrdom of youth, heavier than the pyre, I thought, the narrow confines that have no way out, the bitter dregs of the cup - and all is sweetened by His purpose and love. The idea that I am not a partner of those intellectuals I loved to admire does not hurt. Henceforth, the same solitary joy will go with me, if I do not live, as I hope, in the vision of the Infinite. Never the feelings of the Infinite. Infinity and the consciousness of finite weakness and ignorance are as well harmonized as in this mystical age in the deserts of life. Modern German says the contradictions of the Infinite and the finite."
At times I seem to detect in his writings a certain - as it were - polite and polite reverence for the name and dignity of Jesus, by no means spontaneous, but growing out of his respect for Revelation, and really speaking and betraying his organic aversion to any interference, any mediation between her and the Author of her being, for whose direct dealings with her she is continually invoked: for example, the parenthesis "Keeping thy presence, Priest and Medium, from all this access to the sinful creature!" "If it were possible that the Creator were not virtually present with the spirits and bodies he created: - if it were possible in the nature of things, he could withdraw, - I would cling to the faith that at some moment of his existence , I was present: though rejected by Him, my sorrows, my ignorance and meanness were part of His plan; my death too, however long and wearisome it was postponed to prayer - was determined, it was arranged. Oh, how I am weary in my youth - more so now, not whenever I can breathe, it seems, the atmosphere of Omnipresence: then I seek neither faith nor knowledge: honours, pleasures, toils, I always decline, in comparison with this divine participation in existence; —but how seldom, how dependent on the organs through which the soul acts!
Last week's illness was good medicine; pain disintegrated the spirit, or became spiritual. I arose - I felt that I had given God perhaps more than an angel could - I promised Him in my youth that I would be acceptable to be a stain in this righteous world, under His command. I keep offering to go through with the darkest, loneliest thing I've ever heard of, on one condition: Your agency. Yes, I love you and everything you do, as it pours frost and darkness all my ways."
For years she had her bed made in the shape of a coffin; and she was delighted to discover the figure of a coffin which they made every night in the pavement, in the shadow of the church tower which surrounded the house.
Saladin had his shroud made and carried it into battle as his standard. She made her shroud, and death still refused to come, and she thought it a pity to leave it idle, did she wear it as a nightgown or day dress, nay, she rode in it, on horseback, on her mountain roads, until she sold out. She then put on another make-up, and as she never traveled without being provided for on this dear and much-needed occasion, I believe she was very worn out.
"In 1833 I have, for the last two years, given up hope of dying. At the lowest level of health nothing is sinister; diet and exercise back. So it seems best to get that very modest insurance job. At the end of this month I enter in my dear sixty years.” "1835, June 16th. Dull sullenness: - he hoped, assuming a new form, to open a cold sweet grave. Just existence in any form is sweet. Away with knowledge; - Only god. He communicates this humble waiting condition of ours, otherwise I would never have noticed him. Science, nature, - Oh, I longed to open some page; — not now, too late. Health and nerve problems. O dear worms, how will they ever tear down this wearying tabernacle, the most valuable companions, the teachers in the science of the mind, gnawing the nets that bind it. Very Beatrice in portraying paradise. Yes, I get bored in contact with forms of depravity, and I resign myself to the fact that I am nothing, I never expect a palm, a laurel, in the future."
"1826, July. If one could choose and be a gallows without crime, would that not be better than a long languor in years without mind or loyalty? A vulture and a crow would becoaxar coaxar,and, unaware of any deformity in the mangled body, would enjoy his meal, make no grimaces of pity, nor suffer any real sympathy. I pray to die though myriads happier And my own comrades approach the throne. Your coldest ray will purify me and make me holy forever. Were I here in the highest place of acquiring and spreading virtue, the principle of human sympathy would be too strong for that rapturous emotion, for that fierce pleasure I crave; not for that sort of obscure virtue which is so rich that it lies at the feet of the Author of morals. Those economists (Adam Smith) who say that nothing is added to the wealth of a nation except what is drawn from the earth, and that, whatever the disposition of virtue, if something is not done for society, it deserves no glory, — for that I am satisfied with this kind of paradoxical facts; but a secret sense of virtue, disinterested (or perhaps not), is valuable, and will speak, in the spiritual world, of the immediate presence of God, more than the blood of many martyrs who have none. "I have heard that the greatest geniuses have died unaware of their power and influence in art and science. I so believe that their great insight has consumed their selfishness or derailed their small budgets."
"The greatest of all gifts, however small my power to receive, - the ability, the element of love of the All-Perfect, apart from personal happiness: - happiness? - is itself." She stops in the midst of her passionate prayers for instant communion with God; - “I, who never made a sacrifice to record it, - I crouched in the nest of silence for so many years; — I yield myself to the pleasure of sympathy for the great virtues, — blessing your Source: Am I right? “While I sympathize with God's rule of the world, I may be losing my perspective. Well I found out about your existencea first.My poor aunt never pointed me to any objects of science or observation, except His Being and commands; and oh, how I trusted him in all events until I learned the order of human events under the pressure of desire.
“What a timid and ungrateful creature! Dread the deepest falls of old age, when you aspire, at least in imagination, to Him with whom the day is a thousand years, - with whom all miseries and irregularities harmonize with the universal good! Shame on me, that in three years I learned to sit every day in peace and pleasure, without any apparent benefit to anyone, or knowledge to myself; —reconciled, too, with the memory of the long years of slavery spent in work and ignorance, with the loss of that character in which I once thought and felt so secure, without ever having realized that I acted on calculation.
His friends told him: "I wish you the joy of worms." And when she finally achieved her freedom, the event of her death really had such a comic tone in the eyes of everyone who knew her, that her friends feared they would not dare look at each other at her funeral, lest we should forget the serious decency of this one hour.
She gave high advice. Certain boys were privileged to have this immeasurably high standard set before them in childhood; a blessing that nothing else in education can offer. Is it frivolous to ask, "Was she ever a practicing Christian?" Cassandra, until a frivolous and skeptical time, uttered the secret of the gods: but it is easy to believe that Cassandra, domesticated in a house of women, would prove a troublesome tenant. Is it less desirable to have high abstractions because the abstractionist is nervous and irritable? Shall we not keep Flamsteed and Herschel in the observatory, though it must be proved that they forgot to correct their own kitchen clock? For the safety of every mackerel hunter, it is essential that latitudes and longitudes be determined astronomically; and so every banker, merchant, and lumberjack has a share in the saint and prophet's extolling of the moral code. Christian times, starting from a great instinct, rightly said: Only faith, only faith.
SAMUEL HARATI
“Every man defends himself as a great judge; The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished Cato.
A year ago, how many times did we meet Under these elms, once more in sober bloom, His tall sad figure walking down the street, And now the thrush sings over his grave! Thy name on other shores may never be known, Though harder Rome, no more earnest consul knew, But Massachusetts her true son shall possess; From her soil grew his enduring virtues. She loves the man who chose the vanquished cause, With a virtuous soul that worships God alone; Clean hands that upheld their equal laws, The old faith never outgrew; A cold demeanor, a warm heart underneath, Her life-and-death simple grandeur. F.B. Sanborn. April 1857
[Written already o 4 November, 1856., o e when Sir. buchanan he was the chosen ones President of o Unido Countries. reprinted of Putnamova Magazine.]
This is the day on which more public good or harm is to be done than any other day. And this is the time of pregnancy, when our old Roman, Samuel Hoar, decided to leave this world.Ab unfairly competition bitterly he retired.
