{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53524/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53524","id":"gutenberg_53524","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53524","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Literature -- History and criticism"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                            A PERSIAN PEARL\n                            AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                                   BY\n                           CLARENCE S. DARROW\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                CHICAGO\n                             C. L. RICKETTS\n                                MDCCCCII\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                               Copyright\n                                  1899\n                           Clarence S. Darrow\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                  1 A Persian Pearl                 9\n\n                  2 Walt Whitman                   43\n\n                  3 Robert Burns                   77\n\n                  4 Realism in Literature and Art 107\n\n                  5 The Skeleton in the Closet    139\n\n\n\n\n                          A \u00b7 PERSIAN \u00b7 PEARL\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                            A PERSIAN PEARL\n\n\nThe reader and observer is constantly reminded that \u201cthere is nothing\nnew under the sun.\u201d We no sooner find some rare gem of thought or\nexpression than we discover that it is only an old diamond, polished\nanew, perhaps, and offered as an original stone. Neither the reader nor\nthe writer is always aware that the gem is antique and the setting alone\nis new.\n\nThe rich mine where the treasure was first found was exhausted in a few\nbrief years, and then became like all the dust of all the worlds; but\nthe gem polished and worn by time and use, ever sparkles and shines,\nregardless of the fact that the miner\u2019s name is forgotten and his work\nalone remains. Thus Nature, the great communist, provides that the\ntreasures of genius, like her own bountiful gifts of sunlight, rain and\nair, shall remain the common property of all her children while any\ndwell upon the earth.\n\nCurrent literature seems to point to the ascendancy of what is often\ntermed the \u201cpessimistic school.\u201d In one sense this philosophy uncrowns\nman and places him in his proper relation to the great universe, of\nwhich he is so small a part; but while it makes less of man, it expects\nless from him, and covers his deeds with that cloak of charity, which is\nthe legitimate garment of the great Unknown. But these modern\nreflections on life and its problems, its purposes and lessons, are far\nfrom new. Without venturing a guess as to their origin or age, we take\nup that old Persian Pearl,\u2014the \u201cRubaiyat,\u201d and find on its musty pages\nthe great thoughts and searching questions, which have ever returned to\nman since the intellect was born, and which will still remain unanswered\nwhen the last word shall have been spoken, and the race have run its\ncourse.\n\nIt is nearly eight hundred years since Omar Khayyam, the Persian\nastronomer, philosopher, and poet, mused and wrote upon the uncertainty\nof life, the eternity of time and the mutability of human things. Since\nthe rose bush was planted above his grave, the material world has been\nalmost made anew. Art and literature have given countless treasures to\nthe earth, and science has solved its mysteries without end. But the\nriddles of existence\u2014the problems of life, the deep heart of the\nuniverse, the cause and purpose and end of all, are mysteries as dark\nand inscrutable as they were eight centuries ago. To quote from the\nRubaiyat:\n\n            There was the Door to which I found no Key;\n            There was the Veil thro\u2019 which I could not see:\n              Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee\n            There was\u2014and then no more of Thee and Me.\n\nAs Egypt is the newest country visited by the traveler, so this old\nbook, burnished by the genius of FitzGerald, comes to us as the latest\nand profoundest word upon the infinite mysteries which over-shadow human\nlife. It seems to be the last word, rather than one of the first, spoken\nto the perplexed soul of man, calling him from the vain pursuit of\nvanities, and asking what all of it is about.\n\nTo an egoistic, boasting age and nation, this message, coming from a far\noff time and a distant land, reminds us that all wisdom is garnered\nneither now nor here. This Persian Pearl remained unpolished for more\nthan seven hundred years. It was left for Edward FitzGerald carefully\nand patiently to burnish up the gem, and make it the thing of beauty\nthat we know.\n\nIt may be that research and study would reveal much of the personal\ntraits and private life of the great Persian philosopher, whose fame has\nso outlived his clay, but with these we can have no concern. It is not\nimportant to know his parents, or whether he had a wife or children, or\ncattle or lands. All of these are gone and only his work remains. True,\nwe cannot but reflect on the personality of the poet in whose brain\nthese great thoughts were born, but we can know the man only by knowing\nhis works. Some there are who stand at a distance and view the acts of\nthe imperfect beings, who at the best stumble and grope along the\nuncertain path between the cradle and the grave. All the footsteps that\nare straight and true are unnoticed as they pass by, but the irregular,\nuncertain, shifting tracks stand out alone to mark the character of the\npilgrim, who bore his heavy load the best he could. These forget that\nevery son of man travels an unbeaten path\u2014a road beset with dangers and\ntemptations that no other wanderer met; that his footsteps can be judged\nonly in the full knowledge of the strength and light he had, the burden\nthat he carried, the obstacles and temptations that he met, and a\nthorough knowledge of every open and secret motive that impelled him\nhere or there.\n\nThat Omar\u2019s steps were often winding and devious, and like those of all\nother mortal men, we gather from his words. No doubt his neighbors\ndelighted in gossiping about the great philosopher, and his reputation\nwas often tarnished by their idle words. These slanderers have been long\nforgotten\u2014they could not live upon the great name they sullied, and we\nshould not even know he was their prey except for lines like these:\n\n             Indeed the Idols I have loved so long\n             Have done my credit in Men\u2019s eyes much wrong;\n               Have drown\u2019d my Glory in a shallow Cup,\n             And sold my reputation for a Song.\n\nEight hundred years ago, as to-day, the love of wine was one of the\nchief weaknesses of the flesh. Doubtless the other frailties of human\nnature are of substantially the same kind as eight centuries ago, for\nwhile man may change the fashion of his garment or religion, nature is\never consistent and persistent, and is the same yesterday, to-day and\nforever. But our old human philosopher, like our modern human men, saw\nthe folly of his ways, and made many a brave resolve, but these good\nintentions and solemn purposes melted in the sunshine then the same as\nnow.\n\n           Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before\n           I swore\u2014but was I sober when I swore?\n             And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand\n           My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.\n\nBut Omar was greater than most of the weak and sinning children of\nto-day. His own frailties taught him the rare lesson, that of all the\nvirtues, charity is the chiefest! And as we read the wondrous product of\nhis brain and understand the thoughts that stirred his being, we can\nknow the man better than his neighbors who judged a great soul by the\nnarrow vision of sordid minds. We know that his purpose was lofty, and\nabove all the mists and conflicting emotions and desires of his life he\nrose majestic and supreme, unsullied by the specks that can only mar the\nweak. Let us turn then to the philosophy and poetry of this great soul\nto know the man, and as figs are not gathered of thistles, we may be\nsure that broad thoughts, high aspirations, and tender charity are born\nonly of great minds and rare men.\n\nTo Omar Khayyam, the so-called sins of men were not crimes, but\nweaknesses inherent in their being and beyond their power to prevent or\novercome. He knew that man could not separate himself from all the rest\nof nature; and that the rules and conditions of his being were as fixed\nand absolute as the revolutions of the planets and the changing seasons\nof the year. Above man and his works he saw the heavy hand of destiny,\never guiding and controlling, ever moving its creature forward to the\ninevitable fate that all the centuries had placed in store for the\nhelpless captive, marching shackled to the block.\n\nThere have ever been two views of life. Both philosophies have been made\nby man and mostly for him. One places him above all the rest of the\nuniverse, whose infinite mysteries are constantly revolving and changing\nbefore his hazy, wondering gaze. The portion of the world that comes\nnearest to his eyes he cannot understand, and his own existence is a\nriddle that all the ages have not solved. And yet, amidst it all, one\nsystem teaches that man rules supreme,\u2014and the fate of all the worlds,\nor of all that may exist thereon, has no relation to his own. The other\npeers into the thick darkness that hangs above, and can see no light, it\ndoes not understand and will not guess; the endless mysteries are not\nfor mortal man to solve. Its devotees feel themselves part of a mighty\nwhole, and are powerless to separate their lives from all the rest, and\nwould not dare to undertake it if they could. They know that in the\ngreat, unlimited universe they are less than the tiniest bubble in the\nwildest, angriest sea. That in the words of the Rubaiyat:\n\n              We are no other than a moving row\n              Of magic Shadow-shapes that come and go\n                Round with this Sun-illumined Lantern held\n              In Midnight by the Master of the Show.\n\nOmar Khayyam was probably not the first, certainly not the last, to feel\nthe impotence of man in the great power which animates the whole. He\ncould have no faith in the cruel religious tenets, which eight centuries\nago in Persia, as ever since in the Christian world, have taught the\nresponsibility of the helpless victim for the great, blind work in which\nhe had no part. He seemed to think that back of all the universe, some\nintelligent power moved and controlled the world for some purpose\nunknown to all except himself, but he could not think that man was in\nany way accountable for the whole. To him, the great master sent us here\nor there to suit his will, and it was left for us only to obey his\nmighty power. The individual units of humanity were to him only:\n\n           Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays\n           Upon this checker-board of Nights and Days;\n             Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,\n           And one by one back in the Closet lays.\n\nEven this does not sufficiently express his thought of man\u2019s absolute\nirresponsibility for his acts.\n\nWe have all met the parallel drawn between man and the pottery fashioned\nby the moulder from the clay. Perhaps there is no better illustration of\nthe helplessness of the human being in the hands of the power that\nfashioned and shaped him, even ages before his birth,\u2014the uncontrollable\nforce that determined the length of his body, the color of his hair, the\nsize and shape of his brain and the contour of his face. But the\ncomparison made in the beautiful stanza wrought by Omar, and retouched\nand gilded by the magic of FitzGerald, is wondrously powerful and fine.\nThe poet ranges his poor pieces of pottery in line, each representing a\nman; each imperfect in structure or form, like all the other creatures\never made. These poor, imperfect vessels, fresh from the potter, each\npleads its cause and makes excuses for its faults.\n\n             After a momentary silence spake\n             Some vessel of a more ungainly Make:\n               \u201cThey sneer at me for leaning all awry:\n             What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?\u201d\n\nWhen will humanity be great enough and good enough to distinguish\nbetween the fault of the potter and the fault of the pot! When can it\nlook over the myriads of human beings, each with his flaws and\nlimitations, and pity instead of blame!\n\nThe history of the past is a record of man\u2019s cruel inhumanity to man; of\none imperfect vessel accusing and shattering another for the faults of\nboth. In ancient times and amongst savage tribes, the old, the infirm,\nand the diseased were led out and put to death; even later, the maniac\nand imbecile were fettered, chained, beaten, and imprisoned because they\nwere different from other men. The world has grown a little wiser, and\nperhaps humaner, as the centuries have passed away. We have learned to\nbuild asylums, and treat the afflicted with tenderness and care. We have\nlearned not to blame the dwarf for his stature; the hunchback for his\nload; the deaf because they cannot hear, and the blind because they\ncannot see. We do not expect the midget to carry the giant\u2019s load, or\nthe cripple to triumph in a contest of speed. We establish a regulation\nsize for policemen and soldiers, but we do not put a man to death\nbecause his stature is below the standard fixed. We forgive the size of\nthe foot, the length of the arm, the shade of the hair, the color of the\neye, and even the form of the skull. But, while we do not blame a man\nbecause he has an ill-shaped head, we punish him because the brain\nwithin conforms to the bone which molds its form. The world has made\nguns and swords, racks and dungeons, chains and whips, blocks and\ngibbets, and to these have dragged an endless procession thro\u2019 all the\npast. It has penned and maimed, tortured and killed, because the\npotter\u2019s work was imperfect and the clay was weak. During all the ages\nit has punished mental deformity as a crime, and without pity or regret\nhas crushed the imperfect vessels beneath its feet. Every jail, every\nscaffold, every victim\u2014is a monument to its cruelty and blind\nunreasoning wrath. Whether it was a fire kindled to burn a heretic in\nGeneva,\u2014a gibbet erected to kill a witch in Salem,\u2014or a scaffold made to\nput to death an ordinary \u201ccriminal,\u201d it has ever been the same,\u2014the\npunishment of the creature for the creator\u2019s fault. There might be some\nexcuse if man could turn from the frail, cracked vessels, and bring to\ntrial the great potter for the imperfect work of his hand.