He was born under a Christian and human star, full of humanity and nobility, honor and charity; and, while he was ready to face any disagreeable duty, while he dared to do whatever befits a man, his self-respect kept him from any folly. The Homeric heroes, when they saw the gods interfering in the conflict, sheathed their swords. Therefore, if he felt no call to do so by means of a contest of personal strength with mobs or nations; but when he saw the day and the gods marching against him, he withdrew, but with unaltered conviction. all was wonexcept passionately one the soldier
By the time he went to South Carolina in 1844 as commissioner of Massachusetts, while he remained in Charleston, awaiting correspondence with the governor and law enforcement officers, he was repeatedly warned that it was unsafe to appear in public or walk daily, as he did , without the supervision of your friends, on the streets of the city. He was advised to retire to private accommodation, which his friends gladly offered him. He turned down advice and turned down offers, saying he was old and life wasn't worth much, but he'd rather the guys trot his old head around like a football through the streets than him hiding it. And he continued the uniform practice of daily walking in all parts of the city. But when the Charleston crowd had gathered in the streets before his hotel, and a delegation of gentlemen were waiting for him in the hall, to say that they had come with the unanimous voice of the state to forcibly remove him, and the carriage was at the door , he considered his duty done to the last possible degree. The strength was obvious and overwhelming; part of the clerk was upstairs; now was the time to send a military officer; and he said, "Well, gentlemen, since it is your pleasure to use force, I must go." But his opinion has not changed.
So now, when the votes of free states, as shown in the recent election in the state of Pennsylvania, have disappointed the hopes of mankind, and betrayed the cause of liberty, he has considered the question of justice and liberty, for his sake. age, lost, and he no longer felt like dragging out the days for the ignominy of a long defeat, and he withdrew immediately, but with unaltered conviction.
He was very natural, but of very high character; a man of simple, plain, and honest taste in speech, with a clear perception of justice, and perfect obedience to it in his actions; strong understanding, precise and methodical, which gave him great prominence in law. It was his reputation for the strict method of his intellect, rather than any particular direction in his studies, that led him to receive the chair of mathematics at Harvard University when it became vacant in 1806. The severity of his logic may have inspired fear. , if not restrained by his natural deference, which made him modest and polite, though his politeness had a grave and almost military air. He combined a singular self-respect with a natural respect for all other men; so that it was perfectly easy for him to associate with farmers and the common, uneducated, and poor people, and he had a strong and unaffected interest in farms, crops, weather, and the common occurrences of country life. It was just as easy for him to find on the same floor, with the same simple courtesy, men of distinction and great ability. He loved farms and trees, he loved birds, and he was attentive to their ways and habits; addicted to long walks and retreats; moderate to asceticism, because his lesson of experience was not lost on him and his self-control was perfect. Though rich, with simple and almost poor personal expenses, yet free with his money for any worthy use, he readily lends it to youth and industrious people, and is in no way desirous of recovering interest or principal from them. He was open to any charitable action and any public statement in which there was some reason. When I spoke to him one day about a certain inequality of taxation in the city, he said that it was his custom to pay whatever was required; for though he might think the tax to be large and very unequal, yet he thought the money might go that way as well as any other.
The strength and beauty of man lies in the natural goodness and justice of his mind, which in growth and old age, after dealing with difficult private and public interests all his life, has left a childlike innocence, of which we have nothing. the second or third instance, — the strength of a chief united with the modesty of a child. He returned from the courts or congresses to sit, with unaltered humility, in the church or in the town hall, on a simple wooden bench where honor arrived and sat beside him.
He was a man in whom so rare a spirit of justice visibly dwelt, that if one met him in a hut or in a forest, he still appeared to be a public man, answering like a sovereign state to a sovereign state; and he may easily suggest the image of Milton's John Bradshaw, that "he was a consul from whom the fasces did not depart with age, but in private he seemed ever to sit and judge kings." Everyone knew where to find him. What he said, he would do. But he despised all art in his speech: he was endowed with no rhetorical graces,
"All easy true dele extreme ability."
He was so careful and tender with the truth that he sometimes weary his audience with the labor he went through to qualify and verify his statements, adding clause by clause to justify all his convictions. He had little or no power of generalization. But he had a simple way of making his statement with all his strength, and here and there borrowing the help of a good story or phrase from some farmer, the force of which impressed it on his memory, and therefore on his hearers. were forced to remember point of it.
The impression he left on the jury was honorable for him and for them. For many years he was at the head of the bar in Middlesex and also practiced in neighboring counties. He took one side or the other in all important cases, and his influence was considered despotic, and was sometimes objected to as an obstacle to public justice. Many a good story is still told of the confusion of jurors who thought the law and the evidence were on one side, and yet Squire Hoar said that he believed, in his conscience, that his client was entitled to a verdict. And what Middlesex jury of pious men would hazard an opinion diametrically opposed to what Squire Hoar believed was fair? He was entitled in that regard; for he discriminated in the business that brought him in, and would not discuss a rotten thing; and he declined the very large sums offered him to undertake the defense of criminals.
His character made him the conscience of the community in which he lived. And in many cities the question was asked, "What does Squire Hoar think of it?" and in political crises he was asked to write a few lines so that the good people in Chelmsford, Marlborough or Shirley would know what the opinion was. I used to feel that awareness of it was a kind of gauge of the country's degree of honesty, with which it was tested at every opportunity and sometimes found wanting. I am sorry to say that he could not be elected to Congress for the second time in Middlesex.
And in his own town, if any important object was accomplished - as, for example, when the county commissioners refused to rebuild the burned-out courthouse, believing that the courthouses would be moved from Concord to Lowell - all parties together sent Mr. Hoar to the legislature, the body, where his presence and speech, of course, secured the rebuilding; and, of course, having answered our end, we crossed over and elected someone else for the next term.
His head, with a special grace in its lines, resembled a bust of Dante. To the end, he maintained the straightness of his tall but slender form, and no less than all the strength of his mind. Such was the beauty of his person and bearing in his old age, as if his mind radiated and left the same impression of virtue on all beholders. His beauty was pathetic and moving in these last days, and, as it now appears, aroused a certain dread in all who saw it, that the costly ornaments of our houses, halls, and streets would soon be removed. And yet, how lonely he seemed, day by day in the world, this man so respected, this man of public life, of great acquaintance and extensive family ties! Was it some reserve of constitution, or was it just virtue, that with aims so pure and singular, it seemed that he had left life alone and, as it were, unknown to those who were occasional and substantial acquaintances with him?
[The following sketch by Mr. Hoar, from a slightly different point of view, was prepared by Mr. Emerson, shortly after the above article appeared in "Putnam's Magazine" (Dec. 1856), at the request of the editor of the "Monthly Religious Magazine," and was printed there in January, 1857. It is here added as giving some additional features of a figure trait that may serve as a pendant in some respects to that of Dr. Ripley.]
Mr. Hoar distinguished himself in his profession by strength of mind and simplicity of means. His skill lay in a clear understanding and a forceful presentation of the material points of his case. He soon had it, and never had it better, and was just as ready at any moment to state the facts. He saw what was essential and rejected what was not, so that no one would be embarrassed by an unnecessary series of books and evidence of potential value.
These lawyer tactics were the tactics of his life. He had the uniform appearance of knowing what he wanted and taking the shortest route. It is unusual that his character made such a deep impression, standing and working on such common ground. He was not a spiritualist, nor a genius, nor a literary, nor an executive talent. Strictly speaking, his power of understanding was directed towards the common domestic and municipal welfare. Society had reason to appreciate him, because he was the main pillar on which it rested. Super-were useful and practical in his mind, to a degree that might even be comic to the young and poetic. If he was talking about the engagement of two lovers, he called it a contract. No one wanted to talk about the black letter lawyer's thoughts or aspirations, who studied only to keep people out of prison and his country out of slavery. If you had read Swedenborg or Plotinus to him, he would have expected you to do so and would have answered from the Revised Statutes. He had an affinity for mathematics, but it was a taste, not an aspiration, and of the modern sciences he enjoyed reading popular books on geology. However, this respect for the basic plan and substructure of society was such a natural and orderly faculty of his mind, and not like a "complicated commodity", which was as admirable as any work of nature and like one of those opaque crystals, large beryls weighing tons, found in Acworth, New Hampshire, are no less perfect in their angles and structure, and only less beautiful, than topaz and clear diamonds. However, while his talent and his profession led him to guard the material riches of society, there was no person more disinterested. And if there were areas of knowledge that weren't open to him, he didn't pretend to have them. His modesty was sincere. He had a childlike innocence and an innate restraint, which did not lead him into temptation, and enabled him to meet everyone present with a free, dispassionate kindness that had no memory.
"Of wrong eu anger s Who Terra It is filled."
No person has been more prone to the blows which the ambition and avarice of men have inflicted on the common wealth. However, when politicians or speculators approached him, these memories did not leave a scar; his face had an unchanging calm and beauty; he had nothing to regret - he let the cloud rest where he could, he dwelt in the eternal sun.
He was born and raised in a small country town, where the old faith existed in austerity, and he spent all his energy on upbringing purity of manners and careful upbringing. No agricultural art or practice was unknown to him, and the farmers hailed him as one of their own, while paying due tribute to his mental powers and virtues.
He loved the simple dogmas and customs of his church; he was always an honored member and sometimes an active member. He has never shied away from an unpleasant duty. In the days of the Sunday laws there was a man who paid tithes; under Maine law, he was the prosecutor of liquor dealers. It seemed that the New England church had molded him to be its friend and advocate; lover and sure friend of its parochial rules, its ministers, its rites and its social reforms. He was a model of those formal but honorable manners which constitute what is called an old-school gentleman, so called under the impression that style is passing away, but which, I suppose, is an optical illusion, as there are always some of the members. of the class departed, and always some young men to whom such manners are innate.
I spoke of your modesty; he had nothing to say about himself; and sincere admiration for him has been evoked by some heroes of the profession, such as Justice Parsons and Justice Marshall, Mr. Mason and Mr. Webster. When someone said in his presence that Judge Marshall was out of his mind, Mr. Hoar observed that "Judge Marshall can lose enough brains to supply three or four common men, before the common people know it". He had immense respect for Mr. Webster, with whom he often had opportunity to try his strength in the bar, and deeply regretted Mr. Webster in his later years.
There was no elegance to his reading or taste other than the crystal clarity of his mind. He didn't like poetry; and I have heard that the only verse known to have been quoted by the Indian Rule is:
"When the oaks are grey,
You farmers keep planting.”
But I find an elegance in his calm but firm withdrawal from all courtroom business which he might have given up without apparent prejudice to the interests involved (and that when he was at his best strength), and his self-dedication ever since to the unpaid services of Temperance and peace and other philanthropic societies, Sunday schools, the cause of education and especially the university, and political pursuits as a strong sense of duty and love of order and liberty impelled him.
Perfect in private life, husband, father, friend, he was strict only with himself. With those closest to him, he was as if he held honor, nor did he think that a lifetime's knowledge could justify any lack of politeness on his part. He performed the ceremony perfectly. But his heart was completely kind, grateful and generous.
December's planets shoot with lightning,
His cold gaze contemplated truth and conduct;
July was in her sunny heart,
October in your liberal hand.
THOREAU.
The queen rejoices with her peers,
And cautious nature knows yours,
Through court and city, through valley and below,
And he offers himself as a lover.
And your son will receive more treasures,
And more uses, feel free to spill
Only learned people walk in a forest
He'll meet you with the glass at ten by ten.
It seemed that the breezes had carried it away,
It seemed the sparrows had taught him,
As if he knew by secret sign
Where orchids grew in distant fields.
[Part of this work was Mr. Emerson at Mr. Thoreau, May 1862. The following summer it was enlarged and printed in the Atlantic Monthly in its present form.]
Henry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French ancestor who came to this country from the island of Guernsey. His character occasionally showed traits drawn from that blood, in a unique combination with a very strong Saxon temper.
He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817. He graduated from Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary distinction. Iconoclastic in literature, he rarely thanked the colleges for the services rendered to him, he held them in little esteem, although his debt to them was important. After leaving the University he joined his brother to teach at a private school, which he soon dropped out of. His father was a graphite pencil maker and Henry dabbled in that trade for a while, believing he could make a better pencil than what was in use. The experiments completed, he exhibited his work to Boston chemists and artists, and having received his certificates of excellence and equality with the best London manufacturers, he returned home satisfied. Friends of his congratulated him on opening a path to wealth. But he replied that he should never again make a pen. "Why should I? I wouldn't repeat what I did once." He continued his endless walks and various studies, making every day a new knowledge of nature, although he never spoke of zoology or botany, for, though very diligent with natural facts, he was uninterested in technical and textual science.
At that time, a strong and healthy young man just out of college, while all his fellows were choosing their occupations or eager to start some lucrative business, it was inevitable that his thoughts would be centered on the same question, and this required a rare decision of mind. to reject all the usual ways, and maintain his solitary freedom at the cost of disappointing the natural expectations of his family and friends: the more difficult as he had perfect honesty, was punctual in securing his own independence, and held all men to an equal obligation. But Thoreau never wavered. He was a born Protestant. He refused to give up his great ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much broader vocation, the art of living well. If he belittled and challenged the opinions of others, it was only because he was more intent on reconciling his practice with his own convictions. Never idle or complacent, he preferred, when he wanted money, to earn it by doing some manual labor that pleased him, such as building a boat or fence, planting, grafting, measuring, or other short jobs, rather than any long-term work. jobs. With his hardy habits and little will, his skill in woodworking and his powerful arithmetic, he was quite capable of living in any part of the world. It would take less time to satisfy his needs than someone else's. So he was sure about his free time.
A natural ability to measure, which arose from his mathematical knowledge and his habit of checking the measurements and distances of objects that interested him, the size of trees, the depth and breadth of lakes and rivers, the height of mountains and the overhead line. . distance from his favorite peaks - this and his intimate knowledge of the territory around Concord led him to dedicate himself to the profession of surveyor. For him it had the advantage of constantly taking him to new and isolated areas and of helping him in the study of nature. His punctuality and ability in this business were readily appreciated, and he found the job he desired.
He easily solved the land surveyor's problems, but he was daily besieged by more difficult questions, which he bravely faced. He examined all the customs and wanted to place his entire practice on an ideal basis. He was a Protestant.surplus,and few lives contain so many sacrifices. He was not created for any profession; he never married; he lived alone;' he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay taxes to the state; he didn't eat meat, he didn't drink wine, he never knew how to smoke; and, though naturalistic, he used neither traps nor weapons. He has chosen, no doubt wisely for himself, to be a bachelor of thought and nature. He had no talent for wealth and knew how to be poor without any hint of poverty or clumsiness. He may have entered your lifestyle without much expectation, but he approved of it in hindsight. "I often remember", he wrote in his diary, "that if I had given myself the wealth of Croesus, my ends should have remained the same and my means essentially the same." He had no temptations to fight, no appetite, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. The beautiful house, dress, manners and speech of highly educated people, all these were turned against him. He preferred a good Indian, and considered these refinements an obstacle to conversation, wanting to get to know his companion in the simplest way. He turned down invitations to formal dinners because everyone was in everyone's way and he couldn't meet people for any purpose. “They pride themselves,” he said, “that their dinner is expensive; I take pride in the fact that my dinner costs little.” When he was asked at the table which dish he preferred, he replied: "The closest". He didn't like the taste of wine and never had an addiction in his life. He said: “I have a vague recollection of the pleasure I used to take in smoking dried lily stalks, before I was a man. I usually had them in stock. I never smoked anything more harmful."
He chose to get rich by reducing his needs and providing for them himself. In his travels he used the railway just to cover so much, the country was of no importance for the present purpose, walking hundreds of kilometers, avoiding inns, buying accommodation in peasants and fishermen's houses, because it was cheaper and more comfortable for him. , and because there he could better find the people and information he wanted.
There was something military about his nature, he didn't allow himself to be subdued, he was always virile and capable but rarely tender, as if he felt nothing more than an adversary. He wanted to expose a fallacy, a pillar mistake, I can tell he needed a little sense of victory, a drumbeat, to use his powers to the fullest. It cost him nothing to say No; it was actually a lot easier for him than saying yes. It seemed his first instinct upon hearing a suggestion was to challenge it, so impatient-he was bound by our everyday thinking. It is clear that this habit is somewhat repugnant to social feelings; and though his companion in the end absolves him of all malice or untruth, it spoils the conversation. Therefore, no equal comrade stood in terms of tenderness with someone so pure and harmless. “I love Henry,” said one of his friends, “but I can't like him; and as for his hand, I must think as soon as possible to take the elm's hand.