\n\nBut we live in the shadows; we can see only the causes and effects that\nare the closest to our eyes. If the clouds would rise, and the sun shine\nbright, and our vision reach out into time and space, we might find that\nthese cracked vessels serve as high a purpose in a great, broad scheme,\nas the finest clay, wrought in the most beautiful and perfect form. The\nfollowing stanza was born of this philosophy and would inevitably come\nfrom the broad, charitable brain that had studied the creeds that told\nof the cruelty of the great Maker, but whose brain and conscience had\nnot been stunted and warped by their palsying dogmas:\n\n            Then said a Second\u2014\u201cNe\u2019er a peevish Boy\n            Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;\n              And he that with his hand the Vessel made\n            Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.\u201d\n\nThe cruel religious dogmas, which in Omar\u2019s land and Age, as in our own,\nblackened both man and his Maker, had no terrors for a soul like his. He\ncould not believe in eternal punishment. The doctrine was a slander,\nalike to God and man. He felt something of the greatness of a force that\ncould permeate and move the countless worlds, which make up the\nlimitless, unfathomed infinite we call the Universe. He saw in man one\nof the smallest and most insignificant toys created by this power to\nserve some unknown end; and he could not believe that the Master-Builder\nwould demand of his imperfect children more than he had furnished them\nthe strength to give. His faith in the justice of man\u2019s case before the\ngreat Judge is shown in the following stanza:\n\n              Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin\n              Beset the Road I was to wander in,\n                Thou wilt not with Predestin\u2019d Evil round\n              Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!\n\nBut even more strongly he presents the case of God against man, and man\nagainst God, for all the crimes and miseries and sufferings of the\nworld. It would doubtless be difficult in all the literature of the\nearth to find a juster, bolder statement of the old question of the\nresponsibility for sin. To some minds, this strong expression may seem\nlike blasphemy, but it is manly and courageous, logical and just.\n\n             Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make\n             And ev\u2019n with Paradise devise the Snake;\n               For all the Sin wherewith the face of Man\n             Is blacken\u2019d\u2014Man\u2019s forgiveness give\u2014and take!\n\nThis is not the cringing prayer of the coward, who asks God\u2019s\nforgiveness to appease his wrath, but the utterance of a noble soul, who\nasks forgiveness for the shortcomings of his life, and at the same time\npardons his Maker for creating him as he did. The world has heard much\nof man\u2019s duty to God, of the responsibility which the unconsulted,\nfragile children of a day owe to the power that is responsible for all.\nIt is time we heard more of the duty of God to man; the responsibility\nof the Creator for making \u201cconscious something\u201d out of unthinking,\nunfeeling clay.\n\n                 \u201cOh, many a cup of this forbidden Wine\n               Must drown the memory of that insolence!\u201d\n\nThe world has talked the same nonsense of the duty of children to\nparents. It has taught this, because parents are larger, and have the\nbrute power to compel obedience to their demands. All the duties are\nfrom parents to children,\u2014from those who thoughtlessly, wantonly, to\nsatisfy their own desires, call into conscious being a human life,\u2014send\nanother soul with all its responsibilities out on the great, wide sea,\nto be tossed and buffeted and torn, until, mangled and dead, it is\nthrown out upon the sands to bleach.\n\nBut after all, whether it was wise or unwise, just or unjust, we have\nbeen placed upon the earth as sentient beings and charged with the\nresponsibilities of life; and practical philosophy asks the question,\nwhat does it mean, and how shall we take the journey which a higher\npower has decreed that we shall make?\n\nThe poet and the dreamer and the copy book have told us much of the\nmeaning of life. We often repeat these lessons to make ourselves believe\nthem true. When we feel a doubt casting its shadow across our path, we\nread them once again to drive the doubt away; and yet, in spite of all,\nwe know absolutely nothing of the scheme, or whether there is any kind\nof plan. We are only whistlers passing through a graveyard, with our\nears tied close and our eyes shut fast. It would surely be as well to\nstep boldly up and read the inscription on the marble tomb and then walk\nround and look at the vacant, grinning space upon the other side, calmly\nwaiting to record our name.\n\nMeasured by the philosophy of to-day, Omar Khayyam was a pessimist; he\nwas not gifted with second sight. He saw no spooks and ghosts, and he\nwould not look out into the midnight, and declare that his eyes\ndiscerned a glorious rainbow, bright with fresh colors and unbounded\nhopes. All the proud promises and brave assumptions and false theories\nof the world were to him a mockery and a sham. The mysticisms of\nreligion and philosophy alike were hollow and bare. The \u201cjarring sects\u201d\nand quibbling doctors, with their fine-spun webs, were worthy the\nattention only of children and professors. This is the way he put them\ndown:\n\n               Myself when young did eagerly frequent\n               Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument\n                 About it and about; but evermore\n               Came out by the same door wherein I went.\n\nWhile it is true that in the common meaning Omar was a pessimist, still\nthis word, like many others, is rarely well defined. All men understand\nthe uncertainties of life, the disappointments and troubles of\nexistence, and the infinitesimal time that is reluctantly parceled out\nto each mortal from the eternity that had no beginning and will have no\nend. The pessimist looks at all the hurry and rush, the torment and\nstrife, the ambitions and disappointments that are the common lot, and\ncan see no prizes so tempting as rest and peace. He makes the most of\nwhat he has, and looks contentedly forward to the long sleep that brings\nrelief at last.\n\nOmar Khayyam was not deceived by all the glitter and bustle of the\nworld. He saw the stage from behind the curtain, as well as from the\ncircle before the scenes. He looked on the great surging mass of men,\never pulling and pushing, striving and trying, working and fighting, as\nif all eternity was theirs in which to build, and all unmindful of the\nsilent bookkeeper, who could be deceived by no false entries, and ever\nremembered to demand his dues. Of life he said:\n\n             \u2018Tis but a Tent where takes his one day\u2019s rest\n             A Sultan to the Realm of Death addrest;\n               The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash\n             Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.\n\nIn the presence of all that the world had to offer,\u2014while honors and\nglories fell fast upon his head, he still could not close his eyes to\nthe facts of existence, and the mortality of human things. It may be\nthat he mused too much upon the great fact that ever sternly faces\nlife,\u2014the great being before whom all monarchs bow, and in whose\npresence all crowns are shattered. To the boasting and forgetful, these\nwords may not be pleasant, but they still are true:\n\n          Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss\u2019d\n          Of the Two worlds so learnedly are thrust\n            Like foolish Prophets forth; their words to Scorn\n          Are scatter\u2019d and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.\n\nNeither the great nor the good could avoid the common fate; the\nunyielding messenger came alike to call the proud Sultan and the good\nand kindly friend.\n\n             For some we loved, the loveliest and the best\n             That from his Vintage rolling Time has prest,\n               Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,\n             And one by one crept silently to rest.\n\nDeath is so common that we sometimes wonder why men make plans,\u2014why they\never toil or spin. But, of course, we can see only the leaves that fall\nfrom other stalks. Rarely do we feel that all this has a personal\nmeaning, and that our turn soon must come. Omar looked at the stricken\nfriends around him, and thus mused:\n\n             Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,\n             Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,\n               The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,\n             The leaves of Life keep falling one by one.\n\nIt has never required the great or the learned to note the constant\nfalling of the leaves and the ceaseless running of the sands. It is\nmainly from this that systems of religion have been evolved. Man has\never sought to make himself believe that these things are not what they\nseem; that, in reality, death is only birth, and the body but a prison\nfor the soul. This may be true, but the constant cries and pleadings of\nthe ages have brought back no answering sound to prove that death is\nanything but death.\n\nOur old philosopher could not accept these pleasing creeds on faith. He\npreferred to plant his feet upon the shifting doubtful sands, rather\nthan deceive himself by alluring and delusive hopes. Upon the old\nquestion of immortality, he could answer only what he knew, and this is\nwhat he said:\n\n             Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who\n             Before us pass\u2019d the door of Darkness through\n               Not one returns to tell us of the Road\n             Which to discover we must travel too.\n\nThis stanza is perhaps gloomy and hopeless, but it is thoughtful, and\nbrave, and beautiful. We may seek to be children if we will, but\nwhatever our desires, we cannot strangle the questions that ever rise\nbefore our minds and will not be put away. To our own souls we should be\njust and true. Peace and comfort, when gained at the sacrifice of\ncourage and integrity, are purchased at too high a price. The truth\nalone can make us free, and\n\n               \u201cOne flash of it within the tavern caught\n               Better than in the Temple lost outright.\u201d\n\nYes, one flash of the true light is better than all the creeds and\ndogmas. It is better, even though these hold out the fairest prospects\nand the brightest dreams, and the flash of true light is only the\nblackest midnight.\n\nNot only would Omar take away the hope of Heaven, but he leaves us with\nlittle to boast while we live upon the earth. Our short, obscure\nexistence is not felt or noticed in the great sweep of time and the\nresistless movement of the years. Along the pathway of the world we\nleave scarce a footprint, and our loudest voice and bravest words are as\ncompletely lost as if spoken in the presence of Niagara\u2019s roar.\n\n            And fear not lest Existence closing your\n            Account and mine, should know the like no more;\n              The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour\u2019d\n            Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.\n\nThe weakness and littleness of man has been the subject of endless words\nbefore and since, but never has poet put it more strongly than here. The\nEternal Saki\u2014the great wine pourer, tips his pitcher and turns out\nmillions of bubbles, and still they come forever, and each of us is one.\n\nBut however brave and stoical Omar seems to be, still he feels sad when\nwitnessing the flight of years and the ravages of time. It is, of\ncourse, useless to fight the inevitable, and the strongest will must\nbend and break before the weakening touch of age. Whether it is good or\nbad, all cling to existence, and sadly and reluctantly let go the\ntendrils that hold to pulsing life. The fading of Spring and youth, and\nthe coming of Autumn with its suggestions of the approaching end, is\nmost beautiful and touching in this marvelous book:\n\n          Yet, Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!\n          That Youth\u2019s sweet-scented manuscript should close!\n            The Nightingale that in the branches sang,\n          Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!\n\nThis strain of sadness is sincere and true. To recognize the inevitable\nand not pretend to deceive one\u2019s self is one thing, but to think that\nall is just and wise and best may be quite another. Omar felt that fate\nwas inexorable, relentless and hard.\n\n              The moving Finger writes; and having writ,\n              Moves on; nor all your piety nor Wit\n                Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,\n              Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.\n\nHe would have tempered her hardness with a little human love and tender\npity, and bade the great Recorder leave much untold. He recognized the\nfact that the scheme could not be changed, and that even our brief\nexistence depended upon our subservience to the great will that would\nneither break nor bend; but he still regretted that it was not better\nand kinder and more forgiving than it is. There is almost a wail in the\nstrain of sadness in which he laments the rigor of unyielding fate.\n\n              Would that some winged Angel ere too late\n              Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of fate,\n                And make the stern Recorder otherwise\n              Enregister, or quite obliterate!\n\n              Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire\n              To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,\n                Would we not shatter it to bits\u2014and then\n              Re-mould it nearer to the Heart\u2019s Desire?\n\nIt is impossible to live to a moderate age without forming some idea of\nthe conduct of life; this may be practical or theoretical, or both. But\neither with or without consciousness we construct some plan of life and\nits purpose, and our daily conduct conforms more or less closely to the\ntheory that we accept. The religionist teaches that the hope of future\nrewards and punishments must be kept before the mind, or man would give\nhimself completely to indulgence, and the race would die. This theory\nloses sight of the fact that Nature herself is constantly wiping out\nthose who defy her laws, and preserving longest those who conform to the\nconditions she has imposed. Excesses of all kinds destroy and weaken\nexistence, and bring the natural penalty, which leaves only the more\nrational and temperate to perpetuate life upon the earth. Of course\nthese observations apply, not to the fashions and forms and conventions\nof man, except so far as these conform to the unbending laws of nature,\nwhich must ever be supreme.