However, reclusive and stoic as he was, he was very fond of sympathy, and with enthusiasm and childishness he threw himself into the company of the young people he loved and whom he happily entertained, as only he knew, with varied and endless anecdotes. from his experiences in the field and on the river: and he was always ready to lead a party with a berry or a search for chestnuts or grapes. Speaking one day about public speaking, Henry remarked that anything that worked with the public was bad. I said, “Who wouldn't want to write something everyone can read, like Robinson Crusoe? and who does not see with regret that their page is not signed with the true materialistic treatment, which enchants everyone? Henry, of course, objected and boasted of better talks that only reached a few people. But at dinner the young woman, realizing that he was going to teach at the Lyceum, asked him brusquely, "Would his lecture be a nice and interesting story, the kind she wanted to hear, or would it be one of those old philosophical stories? that she didn't care about." Henry turned to her and thought and, I could see, was trying to believe that there was something that might please her and her brother, that they should sit down and watch the lecture if that suited them.
He was an orator and an actor of truth, born as such, and for that reason he always got himself into dramatic situations. In all circumstances it was in the interest of all observers to know what role Henry would take and what he would say; and he did not fail in expectation, but used original judgment in all urgencies. In 1845 he built himself a small house on the bank of Walden Pond and lived there alone for two years, working and studying. This action was completely innate and suited to him. No one who knew him would have charged him with affection. He was different from his neighbors in his thoughts than in his actions. Once he'd exhausted the benefits of that solitude, he'd left her. In 1847, disapproving of some purposes to which public expenditure was destined, he refused to pay his council tax and was sentenced to prison. A friend paid the tax for him and he was released. A similar disturbance threatened the following year. But as his friends paid the tax, despite his protest, I believe he stopped resisting. No opposition or ridicule carried weight with him. He expressed his opinion coolly and completely without affecting the belief that it was the company's opinion. It would be insignificant if everyone present had the opposite opinion. He once went to the University Library to get some books. The librarian refused to lend them. Mr. Thoreau addressed the President, who stated to him the rules and customs permitting the lending of books to resident graduates, clergy who were alumni, and some others who lived within ten miles of the College. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President that the railway had destroyed the old scale of distance - that the library was useless, yes, both the President and the College were useless, according to the terms of its rules - that the only benefit he owed for the College was its library—that, at this time, not only was his need for books imperative, but he wanted a large number of books, and he was convinced that he, Thoreau, and not the librarian, was the true guardian of those books. In short, the President found the petitioner so formidable, and the rules so ridiculous, that he ended up granting him a privilege which in his hands later proved to be unlimited.
There was no truer American than Thoreau. His preference for his country and condition was genuine, and his dislike of English and European manners and tastes bordered on contempt. He anxiously listened to the news orbonmoticaught up in London circles; and although he tried to be polite, these anecdotes tired him. The men all imitated one another, and in a small mold. Why can't they live as far away from each other as possible and each be their own person? What he sought was the most energetic nature; and he wanted to go to Oregon, not London. "In every part of Britain," he wrote in his diary, "the remains of the Romans, their burial urns, their camps, their roads, their dwellings, have been discovered. But at least New England is not based on ruins." We don't need to build the foundations of our homes on the ashes of an earlier civilization."
But, idealistic as he was, in advocating the abolition of slavery, the abolition of custom, almost the abolition of government, it is needless to say that he found himself not only unrepresented in royal politics, but almost equally opposed to all classes of reformers. ... Yet he paid the tribute of his uniform respect for the party against slavery. A man, whose personal knowledge he acquired, he expressed exceptional respect. Before the first friendly word was spoken by Captain John Brown he had sent notices to most houses in Concord that; he would speak in the public hall on the condition and character of John Brown on Sunday night, and would invite all the people to attend. The republican committee, the Committee on Abolitionism, told him it was premature and inadvisable. He replied, "I didn't send you to ask for advice, but to let you know that I need to talk." The hall was filled early in the morning with people from all over the world, and their sincere praise of the hero was heard by all with respect, and many with a compassion that surprised even themselves.
It is said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and most likely had good reason for this - that his body was a bad servant and that he lacked the ability to deal with the material world, as is often the case. with men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was equipped with the most adapted body that could be used. He was of short stature, of firm build, fair complexion, strong, sincere blue eyes, and serious countenance - his face in his later years covered by a growing beard. His senses were keen, his body strong and resilient, his hands strong and skilled at using tools. And there was a wonderful condition of body and mind. He could measure sixteen rods more accurately than another man could measure them with a rod and a chain. He could find his way in the woods at night, he said, better with his feet than his eyes. He could judge the size of the tree very well with his eyes; he knew how to estimate the weight of a calf or a pig like a merchant. From a box that contained bushes or more pencils, he could only get a dozen pencils out of his hands fast enough with each squeeze. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman and would likely outrun most of his countrymen in a day's journey. And the relationship between body and mind was even better than we indicated. He said he wanted every step his legs took. His walking length equaled the length of his writing. If he was locked up at home, he didn't write anything.
He had strong common sense, like that which Rose Flammock, the weaver's daughter in Scott's novel, praises in her father, as a standard which, though it measures duvas and diapers, can also measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He always had a new source. When I planted forest trees and took half a cube of acorns, he said that only a small part of them would be healthy, and he examined them and selected the healthy ones. But it took time to find out, he said, "I think the good ones will sink if you put them all in water." which experiment we successfully tried. He might plan a garden, a house, or a barn; he would be competent to lead the "Pacific Exploration Expedition"; he could give judicious advice in the most difficult private or public matters.
He lived for that day, not burdened and humbled by its memory. If yesterday he presented you with a new proposal, today he would present you with another, no less revolutionary one. A hardworking man, who, like all highly organized people, valued his time very much, he seemed to be the only leisure man in town, always ready for any walk that promised good or for a conversation that lasted until the wee hours. His keen sense was never hampered by the rules of everyday prudence, but he always rose to the occasion. He loved and used the simplest food, but when someone advocated a vegetable diet, Thoreau considered all diets a very small thing, saying that "the man who kills a buffalo lives better than the man who lives in the Graham house". He said: “You can sleep near a railway and no one will disturb you: nature knows very well what sounds it is worth paying attention to, and decided not to listen to a railway whistle. But things respect the pious mind, and the mental ecstasy is never interrupted.” He noticed what happened to him over and over again, that after receiving a rare plant from a distance, he would find it in his own places. Those lucks that only happen to good players happened to him. One day, walking with a stranger, who asked where Indian arrowheads could be found, he replied, "Everywhere," and, bending forward, immediately picked one up from the ground. On Mount Washington, in Tuckerman's Ravine, Thoreau fell heavily and sprained his foot. As he was getting up after falling, he saw the leaves for the first time.Arnica place
His strong common sense, armed with steady hands, keen observations and a strong will, still could not explain the supremacy that shone in his simple, hidden life. I must add the main fact, that there was in him an excellent wisdom, peculiar to a rare class of men, which showed him the material world as a means and a symbol. This discovery, which sometimes gives poets a certain slow and intermittent light, serving as an ornament to their writing, was in him a dormant knowledge; and whatever defects or hindrances of temper may have obscured him, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth he said one day: “The other world is all my art; my pencils will not draw another; my knife will cut no more; I don't use it as a tool." It was the muse and genius that governed his thinking, conversations, studies, work and life path. This made him a judge who scrutinized people. He measured his companion at a glance and, although insensitive to some fine cultural traits it might well relate to his weight and caliber, and this gave the impression of genius which his conversation sometimes did.
He understood the subject at a glance, and saw the limitation and poverty of those with whom he conversed, so that nothing seemed hidden from such terrible eyes. More than once I met sensitive young men who were instantly converted to the belief that this was the man they were looking for, a man among men who could tell them all they needed to do. His treatment of them was never tender, but superior, didactic, despising their petty ways—too slowly acknowledging, or not acknowledging, the promises of their company in their homes and even his own. "Wouldn't you ride with them?" "He didn't know. Nothing was as important to him as his gait; he had no walks to discard in society. He was offered visits from important parties, but he declined. Admiring friends offered to carry him at their own expense to the Yellowstone river - to the West Indies - to South America. But though nothing can be more serious or judicious than their refusals, they recall, in wholly new relations, that piston Brummel's answer to the gentleman who offered him his carriage on the shower: "But where will you ride then?"--and what accusing silences, and what shrewd and irresistible speeches, which shatter all defenses, his comrades may remember!
Mr. Thoreau devoted his genius to such an en. Love for the fields, hills and waters of his hometown, which made them known and interesting to all American readers, and to people across the seas as well. He knew the river on whose banks he was born and died from its source to its confluence with the Merrimack. He made summer and winter observations for many years, at all times of day and night. He had arrived at the results of the recent investigation of the Massachusetts State-appointed water commissioners from their own private experiences some years earlier. Any event that occurs in the bed, on the banks or in the air above them; fish and their spawn and nests, their manners, their food; the flies that fill the air on a certain night once a year, and which the fish catch so voraciously that many of them die of satiety; conical mounds of pebbles in the shallows of the river, huge nests of small fish, one of which sometimes overflows the wagon; the birds that frequent the stream, the heron, the duck, the kite, the grebe, the kingfisher; snake, muskrat, otter, buzzard and fox, on the banks; the tortoise, the frog, the hyena, and the cricket, which sound like banks - all were known to him, and, as it were, citizens and fellow citizens; so that he felt the absurdity or violence in every story about one of them separately, and still more about its dimensions on an inch scale, or in the display of its skeleton, or a specimen of squirrel or bird in brandy. He liked to speak of the customs of the river, as a lawful creature, but with exactness and always in accordance with the observed fact. As he knew the rivers, so are the ponds in this area.
One of the weapons he used, more important to him than the microscope or the alcohol receiver to other investigators, was a whim that grew in him out of indulgence, but which, nevertheless, transpired in the most serious statement, namely, the glorification of its own city and neighborhood as a favorite center for nature observation. He noted that the flora of Massachusetts included almost every important plant in America - most oaks, most willows, best pines, ash trees, maples, beeches, hickory trees. He returned Kane's "Voyage to the Arctic" to the friend from whom he had borrowed it, noting that "most of the observed phenomena can be observed at Concord". He seemed a little envious of the Pole for the coincidence of sunrise and sunset, or for the five-minute day after six months: a great fact that Annursnuc never gave him. He found red snow on one of his hikes and told me he hoped to find it.vitoria regiain Concord. He was a supporter of native plants and preferred weeds to imported plants, as the Indian preferred civilized man, and he was pleased to note that the willow stick of his neighbor's bean was more than his own bean. , “Look at these weeds,” said he, “which have been mowed down by millions of farmers all spring and summer, and yet they have prevailed, and are now emerging triumphant over every path, pasture, field, and garden, as it's your strength. We also insult them with low names like pig grass, wormwood, hen, shade." He says, "They also have bold names - Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchier, Amaranth, etc."
I think that his fantasy of referring everything to the Concord meridian was not born of ignorance or underestimation of other longitudes or latitudes, but was a playful expression of his conviction of the indifference of all places and that the best place for everyone is where he is. . He once expressed it this way: - "I think nothing is to be expected of you, if this little mold under your feet is not sweeter to eat than any other in this world or any other."
Another weapon he used to overcome all obstacles in science was patience. He knew how to sit motionless, a part of the rock on which he rested, until a bird, a reptile, a fish, which had strayed from him, returned and resumed their habits, or rather, moved by curiosity, they came to him. and looked at him.
It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the land like a fox or a bird and roamed it freely in his ways. He knew every trail in the snow or on the ground, and which creature had passed there before him. One must humbly submit to such a guide, and the reward was great. Under his arm he had an old music book for squeezing plants; in his pocket are his diary and pen, bird spy, microscope, knife and string. He wore a straw hat, thick shoes, strong gray pants, to rub the oak trees and relax, and climb the tree to the hawk's or squirrel's nest. He stepped into a pool of aquatic plants, his strong legs not an insignificant part of his armor. On the day of which I speak, he sought out Menyanthes, discovered it in a large lake, and, examining the flowers, concluded that it had been in bloom for five days. He took the calendar out of his jacket pocket and read the names of all the plants that were due to flower that day, which he jotted down like a banker when his bills come due. Cypripedium doesn't arrive until tomorrow. He thought that if he woke up from his trance, in this swamp, he could tell what time of year it was in two days by the plants. The redhead flew, and then the beautiful platypus, whose brilliant crimson "makes an imprudent observer wipe his eyes" and whose thin, clear note Thoreau likened to that of a sable that has rid itself of its hoarseness. Then he heard a note that he called a night cricket, a bird he had never identified, had been looking for twelve years, and which, when he saw it, was always diving into a tree or bush. . , and which he went in vain to seek; the only bird that sings indifferently day and night. He told him that he had to be careful to find and keep it, so that life would have nothing left to show him. He said: “What do you seek in vain, half your life, one day you are satisfied, the whole family at dinner. Your. seek him like a dream, and once you find him, you are his prey."
His interest in a flower or a bird was at the back of his mind, it was connected with nature - and the meaning of nature he never tried to define. He would not offer a memoir of his observations to the Natural History Society, “Why should I? Separating the description from its connections in my mind would make it false or valuable to me: and they want not what belongs to it.” His powers of observation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw as with a microscope, he heard as with an ear tube, and his memory was a photographic record of all that he saw and heard. And yet no one knew better than he that it is not the fact that counts, but the impression or effect of that fact on his mind. Every fact was glorious in his mind, a type of the order and beauty of the whole.
His determination in science was organic. He admitted that he sometimes looked like a hound or a panther, and if he was a horn among the Indians, he would be a fallen hunter. But, restrained by his Massachusetts culture, he played the game in this gentle form of botany and ichthyology. His familiarity with animals suggests what Thomas Puller observes about Butler, the apiologist, that "either he told the bees things or the bees told him." Snakes wrapped around his leg; the fish swam into his hand and he pulled them out of the water; he pulled his tail out of the hole and grabbed the handcuffs to protect him from the hunters. Our naturalist had perfect generosity; he had no secrets: he would take you to the heron's abode, or even to his most prized botanical swamp - probably knowing you'd never find it again, but willing to risk it.
No college ever offered him a degree or a professorship; no academy made him its corresponding secretary, its discoverer, or even its member. Perhaps those learned bodies feared the mockery of his presence. However, so much knowledge of the secrets of nature and genius was possessed by few; none in a larger and religious synthesis. For he had not the slightest respect for the opinions of any man or group of men, but only respect for the truth itself; and as he found everywhere a tendency to politeness among physicians, it discredited them. Citizens began to respect and admire him, who at first only knew him as a weirdo. Farmers who employed him as a surveyor discovered his rare accuracy and skill, his knowledge of their land, trees, birds, Indian remains and the like, enabling him to tell each farmer more than he previously knew about his own farm; so that he began to feel as if Mr. Thoreau had more rights in his country than he did. They also felt the superiority of the character who addressed all people with domestic authority,
Indian relics abound in Concord - arrowheads, stone chisels, pestles and pottery shards; and on the banks of the river, great heaps of shells and ash mark the places frequented by the savages. These, like all circumstances affecting the Indian, were important in his eyes. His visits to Maine were mainly out of love for the Indians. He had the pleasure of seeing a bark canoe being made, as well as trying to steer it through the rapids. He was curious about making a stone arrowhead, and in his last days he hired a young man who was going to the Rocky Mountains to find an Indian who could tell him, "It was worth visiting California to learn this." . a small band of Penobscot Indians visited Concord and pitched their tents for a few weeks in the summer on the riverbank. He failed not to find the best of them; although he knew very well that asking Indians questions was like catechizing beavers and rabbits. On his last visit to Maine, he took great pleasure in Joseph Polis, an intelligent Oldtown Indian, who was his guide for several weeks.
He was equally interested in all natural facts. His depth of perception revealed a resemblance to law throughout Nature, and I know of no genius who so quickly deduced a universal law from a single fact. He wasn't pedantic in the department. His eyes were open to beauty and his ears to music. He found them, not in rare conditions, but wherever he went. He thought the best music was in individual melodies; and he found a poetic suggestion in the hum of the telegraph wire.