\n\nFrom Omar Khayyam\u2019s views of life, he could not but think that it was\nthe duty of every pilgrim to get the most he could in his journey\nthrough the world. But, really, all accept this obvious fact. The\nReligionist says merely that man should be less happy here,\u2014that his\nenjoyment may be the greater in the world to come. It is not in the\ntheory as to life\u2019s purpose that men have differed, but as to the\nconduct that really brings the greatest happiness when the last balance\nhas been struck, and the book is forever closed. Our poet could not see\nthe days and years go by and life\u2019s sands swiftly running out, and still\npostpone all enjoyment to some far off, misty time. He believed in the\nreality of to-day, and that beyond the present all was but a vision and\na dream. In his day, as in ours, the priests held out the hope of heaven\nand fear of hell, to keep the wanderer in the narrow path. But Omar was\na philosopher and astronomer. He peered into the infinite depths of\nendless space, and could see only moving, whirling worlds like ours, and\ncould find no place for heaven or hell. What the mysteries of astronomy\ncould not reveal, the theories of life left equally in the dark. While\nhe refused to be moved by a literal heaven and hell, he yet felt a deep\nmeaning attached to these old religious views. The humane, progressive\nthinkers of to-day have scarcely gone beyond this old seer, who lived\neight centuries ago and pondered the same problems over which our\ntheologians wrangle now. The following stanza gives an interpretation of\nthese religious dogmas, which for beauty and breadth and insight seems\nto be the latest product of ethical, religious thought, instead of the\nmusty musings of an old pagan, who has been dust almost eight hundred\nyears:\n\n              I sent my Soul through the Invisible,\n              Some letter of that After-Life to spell;\n                And by and by my Soul returned to me,\n              And answer\u2019d \u201cI Myself am Heav\u2019n and Hell.\u201d\n\nIf these places are but states of consciousness, it of course must\nfollow that we make our own heaven and hell, and it is, therefore, the\nright and duty of each, not to wait for some dreamy mirage born of old\nsuperstition, unmanly fear, and unfounded faith, but to take the\npresent, fleeting moment, and with it do the best we can. This stanza\nmay seem painfully sad and hopeless, but it contains the true philosophy\nof life:\n\n            Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,\n            Before we too into the Dust descend;\n              Dust unto Dust, and under Dust, to lie,\n            Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and\u2014sans End!\n\nNot only is the present the all important time, but the realities know\nnothing except the present. There is no moment but the one that\u2019s\nhere,\u2014the past is gone, the next one has not come, and he that misses\nthe present loses all there is.\n\n              Some for the Glories of This World, and some\n              Sigh for the Prophet\u2019s paradise to come;\n                Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,\n              Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!\n\nAs to how the pleasures of life are to be found, men never have agreed\nand never can. Our view of pleasure, like our feelings and emotions,\ngrows from the condition of our being, and is the result of causes that\nwe did not create and cannot control. Some there are who look at all the\nstrife and suffering of the world, and feel no kinship to the great,\nsurging mass that moves and feels and thinks. These walk silently along\nthe path alone, oblivious alike to the pleasures and the sufferings of\nthe world around. Others there are whose souls are so sensitive that\nthey feel the joys and sorrows of the world, and who cannot separate\ntheir lives from all the sentient, moving things that teem and swarm\nupon the earth. Both can and must feel those appetites and desires that\nare ever incident to being. Without these, nature could neither bring\nlife upon the earth nor sustain it when it came. It is in the balancing\nof these feelings that nature almost necessarily makes the imperfect\nman. Unless the emotions and desires are sufficiently developed, the\ncreature is cold, impassive, pulseless clay. If too much developed, it\nruns the risk of sacrificing the higher emotions and more lasting\nenjoyments to the fleeting, sensual pleasures of the hour. Almost every\nperson must stand upon one side or the other of this shadowy line, which\nno man can see, and which he would have no power to cross, even if he\nknew where it ran.\n\nPerhaps the Rubaiyat shows too much leaning toward the sensual; too\ngreat fondness for the vine. Some of the allusions were perhaps\nsymbolical, but still, Omar doubtless was very fond of wine and found in\nits use one of the chief purposes of life. Philosophy and theology could\nnot satisfy his mind. These furnished only visionary, inconsistent\ntheories of existence, utterly barren and futile,\u2014wholly purposeless and\nwrong. After studying and wrangling and disputing, he threw them to the\nwinds and reached out for the realities,\u2014however transitory and\nunsatisfactory these realities seemed to be. His exchange of theories\nand mysticisms for wine may be symbolical or not, but whether literal or\nfigurative, he could hardly be cheated by the trade. This is the way he\nrelates the story of his change of heart:\n\n            You know, My Friends, with what a brave Carouse\n            I made a Second Marriage in my house;\n              Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,\n            And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.\n\nAfter throwing the theoretical philosophy to the winds, he turned to the\nvine to learn what life really meant. No doubt, the vessel here is\nfiguratively used. It might mean a wine cup, it might mean feeding a\nbeggar, it might mean a warm room and comfortable dress. It meant\nsomething besides the intangible, barren theories, which have ever\nfurnished theologians and professors with the pleasing occupation of\nsplitting hairs and quibbling about the meaning of terms.\n\n            Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn\n            I lean\u2019d, the secret of my Life to learn;\n              And Lip to Lip it murmur\u2019d\u2014\u201cWhile you live,\n            Drink!\u2014for, once dead, you never shall return.\u201d\n\nNeither would it do to postpone the pleasures of the wine,\u2014time is\nfleeting, and every hour may be the last. Life has no space for\nresolutions or regrets. These only rob existence of a portion of the\npoor prizes that she stingily scatters into the ring to be fought and\nscrambled after by the crowd.\n\n             Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring\n             Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling;\n               The Bird of Time has but a little way\n             To flutter\u2014and the Bird is on the Wing.\n\nIt is not the dainty sipping of the wine that our poet commends for the\npeace of the soul, but the giving up of self to the enjoyment of the\nhour,\u2014the complete abandonment that forgets time and space and eternity,\nand knows only the moment that is.\n\n               Perplext no more with Human or Divine,\n               To-morrow\u2019s tangle to the winds resign,\n                 And lose your fingers in the tresses of\n               The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.\n\nThis stanza may mean wine,\u2014it may mean any strong purpose, or intense\nemotion that takes possession of our life,\u2014that makes us its devoted\nslave, anxious to dare or suffer for the privilege of enlisting in a\ncause. That Omar knew something of life\u2019s pleasures and realities,\nbesides the wine he lauded, is apparent from his work. His insight was\nso deep that he could not be deceived by the tinsel and glitter and\ntrappings that make up the vain show with which men deceive others, and\nattempt to beguile themselves. In Persia eight hundred years ago, there\nwere probably no twenty-story buildings, no railroads, nor street cars,\nnor telegraph wires; perhaps no chambers of commerce, nor banks; but no\ndoubt these old Mohammedans had much as useless and vain and artificial\nas these inventions of a later day. There was then, as now, the master\nwith all the false luxury that idleness could create in that land and\ntime; there was also, as to-day, the hopeless slave, whose only purpose\non the earth was to minister to the parasite and knave; and both of\nthese, master and man alike, were helpless prisoners in the schemes and\ndevices, the machinery and inventions, the worthless appendages and\nappliances that bound and enslaved them, and that have held the world\nwith ever increasing strength to the present day.\n\nBut Omar knew that all of this was a delusion and a snare;\u2014that it\nfailed of the purpose that it meant to serve. He turned from these\nvanities to a simpler, saner life, and found the sweetest and most\nlasting pleasures close to the heart of that great nature, to which man\nmust return from all his devious wanderings, like the lost child that\ncomes back to its mother\u2019s breast. What simpler and higher happiness has\nall the artificial civilization of the world been able to create than\nthis:\n\n                A Book of Verses underneath the bough,\n                A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou\n                  Beside me singing in the Wilderness\u2014\n                Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.\n\nIt is these bright spots in life\u2019s desert that make us long to stay.\nThese hours of friendship and close companionship of congenial souls\nthat seem the only pleasures that are real, and from which no regrets\ncan come. It is away from the bustle and glare of the world, above its\npetty strifes, and its cruel taunts, in the quiet and trust of true\ncomradeship, that we forget the evil and fall in love with life. And our\nold philosopher, with all his pessimism, with all his doubts and\ndisappointments, knew that here was the greatest peace and happiness\nthat weary, mortal man could know. In the presence of the friends he\nloved, and the comradeship of congenial lives, he could not but regret\nthe march of time and the flight of years, which heralded the coming of\nthe end. Poor Omar was like all the rest that ever lived\u2014he looked\nforward into the dark, unknown sea, and shuddered as he felt the rising\nwater on his feet.\n\nAll of us know how small and worthless are our lives when measured by\nthe infinite bubbles poured out by the great creative power. All know\nthat we shall quickly sink into the great dark sea and the waves will\nclose above us as if we had not been. And yet we do not really think of\nthe world as moving on the same when we have spoken our last lines and\nretired behind the scenes. To the world we are little,\u2014to ourselves we\nare all. We almost hope that for a time at least we shall be\nmissed,\u2014that some souls shall sorrow and some lives feel pain. We hope\nthat here and there some pilgrim will tell of a burden that we helped\nhim bear, or a road we tried to smooth. That sometime when the merry\nfeast is on, a former friend shall feel a momentary shadow rest upon his\nheart at the thought of the face he used to know and the voice that now\nis still. Thus Omar and FitzGerald mused and hoped and told in\nbeautiful, pathetic lines:\n\n             Yon rising Moon that looks for us again\u2014\n             How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;\n               How oft hereafter rising look for us\n             Through this same Garden\u2014and for one in vain!\n\n             And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass\n             Among the Guests Star-scatter\u2019d on the Grass,\n               And in your blissful errand reach the spot\n             Where I made one\u2014turn down an empty Glass!\n\n\n\n\n                                WALT\n                                WHITMAN\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                              WALT WHITMAN\n\n\nThe work of Whitman stands alone in the literature of the world. Both in\nsubstance and construction he ignored all precedents and dared to be\nhimself. All the rules of form and taste must be unlearned before the\nworld can accept his style as true literary art. Still it may be that\nWalt Whitman was a poet, and that sometime the world will look back and\nmarvel at the mechanical precision and glittering polish that confines\nand emasculates for the sake of a purely artificial form.\n\nMeasured by the common rules, Whitman\u2019s work is neither poetry nor\nprose; it is remotely allied to the wild chanting of the primitive\nbards, who looked about at the fresh new marvels of earth and sky and\nsea, and unhampered by forms and rules and customs, sang of the miracles\nof the universe and the mysteries of life. Whitman seems one of those\nold bards, fresh from the hand of nature, young with the first creation,\nthe newest handwork of the great Master, untaught in any schools,\nunfettered by any of the myriad chords, which time is ever weaving about\nthe brains and hearts and consciences of men as the world grows gray; a\nprimitive bard of nature, born by some chance or accident in this old,\ntired, worn-out world, dropped into this Nineteenth century with its\nmachines and conventions, its artificial life, its unnatural morals and\nits fettered limbs. He alone in all the ages seems to have been\nspecially given to the world, still fresh with the imprint of the\nCreator\u2019s hand, and standing amid all our false conventions, natural,\nsimple, true, \u201cnaked and not ashamed.\u201d To the world with its crowded\ncities, its diseased bodies, its unnatural desires, its narrow religion,\nand its false morals, he comes like a breeze of the morning, from the\nmountains or the sea. Aye, like a breath of that great, creative life,\nwhich touched the fresh world and brought forth the green grass, the\nsparkling waters and the growing, beauteous, natural earth.\n\nNo one ever fell in love with Whitman\u2019s work for its literary art, but\nhis work must live or die because of his philosophy of life and the\nmaterial he chose from which to weave his songs. It is in his whole\npoint of view that Walt Whitman stands so much alone. No one else has\never looked on the universe and life as this man did. If religion means\ndevotion to that great unseen power that is ever manifest in all of\nnature\u2019s works, then Walt Whitman was the most reverent soul that ever\nlived. This man alone of all the world dared defend the Creator in every\npart and parcel of his work. The high mountains, the deep valleys, the\nbroad plains and the wide seas; the feelings, the desires, and the\npassions of man; all forms of life and being that exist upon the earth,\nwere to him but several manifestations of a great creative power that\nformed them all alike, made each one needful to the whole, and every\nportion sacred through its Master\u2019s stamp.\n\n And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present and can be\n    none in the future,\n And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn\u2019d to\n    beautiful results,\n And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.\n\n And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are\n    compact,\n And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as\n    profound as any.\n I will not make poems with reference to parts.\n But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,\n And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all\n    days.\n\nWhitman\u2019s philosophy knew no evil and no wrong. The fact of existence\nproved the right of existence; in the great workshop of nature every\ntool had its special use and its rightful place.\n\nThe imperfections of the world come from the narrow visions of men. If\nthe perspective is right, the universe is right. From the narrow valley\nthe house may look old and worn, the fences decayed, the fields barren,\nthe woods scraggy and the cliff ragged and bare; but climb to the only\nplace where either life or landscape can be rightly seen, the mountain\ntop, and look once more. The hills, the valley, the stream, the woods,\nand the farms have melted and blended into one harmonious whole, and\nevery imperfection has been swept away. The universe is filled with\nmyriad worlds as important as our own, each one a tiny floating speck in\nan endless sea of space\u2014each whirling, turning, moving on and on and on,\nthrough the countless ages, past and yet to come. No one can tell the\npurpose of their tireless, endless flight through space; but still we\nknow that each has an orbit of its own, and every world is related to\nthe rest, and every grain of sand and the weakest, feeblest spark of\npower has its needful place in the balance of the whole. So all of good,\nand all of bad, and all of life, and all of death, and all of all, has\nthe right to be and must needs be. Walt Whitman did not even know how to\ndivide the evil from the good, but he sang them both alike.\n\n I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of\n    wickedness also.\n What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?\n Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent.\n\nThe universe can make no mistakes, every particle of energy that has\npermeated the world since time began, has been working toward a\ncompleter system and a more harmonious whole. There is a soul of truth\nin error; there is a soul of good in evil. From the trials and sorrows\nand disappointments of life, even from its bitterness and doubt and sin,\nare often born the holiest desires, the sincerest endeavors and the most\nrighteous deeds.\n\n Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse\n    unreturn\u2019d love,\n But now I think there is no unreturn\u2019d love, the pay is certain one way\n    or another,\n (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return\u2019d,\n Yet out of that I have written these songs.)\n\nThis is the old, old philosophy, ever forgotten, yet ever present. It is\nsure in the world of mechanics, it is equally true in the world of\nmorals and of life. Nothing is lost; the force that once was heat is\ntransformed to light; the flood that destroyed the grain, comes at last\nto turn the miller\u2019s wheel. What we call sin and evil make the\nexperiences of life and go to the upbuilding of character and the\ndevelopment of man. We can know only what we have felt, and however much\nwe try to deceive others, we can tell only of the experiences we\nourselves have had. The poorest life is the one that has no tale to\ntell. In the doubts and darkness of life, in the turbulence of mind and\nthe anguish of the soul, it is most consoling to feel that resignation\nand confidence which comes from a realization that all is right and that\nyou are master of yourself and at peace with God and man. This calm,\noptimistic, self-reliant philosophy is ever present with its consoling\npower in all Walt Whitman\u2019s work.\n\n I have said that the soul is not more than the body,\n And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,\n And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one\u2019s self is,\n And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral\n    drest in his shroud,\n\n And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,\n And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the\n    learning of all times,\n And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel\u2019d\n    universe,\n And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed\n    before a million universes.\n\n And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,\n For I who am curious about each, am not curious about God,\n (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about\n    death).\n\n I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the\n    least,\n Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.\n\n Why should I wish to see God better than this day?\n I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four and each moment\n    then,\n In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the\n    glass,\n I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign\u2019d by\n    God\u2019s name,\n And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe\u2019er I go,\n Others will punctually come for ever and ever.\n\nThis is not the boasting of the ignorant egotist who vaunts himself\nabove his fellow man, but the calm, conscious serenity of a great soul,\nwho has learned the patient philosophy of life.\n\nThere is an egotism that is cheap and vulgar and born of ignorance\nalone. There is an egotism that comes from the knowledge that after all\nwhat we are depends not upon the estimate of the world, but upon the\nintegrity and character of ourselves. This consciousness of individual\nworth brings that peace of soul, \u201cwhich the world can neither give nor\ntake away.\u201d\n\n I know I am august,\n I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,\n I see that the elementary laws never apologize,\n (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after\n    all),\n I exist as I am, that is enough,\n If no other in the world be aware I sit content.\n\n One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself;\n And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million\n    years,\n I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.\n\n My foothold is tennon\u2019d and mortis\u2019d in granite,\n I laugh at what you call dissolution,\n And I know the amplitude of time.\n\nHappy is the man that has climbed to the height on which Walt Whitman\nstood. Happy is he that has mastered the haste and impatience of youth,\nand is content to bide his time. Happy is he that has so far solved the\nproblem of life as to know that reward is not received from others and\ncannot be withheld by others, but can be given only by ourselves. Such a\nman has struck the subtle harmony which unites his soul with the\nuniversal life and he knows that no one but himself can cut the cord.\n\nTo a great mass of men and women, Walt Whitman is known almost alone by\nthat portion of his work called \u201cChildren of Adam.\u201d These poems have\ncalled forth the fiercest opposition and the bitterest denunciation, and\nif the common judgment is correct, they are obscene and vile. While this\nportion of his book is by far the smallest part, still, before the court\nof public opinion, he must stand or fall upon these lines. In one sense\npublic opinion is right, for unless these stanzas can be defended, his\npoint of view is wrong, and Walt Whitman\u2019s work will die. We need not\naccept all he did, or give unstinted praise to all his work, but his\nscheme is consistent in every portion of his thought, and his point of\nview will determine the place he shall fill in art and life.\n\nIt is in this work that the courage and personality of Whitman towers so\nhigh above every other man that ever wrote. It is easy for the essayist\nto speak in general terms and glittering phrases in defense of Whitman\u2019s\nwork. His defenders have been many, but he alone has had the courage to\nspeak.\n\nIt is not difficult to insist that his \u201cA Woman Waits for Me\u201d is a\ntremendous work, and as pure as nature\u2019s generating power. Still perhaps\nfew would dare to read it aloud in an assembly of men and women. If\nWhitman is right, the world is wrong. This poem, and others of its like,\nin plain words deals of the deepest, strongest, most persistent feelings\nthat move the sentient world. In proportion as they are deeper and\nstronger than any other, they should the more be the subject of thought\nand art. And still ages of established convention have made the world\npretend ignorance until no one dares defend his right to life but this\nbrave and simple man.\n\nIn both England and America, narrow interpretations of morality have\nalmost stifled art. As remarked by a leading novelist\u2014\u201cAll our\nliterature is addressed to the young school girl.\u201d If it will not pass\nmuster before her eyes, it has no right to live, and almost no English\nor American author has been great enough to rise above these narrow\nconventions and write the natural and true. The artists of continental\nEurope have been less fettered and have taken us over a broader range\nand a wider field. Still while these authors have told more of life,\nthey have treated these tremendous subjects by drawing the curtain only\na little way aside, and giving us a curious, perverted, half stolen\nlook, as if they knew that the picture was unholy and therefore tempting\nto the gaze. But Walt Whitman approached the human body and the\nmysteries of life from an entirely different view.\n\n If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred,\n And the glory and sweet of man is the token of manhood untainted,\n And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful\n    than the most beautiful face.\n\nIf Walt Whitman could have drawn the veil from the universe and shown us\nthe living God in all his majesty and power, he would have approached\nhis throne with no greater reverence than when he stripped the human\nbody and pointed to its every part fresh and sacred from its Maker\u2019s\nhand.\n\nNo true system of life and morals will exist until the holiest feelings\nand most potent and eternal power is openly recognized and discussed\nwith neither jest nor shame.\n\nWalt Whitman was the great bard of democracy and equality; not simply\nthe vulgar democracy of political rights and promiscuous familiarity,\nbut the deep, broad, fundamental democracy that looks at all of nature\nand feels the unity and kinship that makes the universe a whole.\n\nTo Walt Whitman there could be no thought of class or caste. Each one\nheld his certificate of birth from the same infinite power that, through\nall the ages and all the false and criminal distinctions of man, has yet\ndecreed that all shall enter helpless and naked through the same gateway\nof birth, and each alike must go back to the fundamental mother, shorn\nof every distinction that man in his vain-glorious pride has sought to\nmake. Whitman placed the works of nature above the works of man. He had\nno faith in those laws and institutions which the world has ever made to\ndefraud, and enslave, and deny the common brotherhood of all. He\nbelieved that every child that came upon the earth was legitimate, and\nhad an equal right to land, and sea, and air, and all that nature made,\nand all that nature gave.\n\n Each of us is inevitable,\n Each of us limitless\u2014each of us with his or her right upon the earth,\n Each of us allow\u2019d the eternal purports of the earth,\n Each of us here as divinely as any is here.\n\nLet this stanza speak to our conscience face to face\u2014is it true or\nfalse? Can any but a blasphemer deny the divine right of every man upon\nthe earth? And yet if this simple stanza is true, every law book should\nbe burned and every court abolished and natural justice, unfettered and\nundenied, should be enthroned above the forms and conventions and laws,\nwhich, each and all, deny the integrity of the soul and the equal rights\nof man.\n\nThrough all the injustice and inequality of the world, the vision of\ndemocracy has still prevailed and ever must prevail as long as nature\nbrings forth and takes back the master and the slave alike. But the\naspiration for democracy is not always high and noble. It is easy to\ndemand for ourselves the same rights enjoyed by our fellow men, but\nWhitman\u2019s democracy was on a higher plane.\n\n I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracys\n By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of\n    on the same terms.\n\nThese lines breathe the spirit of true humanity, the spirit that will\none day remove all barriers and restrictions, and liberate the high and\nlow alike. For nothing is truer in life or more inevitable in the\neconomy of nature than this sage thought:\n\n          Whatever degrades another degrades me,\n          And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.\n\nIt is a sad mistake to believe that injustice and wrong can injure only\nthe poor and the weak. Every mean word and narrow thought and selfish\nact degrades the aggressor, leaves its mark upon his soul and its\npenalty in his life. So, too, no good effort is really lost, however it\nmay seem to be. The kind word may be spoken to the deaf, the righteous\neffort be wrongly directed, the alms unworthily bestowed, but the heart\nthat feels and the soul that tries has grown greater by the act.\n\n The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,\n The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,\n The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,\n The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,\n The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,\n The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him,\u2014it cannot fail,\n\n The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress,\n    not to the audience,\n And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the\n    indication of his own.