Your poetry can be good or bad; he no doubt wanted lyrical skill and technical ability, but he had the source of poetry in his spiritual perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judgment of poetry was based on that. He could not be deceived as to the presence or absence of the poetic element in any composition, and his thirst for it made him careless and perhaps contemptuous of superficial graces. He would go through many delicate rhythms, but he would detect every stanza or lively line in the volume, and he would know full well where to find an equal poetic charm in the prose. He was so enamored with spiritual beauty that he estimated very little all poems actually written by comparison. He admired Aeschylus and Pindar; but, when someone praised them, he said that Aeschylus and the Greeks, describing Apollo and Orpheus, gave no song, not even a good one. "They were not to move the trees, but to sing to the gods a hymn that would pluck all their old ideas out of their heads and bring new ones into them." His own lyrics are often crude and imperfect. Gold is still not pure, it is fragile and crude. Thyme and marjoram are not yet honey. But if he wants lyrical subtlety and technical merit, if he lacks the poetic temperament, he never lacks causal thinking, showing that his genius was better than his talent. He knew the value of imagination in uplifting and comforting human life, and he loved to turn every thought into a symbol. The fact you say has no value, just an impression. Therefore, his presence was poetic, always stimulating the curiosity to know more deeply the secrets of her mind. He had many reservations, little desire to expose to profane eyes what was still sacred in him, and he knew very well how to put a poetic veil on his experience. All "Walden" readers will remember their mythic record of his disappointments:-
"I lost a hound, a hound, and a dove a long time ago, and I'm still on the trail of them. Many travelers I've talked to about them, describing their tracks and the calls they've answered. I've met one or two who listened to the dog and the gait of the horse, and even saw the pigeon disappear behind the clouds; and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they themselves had lost them.[Walden: str. 20.]
Its riddles are worth reading and I believe that if at any point I do not understand a term, it is still correct. Such was the richness of its truth that words were not worth using in vain. His poem entitled "Sympathy" reveals the tenderness behind this triple steel of Stoicism and the intellectual subtlety it could animate. His classic poem on “Smoke” hints at Simonides, but it is better than any poem by Simonides. His biography is in his lyrics. Her common thought makes all her poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes, to the Spirit who animates and controls her:--
"I hear, who only had ears,
And the vision, which before had only eyes;
I live moments, that lived apart for years,
And to recognize the truth, who would know, except by learning the traditions."
And further in these religious verses:-
"Now is mostly my native time,
And only now my best life;
I will not doubt the unspeakable love,
That I'm not worth or want to buy,
Who courted me young, and courted me old too,
And I took it tonight."
Though in his writings he used a certain length in his remarks towards churches or ecclesiastics, he was a man of rare religion, tender and absolute, a person incapable of any profanity, by act or thought. Of course, the same isolation that belonged to his original thought and life separated him from religious social forms. This is not to be condemned or lamented. Aristotle explained it long ago, saying, "He who surpasses his fellow citizens in virtue is no longer part of the city." Their law is not for him, because he is his own law.”
Thoreau was sincerity itself and could strengthen the prophets' beliefs in ethical laws with his holy life. It was a positive experience that could not be passed up. He is true, capable of the deepest and sternest conversation; physician to the wounds of every soul; a friend, who knew not only the secret of friendship, but was almost adored by those few people who had recourse to him as their confessor and prophet, and knew the deep worth of his mind and great heart. He thought that without religion or piety of some kind nothing great had ever been accomplished: and he thought a staunch sectarian should bear this in mind.
His virtues, of course, sometimes reached extremes. In the relentless quest for exact truth, it was easy to find that rigidity that made this willing hermit even more lonely than he wished. Himself of perfect integrity, he demanded nothing less from others. The crime was heinous and no worldly success could cover it. He was as ready to detect dissent in worthy and successful people as in beggars, and with equal disdain. His demeanor was so dangerously frank that his admirers called him "that terrible Thoreau", as if he spoke when he was silent and was still there when he was gone. I think the seriousness of his ideals prevented him from depriving him of the sane sufficiency of human society.
The realist's habit of finding things the opposite of how they appear led him to place every statement in a paradox. A certain habit of antagonism marred his earlier writings - a rhetorical trick not wholly overcome in his later ones, of replacing the obvious word and thought with its diametric opposite. He praised wild mountains and winter forests for their homely feel, he would find warmth in snow and ice, and he praised the desert because it resembled Rome and Paris. "It was so dry you could call it wet."
The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the laws of nature into an object or combination under your gaze, is obviously comical to those who do not share the philosophical perception of identity. For him, greatness did not exist. The lagoon was a small ocean; Atlantic, Great Lake Walden. He referred every little fact to cosmic laws. Though he wanted to be fair, he seemed to be haunted by a certain chronic assumption that the science of the day feigned integrity, and he had just discovered thatscholarsneglected to distinguish a particular botanical variety, failed to describe seeds or count sepals. “I mean,” we replied, “the Rumblers weren't born in Concord; but who said they were born? It was his unspeakable misfortune to be born in London, or Paris, or Rome; but, poor fellows, they did what they could, considering they had never seen Bateman's Pond, Nine-Acre Corner, or Becky Stow's Swamp; moreover, why were you sent into the world, but to add this remark?
Had his genius been merely contemplative he would have been fit for his life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born to great undertakings and to command; and I so deplore the loss of his rare power of action, that I cannot help adding to his guilt, that he had no ambition. Wanting that, instead of engineering for all of America, he was captain of the huckleberry party. Beating beans is good for the purpose of beating empires these days; but if at the end of the year there are only beans left!
But these weaknesses, real or apparent, quickly disappeared in the steady growth of a spirit so strong and wise that it erased its defeats with new triumphs. His study of nature was an eternal ornament to him and inspired his friends with the curiosity to see the world through his eyes and hear about his adventures. They had all kinds of interests.
He had a lot of elegance of his own, while mocking conventional elegance. So he couldn't bear the sound of his own footsteps, the crunch of gravel; and therefore he never willingly walked on the road, but on grass, mountains, and forests. His senses were heightened and he noticed that at night all the apartment buildings gave off a bad air, like a slaughterhouse. He liked the clean smell of melilot. He especially respected some plants, above all the water lily, then the gentian andMicah climbingand "eternal life," and the sea bass tree he visited each year when it bloomed in mid-July. He thought that the smell was a more prophetic inquiry than the sight, more prophetic and more credible. Smell, of course, reveals what is hidden from the other senses. He detected firmness in her. He was fascinated by the echoes and said they were almost the only type of related voices he had ever heard. He loved nature so much, he was so happy in his solitude, that he was very jealous of cities and the sad work their refinement and art did to man and his abode. His ax always destroyed the forest. "Thank God," he said, "they can't bring down the clouds!" "All sorts of figures are drawn on a blue background with this fibrous white ink."
I submit a few sentences taken from his unpublished manuscripts, not only as records of his thoughts and feelings, but for their power of description and literary excellence:
"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, like when you find trout in the milk."
"Chub is a tender fish and tastes like boiled and salted brown paper."
"A young man gathers his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perhaps a palace or temple on earth, and eventually a middle-aged man decides to build a woodshed with them."
"Z-grasshoppers."
"Devil, the needles zigzag along the Nut-Meadow creek."
"Sugar is not as sweet to the taste as it is good for the healthy ear."
"I put in some hemlock branches, and the rich, salty crackle of its leaves was like mustard to the ear, the crackle of countless regiments. Dead trees love fire.”
"The bluebird carries the sky on its back."
"A rage flies through the green leaves as if to set them on fire."
“If I want horsehair for my compass, I must go to the stable; but the haired bird with its sharp eyes goes to the road.
"Immortal water, alive even on the surface."
"Fire is the third most tolerable part."
"Nature created the pure fern leaf to show what it can do along these lines."
"No tree has such a beautiful ball and such a beautiful snout as the beech."
"How did these beautiful rainbow hues end up in the shell of a freshwater clam, buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark river?"
"Times are tough when a child's shoes are only one foot."
"We are strictly limited to our people to whom we give freedom."
"There is nothing to fear as much as fear. Atheism can be relatively popular with God himself.”
“How important are the things you can forget? A little thought is a sexton for the whole world.”
"How can we expect a harvest of thought if we don't have the germ of character?"
"Only he can be trusted with gifts that can show a brazen face to expectations."