\n\nNot alone in his theory of personal equality was Walt Whitman a democrat\nin the highest meaning of the term, but he distrusted the ease and\neffeminacy of modern life; he doubted and feared the polish and\nsuper-sensitiveness that precedes decay; he had no faith in hot-house\nplants, in pampered life, in luxury and repose. He believed in rugged,\nprimeval nature, in the rocks and hills, the rivers and the pines; he\nloved the dumb and patient brute, and believed in stalwart men and\nstrong women; in sunlight, rain and air.\n\n I am enamour\u2019d of growing out of doors,\n Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,\n Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and\n    mauls, and the drivers of horses,\n I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.\n I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and\n    self-contain\u2019d,\n I stand and look at them and long and long.\n\n They do not sweat and whine about their condition,\n They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,\n They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,\n\n Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning\n    things,\n Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years\n    ago,\n Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.\n\nWalt Whitman\u2019s work is not of the old, time-worn sort. When he speaks of\nlove it is the love of life, the love of reality, the strong love of\nmen, the intense love of women, the honest love that nature made, the\nlove that is; not the unhealthy, immoral, false, impossible love told in\nerotic prose and more erotic verse, and given to young girls and boys as\nthe truth, to poison and corrupt with its false and vicious views of\nlife.\n\nBut he sings of the common things, the democracy of every day; for it is\nthe small affairs that make up life, and its true philosophy is to see\nthe beauty and greatness and relation of these little things and not to\npine for the seemingly momentous events, which can rarely come. The\nAlexanders, the C\u00e6sars and the Napoleons are scattered only here and\nthere in the great sea of human existence, and yet every life measured\nby just standards may be as great as these; and the soul that is\nconscious of its own integrity knows its own worth regardless of the\nworld.\n\n         I do not call one greater and one smaller,\n         That which fills its period and place is equal to any.\n\nWalt Whitman felt the music of the hammer and the axe as he felt the\nharmony of the symphonies of Beethoven, and he understood the art of the\nplough-boy in the field as well as the glorious creations of Millet.\n\n The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well,\n The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him\n    all day,\n The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,\n In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen and\n    love them.\n\n The soldier camp\u2019d or upon the march is mine,\n On the night ere the pending battle may seek me, and I do not fail them,\n On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me,\n My face rubs to the hunter\u2019s face when he lies down alone in his\n    blanket,\n The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,\n The young mother and old mother comprehend me,\n The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they\n    are,\n They and all would resume what I have told them.\n\nWalt Whitman\u2019s democracy did not end with sex. Man is not always a\nlogical animal. Most of the practical democracy of the world has stopped\nwith men, and generally with white men at that. The political equality\nof woman has only barely been considered; the still more important\nquestion, her economic independence, is yet a far-off dream. But Walt\nWhitman knew no limit to equality. With him equality meant equality. It\ncould mean nothing else.\n\n       I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,\n       And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,\n       And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.\n\nProbably Walt Whitman would not have raised his hat to a woman on the\nstreet, nor given her his seat in the car, simply because she was a\nwoman. Both these may be well enough, but they grow from false ideas of\nwomen and of course through these false ideas women lose the most.\nInjustice and oppression can never be made up by chivalry and pretended\ncourtesy. And the evil always is and must be the false relation which\nthese create. Men expect to pay women for their political and economic\nfreedom in theater tickets and by taking off their hats in public, and\nin the end women become willing to receive this paltry and debasing\nbribe.\n\n\u201cThe Open Road,\u201d one of Whitman\u2019s masterpieces, is full of wholesome\ninclusive democracy.\n\n Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,\n Healthy, free, the world before me,\n The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.\n\n Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune,\n Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing\n Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,\n Strong and content I travel the open road.\n\n The earth, that is sufficient,\n I do not want the constellations any nearer,\n I know they are very well where they are,\n I know they suffice for those who belong to them.\n\n Here the profound lessons of reception, nor preference nor denial,\n The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas\u2019d, the illiterate\n    person, are not denied;\n The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar\u2019s tramp, the\n    drunkard\u2019s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,\n The escaped youth, the rich person\u2019s carriage, the fop, the eloping\n    couple,\n The early market men, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town,\n    the return back from the town,\n They pass, I also pass, anything passes, none can be interdicted,\n None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.\n\nBut Walt Whitman\u2019s democracy was more inclusive still. It is almost\nbecoming the fad to forgive the evil in others and to insist that, after\nall, their good qualities give them the right to kinship with ourselves,\nbut this is only one side of true democracy. The felon is my brother,\nnot alone because he has every element of good that I so well recognize\nin myself, but because I have every element of evil that I see in him.\nWalt Whitman was wise enough to see the feelings and passions that make\nothers sin, and he was just enough and great enough to recognize all\nthese feelings in himself.\n\n You felons on trial in courts,\n You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain\u2019d and\n    handcuff\u2019d with iron,\n Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?\n Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain\u2019d with\n    iron, or my ankles with iron?\n\n You prostitutes flaunting over the pavements or obscene in your rooms,\n Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?\n O culpable! I acknowledge\u2014I expose!\n (O admirers, praise not me\u2014compliment not me\u2014you make me wince,\n I see what you do not\u2014I know what you do not.)\n Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch\u2019d and choked,\n Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell\u2019s tides continually\n    run,\n\n\n Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,\n I walk with delinquents with passionate love,\n I feel I am of them\u2014I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,\n And henceforth I will not deny them\u2014for how can I deny myself?\n\nThese lines are not a burst of poetic feeling, they are the sincere\nutterances of a brave philosopher and poet, who tells the truth about\nhimself and about you and me. Let us be honest about sin. How do you and\nI differ from the murderer on the gallows, the prostitute in the street\nor the burglar in the jail? How wide a breach is there between coveting\nthe house or home or seal skin coat of your neighbor and taking it if\nyou can? How great a difference between making a sharp trade with your\nneighbor, getting more from him than you give to him, and taking\noutright what he has? Yet one is business, the other larceny. What is\nthe distance between hating your neighbor, and wishing him dead: how\ngreat a chasm between feeling relief at his death, and killing him\nyourself? So far as the man is concerned, it is not the act that is\nevil, but the heart that is evil. There is no difference between the\ncommitted and the uncommitted crime. Every feeling that makes every sort\nof crime is in the heart of each and every one. Nature has made the\nblood of some of us a little cooler, and has developed caution a little\nmore, or fate has made the temptation a trifle less, and thus we have\nescaped,\u2014that is, managed to conceal the real passion that boils and\nsurges in our hearts. Until this is dead, evil is in our souls. Away\nwith all this talk of superiority and differences. It is cant\u2014pure,\nsimple cant.\n\n I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my\n    companions?\n O you shunn\u2019d persons, I at least do not shun you,\n I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,\n I will be more to you than to any of the rest.\n\nHas man the right to be less kind than nature is? Have we the right by\nword or deed to pass judgment on our fellow man? Can we not learn of\nlove and charity and hope from the sun, the rain, the generous earth,\nand the pulsing, growing spring? Hear Walt Whitman\u2019s word to a common\nprostitute:\n\n Be composed\u2014be at ease with me\u2014I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as\n    Nature,\n Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,\n Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle\n    for you do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.\n\nNeither was it the magnanimous soul of Whitman that was charitable and\nkind, but it was the truthful, honest man who saw his own goodness in\nthe woman; and her sin, which after all was only an excess of kindness,\nin himself.\n\nThe regenerated world will be built upon the democracy Walt Whitman\ntaught. It will know neither rich nor poor; neither high nor low;\nneither good nor bad; neither right nor wrong; but\n\n I will establish *** in every city of these states inland and seaboard,\n In the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large, that\n    dents the water,\n Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,\n The institution of the dear love of comrades.\n\nWalt Whitman was always and at all times an optimist. He never struck a\ndespairing note or voiced a doubting strain. His hope was not anchored\nin blind faith or narrow creed. His optimism was not that of the\ncowardly fanatic who stubbornly shuts his eyes to avoid an unpleasant\nview. He looked abroad at all the world and called it good.\n\nOptimism and pessimism in their last analysis are questions of\ntemperament. They depend upon the eye that looks out, not upon the\nobject that it sees. The pessimist points to the sunset, casting its\nlengthening shadows on the earth, and tells of the night that is coming\non; the optimist shows us the rosy dawn, the golden promise of a\nglorious day. The pessimist tells of winter, whose icy breath chills and\ndeadens all the world; the optimist points to springtime with its ever\nrecurring miracle of light and life. Is the pessimist right or is the\noptimist right\u2014does the night precede the day, or the day precede the\nnight? After all, are our calendars wrong\u2014does the winter with its white\nshroud and cold face mark the ending of the year, or does the springtime\nwith its budding life and its resurrecting power awaken the dead earth\nto joyous, pulsing life again?\n\nAbove the view of the optimist, who sees the morning and the spring, and\nthe pessimist, who sees the evening and the closing year, stand a few\nserene souls, who look on both with clear eye and tranquil mind, and\ndeclare that all is good. The morning is right and the evening is right.\nIt is beautiful to pass through the joyous gates of birth; it is good to\nbe clasped in the peaceful arms of death. Rare Walt Whitman at\nthirty-seven, full of health and vigor and strength, with the world\nbefore him, and conscious of his genius and his power, sings in a burst\nof optimism:\n\n I celebrate myself, and sing myself,\n And what I assume you shall assume,\n For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.\n\n I loafe and invite my soul,\n I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.\n\n My tongue, every atom of my blood, form\u2019d from this soil, this air,\n Born of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the\n    same,\n I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,\n Hoping to cease not till death.\n\nAgain at seventy, looking back on a life well spent, conscious that the\nlast few sands are running out, a confirmed invalid with palsied limbs\nand failing strength, looking death squarely in the face and just before\nhim; with the same sweet smile, the same lovely nature, the same\nall-embracing philosophy, sings once again his optimistic song:\n\n Not from successful love alone,\n Nor wealth, nor honor\u2019d middle age, nor victories of politics or war;\n But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,\n As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,\n As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher, balmier\n    air,\n\n As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really\n    finish\u2019d and indolent-ripe on the tree,\n Then for the teeming, quietest, happiest days of all!\n The brooding, blissful halcyon days!\n\nIt must be that somewhere is a serene height where life triumphs over\ndeath. It must be that nature does not jar, and that the close of a\nlovely life is really as peaceful and as beautiful as the decline of a\nperfect day; that each day rightly lived and every year well spent, must\nbring the pilgrim more in harmony with his journey drawing to a close.\n\nThe world has ever shuddered at death\u2014has stubbornly closed its eyes and\nrefused to look at the great fact that nature places all about our path;\nhas never tried to look in its face, to take its hand, to think of its\npeaceful, forgiving, soothing touch; has ever called it enemy and never\nthought to caress it as a friend. Walt Whitman was wiser than the rest.\nHis philosophy made him know that death was equally good, whether the\nopening gateway to a freer, fuller life, or a restful couch for a weary\nsoul.\n\nWhitman had solved the eternal riddle; he had conquered death; he looked\nat her pale form and saluted her as he would welcome a new birth. No\nbard ever sang a more glorious hymn than Walt Whitman sang to death.\n\n Come, lovely and soothing Death,\n Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,\n In the day, in the night, to all, to each,\n Sooner or later, delicate Death,\n Praised be the fathomless universe\n For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,\n And for love, sweet love\u2014but praise! praise! praise\n For the sure enwinding arms of cool, enfolding Death.\n Dark Mother, always gliding near with soft feet,\n Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?\n Then I chant for thee, I glorify thee above all,\n I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly,\n Approach, strong deliveress,\n When it is so, when thou hast taken them\n I joyously sing the dead,\n Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,\n Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.\n From me to thee glad serenades,\n Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee, adornments and feastings for\n    thee,\n And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are\n    fitting,\n And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night,\n The night in silence under many a star,\n The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,\n And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well veil\u2019d Death,\n And the body gratefully nestling close to thee,\n\n Over the tree tops I float thee a song,\n Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the\n    prairies wide,\n Over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves, and ways,\n I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death.\n\nWhitman in his wheel chair, physically shattered and broken, but with a\nmind strong and serene, and at peace with all the world, waiting for the\nsun to set, is a lesson in optimism better than all the sermons ever\npreached. Without faith in any form of religion that the world has ever\nknown, he had brought his life so in harmony with nature that he felt\nevery beat of the great, universal heart, and with the confidence of\ncertain knowledge he looked upon the fading earth and caroled a song as\nhe sailed forth on that great unknown sea, which is hidden in perpetual\nnight, from all but the few great souls, whose wisdom and insight have\ngiven them the confidence and trust of a little child.\n\n                 Joy, shipmates, joy!\n                 (Pleas\u2019d to my soul at death I cry,)\n                 Our life is closed, our life begins,\n                 The long, long anchorage we leave,\n                 The ship is clear at last, she leaps!\n                 She swiftly courses from the shore,\n                 Joy, shipmates, joy.\n\nConscious of the integrity of his purpose, and the inherent\nrighteousness of his life, moved and upheld by his broad philosophy and\nhis patient, trustful soul, with no false modesty and with the same\nmanly egoism that made him what he was\u2014the kindest, gentlest, justest,\nbroadest, manliest man\u2014Walt Whitman asked the reward his life had\nearned.\n\n Give me the pay I have served for,\n Give me to sing the song of the great Idea, take all the rest,\n I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches,\n I have given alms to every one that ask\u2019d, stood up for the stupid and\n    crazy, devoted my income and labor to others,\n Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence\n    toward people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,\n Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young, and\n    with the mothers of families,\n Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees, stars,\n    rivers,\n Dismiss\u2019d whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,\n Claim\u2019d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim\u2019d for others\n    on the same terms,\n Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State,\n (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean\u2019d to breathe his last,\n This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish\u2019d, rais\u2019d, restor\u2019d,\n To life recalling many a prostrate form;)\n I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of\n    myself,\n Rejecting none, permitting all.\n\nWhen man has grown simpler and saner and truer\u2014when the fever of\ncivilization has been subdued and the pestilence been cured; when man\nshall no longer deny and revile the universal mother who gave him birth,\nthen Walt Whitman\u2019s day will come. In the clear light of that\nregenerated time, when the world looks back to the doubt and mist and\nconfusion of to-day, Walt Whitman will stand alone, the greatest,\ntruest, noblest prophet of the age, a man untainted by artificial life\nand unmoved by the false standards of his time. In a sodden, commercial,\nmoney-getting age, he enjoyed all the beauty of the earth without the\nvulgar lust to own. In a world of privilege and caste, he felt and\ntaught the brotherhood of man and the kinship of all living things. In\nan age of false modesty and perverted thought, he sang the sanctity of\nthe body with the divinity of the soul. Against the agnostic and the\nChristian too, he defended every part and portion of the faultless work\nof the creative power. Above the doleful, doubting voice of men, through\nthe dreariest day and darkest night, in the raging of the storm and the\nmadness of the waves, his strong, optimistic, reassuring note was ever\nheard above the rest, proclaiming to the universe that all is well. He\nsaw that in a wise economy and a great broad way, that the false was\ntrue, the evil good, the wrong was right, and that over all the\nuniverse, pervading all its teeming life, a power omnipotent, beneficent\nand wise, was working to uplift, conserve and purify the whole. The\npoor, the weak, the suffering, the outcast, the felon, all knew him for\ntheir comrade and their friend. His great, inclusive, universal heart\nleft no soul outside, but all alike he knew, the life of all he felt,\nand one and all he loved. In his vocabulary were no words of bitterness\nand hate, and in his philosophy no right to censure or to blame. In his\nevery deed and thought he seemed to say:\n\n               \u201cSo I be written in the book of love,\n               I have no care about that book above,\n               Erase my name, or write it as you please,\n               So I be written in the book of love.\u201d\n\nAs the shadows lengthen and the daylight wanes\u2014as the hair whitens and\nthe passions cool, more and more do we learn that love is the true\nphilosophy of life; more and more do we revise the sterner judgments of\nour earlier years; more and more do we see that pity should take the\nplace of blame, forgiveness of punishment, charity of justice, and\nhatred be replaced by love. When old familiar faces awake the memories\nof bygone days, often and often again do we fear that our judgments were\ncruel and unjust, but every deed of mercy and every act of charity and\nevery thought of pity is like the balm of Gilead to our souls. We may\nnone of us be wise or great, fortune may elude us and fame may never\ncome; but however poor or weak or humble, we yet may inscribe our names\nin the fairest, brightest book,\u2014the book of love, and on its sacred\npages, earned by the glorious truths he taught, by his infinite, ever\npresent love of all, upon the foremost line will be inscribed Walt\nWhitman\u2019s name.\n\n\n\n\n                             ROBERT \u00b7 BURNS\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                             ROBERT BURNS.\n\n\nIt is difficult to account for a genius like Robert Burns. His life and\nwork seem to defy the laws of heredity and environment alike. The beasts\nof the field were scarcely bound closer to the soil than were the\nancestors from which he sprang; and from his early infancy he was forced\nto follow the stony path his father trod before. As a mere child, he\nlearned how hard it is to sustain life in the face of an unfriendly\nnature and a cruel, bitter world. He was early bred to toil; not the\nwork that gives strength and health, but the hard, constant, manual\nlabor that degrades and embitters, deforms and twists and stunts the\nbody and the soul alike. Burns was denied even the brief years of\nchildhood\u2014those few, short years upon which most of us look back from\nour disappointments and cares as the one bright spot in a gray and level\nplain.\n\nIt is not alone by the works he has left us that Robert Burns is to be\ntruly judged. Fortune endowed him with a wondrous brain and a still\nrarer and greater gift\u2014a tender, loving, universal heart; but as if she\ngrudged him these and sought to destroy or stunt their power, she cast\nhis lot in a social and religious environment as hard and forbidding as\nthe cold and sterile soil of his native land; and from these\nsurroundings alone he was obliged to draw the warmth and color and\nsunshine that should have come from loving hearts, generous bounties,\nand bright, blue southern skies. In measuring the power and character of\nRobert Burns, we must remember the hard and cruel conditions of his\nlife, and judge of his great achievements in the light of these.\n\nThe ways of destiny have ever been beyond the ken of man; now and then,\nat rare, long intervals, she descends upon the earth, and in her arms\nshe bears disguised a precious gift, which she lavished upon a blind,\nunwilling world. She passes by the gorgeous palaces and beautiful abodes\nof men, and drops the treasure in a manger or a hut; she comes again to\ntake it back from a world that knew it not and cast it out; and again,\nshe seeks it not among the strong and great, but in the hovel of the\npoor, the prison pen, or perhaps upon the scaffold or the block.\n\nMeasured by the standards of our day and generation, the life of Robert\nBurns was a failure and mistake. He went back to the great common Mother\nas naked of all the gilded trappings and baubles, which men call wealth,\nas when she first placed the struggling infant on its mother\u2019s breast.\n\nRobert Burns was not a \u201cbusiness man\u201d; he was not one of Dumfries\u2019\n\u201cfirst citizens\u201d\u2014in the measure of that day and this; he was one of its\nlast if not its worst. He had no stock in a corporation and no interest\nin a syndicate or trust. He had neither a bank nor bank account. He\nnever endowed a library, a museum, or a university. He was a singer of\nsongs,\u2014a dreamer of dreams. He was poor, improvident, intemperate, and\naccording to the Scottish creed, immoral and irreligious. In spite of\nhis great intellect he was doubted, neglected and despised. He died in\ndestitution and despair; but the great light of his genius, which his\nneighbors could not see or comprehend, has grown brighter and clearer as\nthe years have rolled away. A beautiful mausoleum now holds his once\nneglected ashes; monuments have been reared to his memory wherever worth\nis known and fame preserved; while millions of men and women, the\ngreatest and the humblest of the world alike, have felt their own\nheartstrings moved and stirred in unison with the music of this immortal\nbard, whose song was the breath of Nature,\u2014the sweetest, tenderest\nmelody that ever came from that rarest instrument\u2014the devoted poet\u2019s\nsoul.\n\nThe great masterpieces of his genius were not created in the pleasant\nstudy of a home of refinement, luxury, and ease, but were born in the\nfields, the farm yard, the stable; while the \u201cmonarch peasant\u201d was\nbending above the humblest tasks that men pursue for bread. Only the\nmost ordinary education was within the reach of this child of toil, and\nthe world\u2019s great storehouses of learning, literature, and art were\nsealed forever from his sight; and yet, with only the rude peasants,\nwith whom his life was spent, the narrow setting of bleak fields and\ngrey hills, which was the small stage on which he moved, and the sterile\nScotch dialect with which to paint, he stirred the hearts of men with\nthe sweetest, highest, purest melody that has ever moved the human soul.\n\nOlive Schreiner tells of an artist whose pictures shone with the\nrichest, brightest glow. His admirers gazed upon the canvas and wondered\nwhere he found the colors\u2014so much rarer than any they had ever seen\nbefore. Other artists searched the earth, but could find no tints like\nhis; he died with the secret in his breast. And when they undressed him\nto put his grave-clothes on, they found an old wound, hard and jagged\nabove his heart; and still they wondered where he found the coloring for\nhis work. Robert Burns, perhaps more than any other man who ever lived,\ntaught the great truth that poets are not made but born; that the\nrichest literature, the brightest gems of art, even the most pleasing\nearthly prospects are less than one spark of the divine fire, which\nalone can kindle the true light. Robert Burns like all great artists,\ntaught the world that the beauty of the landscape, and the grandeur and\npathos of life depend, not upon the external objects that nature has\nchanced to place before our view, but upon the soul of the artist, which\nalone can really see and interpret the manifold works of the great\nauthor, beside which all human effort is so poor and weak.\n\nMillet looked at the French peasants standing in their wooden shoes,\ndigging potatoes from the earth and pausing to bow reverently at the\nsounding of the Angelus, and saw in this simple life, so close to\nNature\u2019s heart, more beauty and pathos and poetry than all the\nglittering courts of Europe could produce. And Robert Burns, whose broad\nmind and sympathetic soul made him kin to all living things, had no need\nto see the splendor and gaiety of wealth and power, to visit foreign\nshores and unknown lands; but the flowers, the heather, the daisies, the\nbleak fields, the pelting rains, the singing birds, the lowing cattle,\nand above all, the simple country folk seen through his eyes, and felt\nby his soul, and held in his all-embracing heart, were covered with a\nbeauty and a glory that all the artificial world could not create, and\nthat his genius has endowed with immortal life. Robert Burns did not\nborrow his philosophy from the books, his humanity from the church, or\nhis poetry from the schools. Luckily for us he escaped all these, and\nunfettered and untaught, went straight to the soul of Nature to learn\nfrom the great source, the harmony and beauty and unity that pervades\nthe whole; and he painted these with colors drawn from his great human\nheart. His universal sympathy gave him an insight into life that\nstudents of science and philosophy can never reach. Contemplating\nNature, and seeing her generous bounties lavished alike on all her\nchildren, he could not but contrast this with the selfishness and\ninhumanity of man, which crushes out the weak and helpless and builds up\nthe great and strong. Burns was a natural leveler, and while men still\nbelieved in the \u201cdivine right of kings,\u201d he preached that \u201cman was the\ndivine King of rights.