"I'm asking to be melted. You can only ask metals to be kind to the fire that melts them. I can't be kind to anything else."
There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus as our summer plant, called "Eternal Life."Gnaphaliumlike that which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolean mountains, where chamois scarcely ventures, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty and love (for it is immensely prized by Swiss girls), climbs the rock to gather it, and sometimes she is found dead at her feet, with a flower in her hand. Botanists call itGnaphalium leontopodium,but by the swissEdelweisse,what it meansNoble Pureza.It seemed to me that Thoreau lived in the hope of picking this plant, which rightfully belonged to him. His scale of study was so large that it required longevity, and we were least prepared for his sudden demise. The state does not yet know, or at least partially, how much of a great son it has lost. The injury he must leave in the midst of his failed task, which no one else can complete, seems a kind of humiliation for a soul so noble that it should shun Nature before it really shows itself to its fellow men. But at least he's satisfied. His soul was made for nobler company; he has exhausted the possibilities of this world in his short life; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, it will find a home.
CARLYLE.
Cling to the Creator, not the Created,
Sit with Razlog, gloomy or cheerful.
[From a letter written shortly after Mr. Emerson to Carlyle in 1848. Read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at its meeting after Carlyle's death, February 1881. Published in its Annals and also in "Scribner's Magazine", May 1881. ]
Thomas Carlyle is an amazing speaker, as remarkable in his conversation as he is in his writing - I think even more so.
He is not for the most part a scholar, as most of my acquaintances are, but a practical Scotsman, such as you may find in any saddlery or hardware store, and just for a casual and surprising addition, what an admirable scholar and writer he is. It is. If you knew exactly how he spoke, just suppose that Hugh Whelan (the gardener) found enough time, in addition to his daily work, to read Plato and Shakespeare, Augustine and Calvin, and, remaining all the time Hugh Whelan, spoke in mockery of all this nonsense about the books he cared about, and you'll just have Carlyle's tone and talk and laughs. I called it a travel hammer with a "wind attachment".
He also has a strong religious undertone that you sometimes find in big men. This and all its qualities have a certain virulence, though in your case it is linked to the greater impatience of Christianity and Judaism and all existing presentations of good old history. He speaks like a very unhappy man - deeply lonely, discontented and distracted by all the men and things around him, and, bidding his time, thinks how to undermine and blow up the whole world of nonsense that afflicts him. He is obviously held in high esteem by many people, understands his own worth, as does Webster, whom he sometimes reminds me of in his behavior, and can look at society on his own terms.
And though no mortal in America could hope to converse with Carlyle, who in England is as remarkable as the Tower of London, he would by no means satisfy us (Americans) nor begin to answer the questions we asked him. He is a very national person and would not tolerate a transplant at all. They regard Carlyle as a kind of portable cathedral bell, which they like to produce in firms where he is not known, and they set him up to the surprise and amazement of all people - bishops, courtiers, scholars, writers - and, ever since, in business. here (in England) no man is named or represented, it is a great effect and a great inquiry Forster of Rawdon described to me the dinner atmesa d' hostfrom some provincial hotel where he carried Carlyle and where the Irish canon said something. Carlyle began to talk, first to the waiters, then to the walls, and finally, invariably to the priest, in a manner that terrified the whole company.
Young people, especially those of liberal views, rush to see him, but it seems to me that it is hot to see a professor of mathematics or Greek before they have heard a lesson. It takes more than a clean shirt and reading German to visit. He treats them with contempt; they profess freedom and he defends slavery; they praise republics, but he loves the Russian emperor; they admire Cobden and free trade and he is a protectionist in political economy; they'll eat vegetables and drink water, and he's a Scotsman who thinks the English national character has a pure enthusiasm for beef and mutton - he enthusiastically describes the throngs of people looking at the roasts in the shopkeeper's window and even likes a Scottish drink; they praise moral persuasion, he goes to murder, money, the death penalty, and other fine abominations of English law. They want freedom of the press, and he thinks the first thing he would do when he got to parliament would be kick out the press and stop all kinds of snide speeches from Buncombe and the wind. "In the Long Parliament," he says, "the only great parliament, they sat secretly and silently, as serious as an ecumenical council, and I don't know what they would do to anyone who got in there and tried to open the door, which they did. ". They seek free institutions, leave things as they are, and give every man only opportunity and motivation; he advocates a strict government, which shows the people what they ought to do, and compels them to do it. “Here,” he says, “Parliament raises six million pounds every year to give to the poor, and yet the people are starving. I think if they would give me that, to supply the poor with work, and with power to make them work or kill them - and hang me if I didn't - I could find a meal for them in many Indians."
He's ready to throw himself on the other side. If you ask for free trade, he reminds you that every worker is a monopolist. England's laws of navigation determined its trade. "St. Ivan was insulted by the Dutch; he came home, passed a law that forced foreign ships to pay high duties, shoved it down the Dutch's throats, and started English trade. If you boast of the country's growth and it shows to him the wonderful results of the census, he finds nothing so depressing as the sight of a great multitude. He once saw, he told me, three or four miles of human beings, and thought "the air was a great cheese, and these were mites." If the Tory is encouraged by his hatred of oratory and exemplary republics, he replies, "Yes, the idea of a stubborn soldier who will obey orders and shoot his own father at the behest of his officer is a great comfort to the aristocratic mind." It is not so much that Carlyle cares for this or that dogma, but that he loves sincerity (the source of all strength) in his comrades.
If a scholar goes to a lumberjack camp or a riding gang, these people will quickly discover any character flaws. Nothing but what is real and wholesome will pass with them. So this man is a hammer that breaks mediocrity and pretensions. He instantly discovers the weakness and touches it. He has a lively and aggressive temperament and is not impressive. The literary man, the man of fashion, the politician, each fresh from his triumph in his own sphere, eagerly comes to see this man, whose entertainment they have enthusiastically enjoyed, assured of his welcome, and are taken by the despair at the first attack. His firm, triumphant, mocking insult strikes them coldly and hesitantly. His speech is often reminiscent of what was said about Johnson: "If his gun missed, he'd put him down with the butt."
He is weary of mere intellectual alienation; he finds out in an instant if a man represents some cause to which he is not born and organically committed. A natural defender of all, a lover who will live and die by what he speaks, and who doesn't care about him or anything but his business, he respects; and the nobler this object is, of course, the better. He hates literary trifles, and if, after Guizot had been Louis Philippe's instrument for years, he were now to write essays on Washington's character, on "The Beauty" and on the "Philosophy of History", he does not think of anything.
His respect for reality is great - for all those qualities that spring from the actor's intrinsic nature. He turns it into an idolatry of strength. A strong nature has a charm for him, before, it seems, all inquiries whether strength is divine or diabolical. He preaches, like a cannon, the doctrine that all noble nature was created by God, and that it contains, though wild passions, also adequate bridles and great impulses, and, however extravagant they may be, will maintain their orbit and return from afar.
Nor can that politeness, which is the idol of the Englishman, and in the conquest of which the Englishman excels all nations, win him any respect. He is consumed with indignation against the desire for fair representation in the body.
Combined with this struggle for respectability, and indeed indicative of all his satire, is the seriousness of his moral sense. In proportion to the spasms of laughter in the midst of which he plucks the suitor's feathers, and shows lean hypocrisy to every appearance of scorn, whether he adores any enthusiasm, strength, love, or other sign of good nature in the man.
There is nothing deeper in his constitution than his humour, than the considerate, condescending benevolence with which he regards all existing objects, as a man would look upon a mouse. He considers the perfection of health to be sportsmanship and does not take even monotony or tragedy seriously.
His guiding genius is his moral sense, his sense of the unique importance of truth and justice; but that is the truth of character, not of catechism. He says: “In England there really is no religion. These idle nobles at Tattersall's - there is no business in them, not a word of earnest purpose; they got this big lying church; and life is a lie." He prefers Cambridge to Oxford, but he thinks that Oxford and Cambridge education harden the young, as the Styx has hardened Achilles, so that when they come out of them they say, "Now we are the proof; we pass through all degrees, and are hard against the truth of the Universe; neither man nor God can penetrate us."