\u201d None knew better than he the injustice of the\nsocial life in which he lived, and in which we live to-day. Burns knew,\nas all men of intelligence understand, that worldly goods are not, and\nnever have been given as a reward of either brains or merit.\n\n                It\u2019s hardly in a body\u2019s power\n                To keep at times, frae being sour,\n                  To see how things are shared;\n                How best o\u2019chiels are whiles in want\n                While coofs on countless thousands rant\n                  And ken na how to wair\u2019t.\n\nThe immortal singer of songs, and all his descendants, received\ninfinitely less for all the works of his genius than an ordinary gambler\noften gets for one sale of something that he never owned, or one\npurchase of something that he never bought; and it is doubtful if all\nthe masterpieces of the world in art, in literature, and in science,\never brought as much cash to those whose great, patient brains have\ncarefully and honestly wrought that the earth might be richer and better\nand brighter, as has been often \u201cmade\u201d by one inferior speculator upon a\nsingle issue of watered stock.\n\nLiving in the midst of aristocracy and privilege and caste, Burns was a\ndemocrat that believed in the equality of man. It required no books or\nprofessors, or theories to teach him the injustice of the social\nconditions under which the world has ever lived. Here, as elsewhere, he\nlooked to the heart\u2014a teacher infinitely more honest and reliable than\nthe brain.\n\n                 If I\u2019m design\u2019d yon lordling\u2019s slave,\n                   By Nature\u2019s law design\u2019d;\n                 Why was an independent wish\n                   E\u2019er planted in my mind?\n\n                 If not, why am I subject to\n                   His cruelty, or scorn?\n                 Or why has man the will and pow\u2019r\n                   To make his fellow mourn?\n\nPreachers and authors and teachers, judges and professors and lawyers,\nhave been employed for ages to teach the justice of slavery and the\nfolly and crime of equal rights; but through all quibbles and evasions,\nthis question of Burns, straight from the heart, as well as the head,\nshows that all these excuses are but snares and cheats. The voice of the\nFrench Revolution could not fail to move a soul like that of Robert\nBurns. This great struggle for human liberty came upon the world with\nalmost the suddenness of an earthquake, and with much of its terrors,\ntoo. Here the poor and the oppressed felt the first substantial hope for\nfreedom that had pierced the long, dark centuries since history told the\nacts of men. To the oppressors and the powerful, who hated liberty then\nas they ever have, before and since, it was a wild, dread threat of\ndestruction and ruin to their precious \u201crights.\u201d When the struggle\ncommenced, Burns was enjoying the munificent salary of Fifty pounds a\nyear as a whisky gauger in the village of Dumfries. He had already spent\na winter in Edinburgh, and had been feted and dined by the aristocracy\nand culture of Scotland\u2019s capital without losing his head, although at\nno small risk. An acquaintance and entertainer of the nobility and an\nincumbent of a lucrative office, there was but one thing for Burns to\ndo; this was to condemn the Revolution and lend his trenchant pen to the\noppressor\u2019s cause; but this course he flatly refused to take. He openly\nespoused the side of the people, and wrote the \u201cTree of Liberty,\u201d one of\nhis most stirring songs, in its defense.\n\n                Upon this tree there grows sic fruit,\n                  Its virtues a\u2019can tell man;\n                It raises man aboon the brute,\n                  It mak\u2019s him ken himsel\u2019 man.\n                Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,\n                  He\u2019s greater than a lord man.\n\n                King Louis thought to cut it down\n                  When it was unco sma\u2019 man;\n                For this the watchman cracked his crown,\n                  Cut aff his head an\u2019 a\u2019 man.\n\nEven these words are not strong enough to express his love for natural\nliberty and his distrust of those forms and institutions which over and\nover again have crushed the priceless gem they pretend to protect.\n\n                 A fig for those by law protected!\n                   Liberty\u2019s a glorious feast!\n                 Courts for cowards were erected,\n                   Churches built to please the priest.\n\nEven higher and broader was Burns\u2019 view of equality and right. He stood\non a serene height, where he looked upon all the strife and contention\nof individuals and states, and dreamed of a perfect harmony and\nuniversal order, where men and Nations alike should be at peace, and the\nworld united in one grand common brotherhood, where the fondest wish of\neach should be the highest good of all. These beautiful, prophetic lines\nseem to speak of a day as distant now as when Burns wrote them down a\nhundred years ago. But still, all men that love the human race will ever\nhope, and work, and say with him:\n\n                Then let us pray that come it may,\n                  As come it will for a\u2019 that,\n                That sense and worth, o\u2019er a\u2019 the earth\n                  May bear the gree, and a\u2019 that;\n                For a\u2019 that, and a\u2019 that,\n                  It\u2019s coming yet, for a\u2019 that,\n                That man to man, the warld o\u2019er,\n                  Shall brothers be for a\u2019 that.\n\nIt is perhaps as a singer of songs that the literary fame of Burns will\nlongest be preserved. No other poet has ever breathed such music from\nhis soul. His melodies are as sweet and pure as the bubbling spring; and\nas natural and spontaneous as ever came from the throat of the\nnightingale or lark. These songs could not be made. The feeling and\npassion that left his soul bore this music as naturally as the zephyr\nthat has fanned the strings of the \u00c6olian harp. The meter of these songs\nwas not learned by scanning Latin verse, or studying the dry rules that\ngovern literary art, but it was born of the regular pulse beats, which\nin the heart of Nature\u2019s poets are as smooth and unstudied as the\nrippling laughter of her purling brooks.\n\n\n                    John Anderson, my jo, John,\n                      When we were first acquent,\n                    Your locks were like the raven,\n                      Your bonnie brow was brent;\n                    But now your brow is beld, John,\n                      Your locks are like the snow;\n                    But blessing on your frosty pow,\n                      John Anderson, my jo.\n\n                    John Anderson, my jo, John,\n                      We clamb the hill tegither,\n                    And mony a canty day, John,\n                      We\u2019ve had wi\u2019 ane anither;\n                    Now we maun totter down, John,\n                      But hand in hand we\u2019ll go,\n                    And sleep tegither at the foot,\n                      John Anderson, my jo.\n\nAlthough a plough boy and surrounded by the grime and dirt that come\nfrom contact with the soil, still even here Burns found material for\nmusic and poetry that will live as long as human hearts endure; for,\nthough the sky may be warmer and bluer on the Mediterranean shore than\nwhere it domes the Scottish hills and crags, still the same heaven bends\nabove them both, and the same infinite mysteries are hidden in their\nunfathomed depths. The tragedy of death is alike, whether defying the\npower of a Prince, or entering the home of the humblest peasant to bring\nthe first moments of relief and rest. The miracle of life, whether\nwrought by Nature on the rich couch of the Queen or the unwatched pallet\nof the peasant, is the same mystery, ever new, ever old, appealing ever\nto the heart of man. The affections and passions,\u2014those profound\nfeelings that Nature planted deep in the being of all sentient things,\nand on whose strength all life depends,\u2014these are the deepest and purest\nas we leave the conventions and trappings of the artificial world, and\ndraw nearer to the heart of the great Universal power. With the sky\nabove, the fields around, and all Nature throbbing and teeming with\npulsing life, but one thing more was needed to make harmony and music,\nand that was Robert Burns.\n\nThe old story of human love was sung by him a thousand times and in a\nthousand varying moods, as never love was sung before. It mattered not\nthat his melodies breathed of rustic scenes, of country maids, and of\nplain untutored hearts that beat as Nature made them feel, unfettered by\nthe restraints and cords of an artificial life. Transport his Mary to a\ngorgeous palace, and deck her fair form with the richest treasures of\nthe earth and bring to her side the proudest noble that ever paid homage\nto a princess, and no singer,\u2014not even Burns himself,\u2014could make a\nmelody like the matchless music that he sung to Highland Mary.\n\n                How sweetly bloom\u2019d the gay green birk,\n                  How rich the hawthorn\u2019s blossom;\n                As underneath their fragrant shade,\n                  I clasp\u2019d her to my bosom!\n\n                The golden hours, on angel wings,\n                  Flew o\u2019er me and my dearie;\n                For dear to me as light and life\n                  Was my sweet Highland Mary.\n\nAll the conventions and baubles and spangles which fashion and custom\nuse to adorn the fair could only have cheapened and made vulgar the\nrustic maiden that moved Burns\u2019 soul to song.\n\nThese sweet lines could never have been written of any but a simple\ncountry lass, whose natural charms had moved a susceptible human heart:\n\n                I see her in the dewy flowers,\n                  I see her sweet and fair;\n                I hear her in the tunefu\u2019 birds,\n                  I hear her charm the air;\n\n                There\u2019s not a bonnie flower that springs\n                  By fountain, shaw, or green,\n                There\u2019s not a bonnie bird that sings,\n                  But minds me o\u2019 my Jean.\n\nWho was this Burns that sang these sweet songs and whose musical soul\nwas stirred by every breeze and moved to poetry by every lovely face and\nform that came within his view? Biographers and critics and admirers\nhave praised the genius and begged excuses for the man. Without asking\ncharity for this illustrious singer, let us view him in the light of\njustice, exactly as he was. It is not difficult to understand the\ncharacter of Robert Burns. His heart was generous and warm and kind; his\nmind was open as the day, and his soul was sensitive to every breath\nthat stirred the air. These qualities have made the poet loved in every\nland on earth, and brought more pilgrims to his grave than were ever\ndrawn to the tomb of any other poet or author that has ever lived and\ndied. And yet the short-sighted, carping, moralizing world, with solemn\nvoice and wisdom ill-assumed, has ever told how much better and holier\nhe could have been and should have been. Poor, silly, idle world, can\nyou never learn that the qualities that make us strong must also make us\nweak; that the heart that melts at suffering and pain is made of clay so\nsensitive and fine as to be moved and swayed by all the emotions of the\nsoul? Would you serve the weak, the suffering and the poor\u2014would you\ncalm their fears and dry their eyes and feel with them the cruel woes of\nlife\u2014you must wear your heart upon your sleeve, and then of course the\ndaws will peck it into bits. Would you keep it safely hidden from the\ndaws, you must hide it in a breast of stone or ice and keep it only for\nyourself. Perhaps we may admire the man that walks with steady step\nalong a straight and narrow path, unmoved by all the world outside. He\nnever feels and never errs. But we cannot ask of either man the virtues\nthat belong to both, and when our choice is made we must take the\nstrength and weakness too.\n\nWe look at the mountain top, lifting its snow-crowned head high into the\neverlasting blue, and are moved with wonder and with awe. Above is the\nendless sky; below, the world with all its bickering and strife, the\nclouds, the lightning and the storm, but the mountain, cold, impassive,\nchangeless, unmoved by all the world, looks ever upward to the eternal\nheavens above. Again we gaze on the peaceful, fertile lowlands, rich\nwith their generous harvests yet unborn\u2014beautiful with their winding\nstreams and grassy fields, ever ready to bestow bounteously on all that\nask, demanding little and lavishly returning all; and we love the quiet,\nrustic, generous beauty of the scene. The mountain is majestic and\nsublime, and the yielding, generous lowlands are beautiful and pleasing\ntoo. We love them both, but we cannot have them both at once and both in\none.\n\nRobert Burns, and all men like him that ever lived, were always giving\nfrom their generous souls. In the cold judgment of the world, Burns\nwasted many a gem upon the thoughtless, worthless crowd, who consumed a\nlife he should have spent for nobler things. But the flower that never\nwastes its fragrance has no perfume to give out. If it is truly sweet,\nits strength is borne away on every idle wind that blows. Robert Burns\nwith lavish bounty shed his life and fragrance on every soul he met. He\nloved them all and loved them well: his sensitive, harmonious soul\nvibrated to every touch, and moved in perfect harmony with every heart\nthat came within his reach. The lives of men like him are one long\nharmony; but as they pass along the stage of life, they leave a trail of\ndisappointed hopes, and broken hearts, and vain regrets. But of all the\ntragedies great and small that mark their path, the greatest far and\nmost pathetic is the sad and hopeless wreck that ever surely falls upon\nthe exhausted artist\u2019s life.\n\nThe life of Burns was filled with wrecks\u2014with promises made and broken,\nwith hopes aroused, and then dashed to earth again. It was filled with\nthese because one man cannot give himself personally to all the world.