He respects Wellington as real and honest, and as if he had decided once and for all that he was not going to deal with any lies. Edwin Chadwick is one of their heroes, - who proposes to supply every house in London with pure water, sixty gallons a head, for a penny a week; and in the decay and ruin of all religions, Carlyle thinks that the only religious act a man can safely perform today is to wash himself well.
Of course, the new French Revolution of 1848 was the best thing he had ever seen, and the teaching of that great deceiver, Louis Philippe, that there was God's justice inUniverse,after all, it was a great pleasure. Tsar Nicholas was her hero; for in the shame of Europe, when all thrones fell like houses of cards, and no man was found with conscience enough to fire a gun at his crown, but all fled tobook,shaved head, across the Barrière de Passy, there remained a man who believed that Almighty God had placed him there to govern his empire and, with God's help, he chose to stay there.
He took the bad times very seriously; he saw this evil coming, but thought it would not come in its time. But now it is coming, and the only good he sees in it is the visible appearance of the gods. He believes that the only issue for sages is dealing with the problem of society, rather than art and beautiful fantasies, poetry and the like. This confusion is the inevitable end of such falsehoods and absurdities in which they are involved.
Carlyle, the finest of all men in England, retained the manly attitude of his time. He represented the scholars, without asking any scholar what he should say. Having a place of honor in the best society, he defended the people, the Chartists, the poor, fearlessly and contemptuously teaching the nobles their imperative duties.
Your errors in judgment are nothing compared to this merit, in my view. This oneresourcefulnessit cannot be imitated; is talking about the heart of the matter. And in England, where is itmorguethe aristocracy very slowly received scholars into society - very few houses only in high circles being open to them - he rose, became a power recognized by all men, and taught scholars their high duty. He was never afraid of the human face.
JORGE EU. STEARNS.
"Who, when great trials come,
He neither seeks nor avoids them; but he remains calm
Until matter and example prevail:
everything is added up
Which place or person does he call and pay."
Jorge Herbert.
[g. emerson pay It is those ones to do o nobility of as, eu distinct services to do o republic, of dele amigo, Principal Jorge EU. Stearns, already dele funeral already Medford, already o 18 of April, 1867.]
We don't know how to reward good people until they're gone. High virtue has such a connotation of nature and necessity that to thank its possessor would be to praise the flowing water or the fire that warms us. But, at the moment of their death, we wonder about our past callousness, when we see how impossible it is to replace them. There will be more good people, but not these again. And the painful surprise that it brought us last week, in the news of the death of Mr. Stearns, opened all eyes to a just consideration of the singular merits of the citizen, neighbor, friend, father, and husband, whom this assembly deplores. We remember the almost exclusive devotion of this fine man during the last twelve years to public and patriotic interests. Until then, known in a not so wide circle as a man who was skillful and persistent in his work; pure Life; a habit of withdrawal and tenderness; happy in his domestic relations—his extreme interest in national politics, then growing more anxious from year to year, made him more attentively consider the fate of liberty. He was one of the first workers in resistance to slavery. This endeared him to the people of Kansas. In 1855, the Society for Helping Emigrants was founded; and in 1856 he organized the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, by which a large amount of money was raised for the "people of the free state," in a time of great need. He was further involved in this cause by his acquaintance in 1857 with Captain John Brown, who was not only a remarkable man, but one who possessed a rare magnetism for men of character, and connected with him some of the best and noblest, in a very short acquaintance, by permanent connections. Mr. Stearns immediately became indispensable to Captain Brown, as a man who respected his inspirations and had the magnanimity to confide in him entirely and give him all the assistance he needed.
To Kansas's relief, in 1856-57 his own contributions were the largest and first. He never asked as much of anyone as he gave himself, and his interest was so obviously pure and sincere that he easily won eager offers where other suitors failed. He did not hesitate to become his clients' banker and provide them with money and weapons in advance with the subscriptions he received. His first donations were only the first slices of later ones; and, unlike other benefactors, he did not give money to justify his preoccupation with his own undertakings, but as a pledge of the devotion of his heart and hands to the interests of the sufferers - a pledge which remained until the success he achieved and was recited. In 1862, in the President's first or preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, he took the first steps to organize the Freedman's Bureau, a department which has since grown to enormous proportions. In 1863 he began recruiting colored soldiers in Buffalo, then Philadelphia and Nashville. But those were just parts of his job. He spent his time in constant consultation with all the people he could reach.to sendand encourage the necessary measures for the hour. And there are few people of real or perceived influence, North or South, with whom he hasn't interacted at some point. All the important patriotic measures in these areas had his sympathies, and he was the main mover in many of them. He was strongly supportive of each, but uniformly avoided public appearances. He did not seek reward for himself or his friends; he just asked himself to do the hard work. His transparent single purpose, his freedom from all ulterior motives, his pure reason, courage, affection, and his romantic generosity disarmed, first or last, all opponents. His examination before the Committee of the United States Senate on the raid of Harper's Ferry, in January, 1860, as published in the public records, is a chapter well worth reading, as a splendid example of the way in which a speaker of truth confuses every stateswoman, and finally extort grudging respect from the most embittered opponent.
I have heard, which must be true, that he had great executive ability, a clear method, and fair attention to every detail of the task. Apparently, he was no braggart or suitor, but a man for hard work, a soldier who would bear the brunt; a man to whom disasters, which discouraged others, only spurred him on to new courage and undertakings.
I had heard something of his impetuous temper, that he was indignant at the conduct of this or that man, but never that his anger for a moment overcame the wrong done or threatened a good cause, or that it ever stood in the way of his sincere cooperation. with offenders when they returned to public service. I see him as an American republican type. A man of the people, with a strictly private life, surrounded by family ties; an active and intelligent manufacturer and merchant, enlightened enough to see the civic interest in public affairs, and virtuous enough to submit himself to the last to the truth he saw—became, in the most natural manner, an indispensable authority in the state. Without the vital support he, and others like him, brought to the government, where would that government be? When one remembers his unceasing service; his travels and stays in many countries; companies he collaborated with; councils he sat on; a wide correspondence, now extended by printed circulars, now by newspapers which he founded in whole or in part at his own expense; helpful hints; the speed with which his intention took shape; and his unshakable convictions, - I think this single will was of value to the cause of ten thousand ordinary guerrillas, well disposed enough, but of weaker and more interrupted action.
These interests, which he passionately embraced, inevitably brought him into personal contact with like-minded patriotic people—with two presidents, with members of Congress, with government and army officials, and with important men everywhere. He was always a man of simple taste and over the years he devoted himself to the increasing details of his successful manufacture. But this sudden association with party leaders and people of outstanding power and influence in the nation, and the widespread hospitality which brought them to the committee in their own home, whether in New York or Washington, never changed a feature of their countenance, a feature of their personality. ways. There he sat on the council, a simple and resolute republican, enthusiastic only in his love of liberty and the good of men; without any pride of opinion, and with the difference that, if he could not induce his associates to adopt his measure, he accepted, in all sweetness, the next best measure which might secure their consent. But these public goods were bought at a great price. For a year or two the kindest, most homely man became almost a stranger in his lovely home. And it was very clear that the excessive exertions and anxieties, to which his ardent spirit had driven him, taxed his strength and prematurely wore out his constitution. It is regrettable that such a life ends too soon; but when I consider that he lived long enough to see with his own eyes the salvation of his country, to which he gave his whole heart; that he didn't know about an idle day; he was never called upon to suffer the decay and loss of his powers, or to see others waiting for his place and privilege, but he lived while he lived, and saw his work progress for the joy and benefit of all mankind, - I count him happy. between people.
I am almost ready to say to these mourners: Be not too proud in your grief, when you remember that there is not a town in the distant state of Kansas which will not mourn with you for the loss of its founder; it is not a southern state where the freedmen of today will not learn from their preachers that one of their most efficient benefactors is gone, and cover his memory with blessings; and that, after all his efforts to serve the people, without doing so, there is scarcely a man in this country worth knowing, who is not named in extraordinary honour. And, in my opinion, there is something so absolute in a good man's actions that, thinking of him, we ask no questions about the future. For the Spirit of the Universe seems to say, “He has done well; Doesn't that say it all?"