\nThe vices of Robert Burns perhaps like those of all the rest that ever\nlived, were virtues carried to excess. Of course, the world could not\nunderstand it then, and cannot understand it now, and perhaps it never\nwill, for slander and malice and envy, like death, always love a\nshinning mark. The life of Burns and the life of each is the old Greek\nfable told again. Achilles\u2019 mother would make him invulnerable by\ndipping him in the river Styx. She held him by the heel, which remained\nunwashed and vulnerable, and finally brought him to his death. To\nwhatever dizzy height we climb, and however invulnerable we seek to be,\nthere still remains with all the untouched heel that binds us to the\nearth. And after all, this weak and human spot, is the truest bond of\nkinship that unites the world.\n\nI look back at Robert Burns, at the poor human life that went out a\nhundred years ago, and study its works to know the man. I care not what\nhis neighbors thought; I care not for the idle gossip of an idle hour. I\nknow that his immortal songs were not born of his wondrous brain alone,\nbut of the gentlest, trust, tenderest heart that ever felt another\u2019s\npain. I know full well that the love songs of Robert Burns could have\ncome from no one else than Robert Burns. I know that even the Infinite\ncould not have changed the man and left the songs. Burns, like all true\npoets, told us what he felt and saw, and it is not for me to ask excuses\nfor this or that; but rather reverently to bow my head in the presence\nof this great memory, and thank the infinite source of life for blessing\nus with Robert Burns exactly as he was.\n\nIt is difficult to understand our own being; it is impossible to know\nour fellow man\u2019s, but I have faith to think that all life is but a\nportion of one great inclusive power, and that all is good and none is\nbad. The true standard for judging Burns and all other men is given by\nCarlyle, and I cannot refrain from borrowing and adopting what he says:\n\n\u201cThe world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men; unjust on\nmany grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance: It\ndecides, like a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively but\nnegatively, less on what is done right than on what is or is not done\nwrong. Not the few inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit,\nwhich are so easily measured, but the ratio of these to the whole\ndiameter, constitutes the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet\u2019s,\nits diameter the breadth of the solar system; or it may be a city\nhippodrome; nay, the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet\nor paces. But the inches of deflection only are measured; and it is\nassumed that the diameter of the ginhorse and that of the planet will\nyield the same ratio when compared with them! Here lies the root of many\na blind, cruel condemnation of Burns, Swift, Rousseau, which one never\nlistens to with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbor with\nshrouds and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; he has not been\nall-wise and all-powerful; but to know how blameworthy; tell us first\nwhether his voyage has been around the Globe, or only to Ramsgate and\nthe Isle of Dogs.\u201d\n\nRobert Burns has been dust for a hundred years, and yet the world knows\nhim better now than the neighbors that lived beside his door. I look\nback upon the little village of Dumfries,\u2014not the first or the last town\nthat entertained angels unawares. I see poor Robert Burns passing down\nthe street, and the pharisees and self-righteous walking on the other\nside. The bill of indictment brought against him by the Dumfries\ncommunity was long and black; he was intemperate, immoral, irreligious,\nand disloyal to the things that were. The first two would doubtless have\nbeen forgiven, but the others could not be condoned. And so this\nillustrious man walked an outcast through the town that to-day makes its\nproudest boast that it holds the ashes of the mighty dead, who in life\nwas surrounded by such a halo of glory that his neighbors could not see\nhis face.\n\nA hundred years ago Scotland was held tightly in the grasp of the\nPresbyterian faith. Calvinism is not very attractive even now,\nespecially to us that live and expect to die outside its fold, but even\nCalvinism has softened and changed in a hundred years. Burns was too\nreligious to believe in the Presbyterian faith, and to the Scotch\nCovenanter there was no religion outside the Calvinistic creed. How any\nman can read the poetry of Robert Burns and not feel the deep religious\nspirit that animates its lines is more than I can see. True, he\nridicules the dogmas and the creeds that held the humanity and intellect\nof Scotland in its paralyzing grasp; but creeds and dogmas are the work\nof man; they come and go; are born and die; serve their time and pass\naway; but the love of humanity, the instincts of charity and tenderness,\nthe deep reverence felt in the presence of the infinite mystery and\npower that pervade the universe, these, the basis of all the religions\nof the earth, remain forever, while creeds and dogmas crumble to the\ndust.\n\nScotland of a hundred years ago measured Burns\u2019 religion by \u201cHoly\nWillie\u2019s Prayer,\u201d \u201cThe Holy Fair,\u201d and kindred songs. The world a\nhundred years from now will not make these the only test. Dumfries and\nall the Unco\u2019 Guid of Scotland could not forgive Burns for writing:\n\n                O Thou wha in the heavens dost dwell,\n                Wha, as it pleases best thysel\u2019,\n                Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,\n                  A\u2019 for thy glory,\n                And no for ony guid or ill\n                  They\u2019ve done afore thee!\n\n                I bless and praise thy matchless might,\n                When thousands thou hast left in night,\n                That I am here afore thy sight,\n                  For gifts an, grace,\n                A burnin, an a shinin\u2019 light,\n                  To a\u2019 this place.\n\n                Lord, hear my earnest cry an\u2019 pray\u2019r,\n                Against that presbt\u2019ry o\u2019 Ayr;\n                Thy strong right hand, Lord make it bare\n                  Upo\u2019 their heads!\n                Lord, weigh it down, an\u2019 dinna spare,\n                  For their misdeeds.\n\n                But, Lord, remember me and mine\n                Wi\u2019 mercies temp\u2019ral and divine,\n                That I for gear and grace may shine,\n                  Excell\u2019d by name;\n                And a the glory shall be thine,\n                  Amen, Amen.\n\nIt was not enough that Robert Burns taught a religion as pure and gentle\nand loving as that proclaimed by the Nazarene himself. Its meaning and\nbeauty and charity were lost on those who would not see. Long ago it was\nwritten down that, \u201cInasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of\nthese my brethren, ye have done it unto me.\u201d If this is any test of a\nreligious life, then few men will stand as high in the great beyond as\nRobert Burns. This poor poet has melted more hearts to pity and moved\nmore souls to mercy, and inclined more lives to charity than any other\npoet that ever dreamed and sung. Not men and women and children alone\nwere the objects of his bounteous love and tender heart, but he felt the\npain of the bird, the hare, the mouse, and even the daisy whose roots\nwere upturned to the biting blast. Hear him sing of the poor bird for\nwhom he shudders at the winter\u2019s cold:\n\n                Ilka hopping bird, we helpless thing\n                That in the merry month o\u2019 spring\n                Delighted me to hear thee sing,\n                  What comes o\u2019 thee!\n                Where wilt thou cow\u2019r thy chilling wing\n                  And close thy ee?\n\nFew men that ever lived would stop and lament with Burns, as he\nshattered the poor clay home of the field mouse with his plough. No\nmatter what he did; no matter what he said; no matter what his creed;\nthe man that wrote these lines deserves a place with the best and purest\nof this world or any other that the Universe may hold.\n\n                Wee, sleekit, cow\u2019rin, tim\u2019rous beastie!\n                O, what a panic\u2019s in thy breastie!\n                Thou need na start awa sae hasty,\n                  Wi\u2019 bickerin\u2019 brattle;\n                I wad be laith to rin an\u2019 chase thee,\n                  Wi\u2019 murd\u2019ring prattle?\n\nIn a world which still enjoys the brutal chase, where even clergymen\nfind pleasure in inflicting pain with the inhuman gun and rod, these\nlines written a hundred years ago, on seeing a wounded hare limp by,\nshould place Burns amongst the blessed of the earth:\n\n        Inhuman man! curse on thy barb\u2019rous art,\n        And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;\n        May never pity sooth thee with a sight,\n        Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!\n\n           *     *     *     *     *     *\n\n        Oft, as by winding Nith I musing wait.\n        The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,\n        I\u2019ll miss thee sporting o\u2019er the dewy lawn,\n        And curse the ruffian\u2019s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.\n\nThis was Robert Burns,\u2014and yet Dumfries, which held this gentle soul\nwithin its walls, and the Protestant world of a hundred years ago,\nlooked at John Calvin piling the faggots around Servetus\u2019 form, and\nknelt before him as a patron, religious saint, while they cast into\nouter darkness poor Robert Burns with his heart bowed down at the\nsuffering of a wounded hare.\n\nWill the world ever learn what true religion is? Will it ever learn that\nmercy and pity and charity are more in the sight of the Infinite than\nall the creeds and dogmas of the earth? Will it ever learn to believe\nthis beautiful verse of Robert Burns:\n\n                 But deep this truth impressed my mind,\n                   Through all his works abroad;\n                 The heart benevolent and kind,\n                   The most resembles God.\n\nWill the world ever learn when it prays to pray with Robert Burns, as\nman has seldom spoken to the Infinite, in whose unknown hands, we are as\nbubbles on the sea; to the great power, which sends us forth into the\ndarkness to stagger through a tangled maze for a little time and then\ncalls us back to sleep within its all-embracing heart.\n\n                 O thou, unknown, Almighty Cause\n                   Of all my hope and fear!\n                 In whose dread presence, ere an hour,\n                   Perhaps I must appear!\n\n                 If I have wandered in those paths\n                   Of life I ought to shun;\u2014\n                 As something loudly in my breast\n                   Remonstrates I have done;\u2014\n\n                 Thou know\u2019st that Thou hast formed me\n                   With passion wild and strong;\n                 And list\u2019ning to their witching voice\n                   Has often led me wrong.\n\n                 Where human weakness has come short,\n                   Or frailty step aside,\n                 Do thou, All Good?\u2014for such thou art\n                   In shades of darkness hide.\n\n                 Where with intention I have err\u2019d,\n                   No other plea I have\n                 But, Thou art good! and goodness still\n                   Delighteth to forgive!\n\nDear Robert Burns, to place one flower upon your grave, or add one\ngarland to your fame is a privilege indeed. A noble man you were,\nknighted not by King or Queen, but titled by the Infinite Maker of us\nall. You loved the world; you loved all life; you were gentle, kind and\ntrue. Your works, your words, your deeds, will live and shine to teach\nthe brotherhood of man, the kinship of all breathing things, and make\nthe world a brighter, gentler, kindlier place because you lived and\nloved and sung.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                            REALISM\n                            IN \u00b7 LITERATURE\n                            AND \u00b7 ART\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                     REALISM IN LITERATURE AND ART\n\n\nMan is nature\u2019s last and most perfect work, but, however high his\ndevelopment or great his achievements, he is yet a child of the earth\nand the rude forces that have formed all the life that exists thereon.\nHe cannot separate himself from the environment that gave him birth, and\na thousand ties of nature bind him back to the long forgotten past and\nprove his kinship to all the lower forms of life that have sprung from\nthat great universal mother, Earth.\n\nAs there is a common law of being, which controls all living things,\nfrom the aimless motions of the mollusk in the sea to the most perfect\nconduct of the best developed man, so all the activities of human life,\nfrom the movements of the savage digging roots, to the work of the\ngreatest artist with his brush, are controlled by universal law, and are\ngood or bad, perfect or imperfect, as they conform to the highest\ncondition nature has imposed.\n\nThe early savage dwelt in caves and cliffs and spent his life in seeking\nfood and providing a rude shelter from the cold. He looked upon the\nearth, the sun, the sea, the sky, the mountain peak, the forest and the\nplain, and all he saw and heard formed an impression on his brain and\naided in his growth. Like a child he marveled at the storm and flood; he\nstood in awe as he looked upon disease and death; and to explain the\nthings he could not understand, he peopled earth and air and sea with\ngods and demons, and a thousand other weird creations of his brain. All\nthese mysterious creatures were made in the image of the natural objects\nthat came within his view. The gods were men grown large and endowed\nwith marvelous powers, while tree and bird and beast alike were used as\nmodels for a being greater far than any nature ever formed.\n\nAn angry god it was that made the rivers overrun their banks and leave\ndestruction in their path; an offended god it was that hurled his\nthunderbolts upon a wicked world, or sent disease and famine to the\nsinning children of the earth: and to coax these rulers to be merciful\nto man, the weak and trembling children of the ancient world turned\ntheir minds to sacrifice and prayer. And the first clouded thoughts of\nthese rude men that were transcribed on monument and stone, or carved in\nwood, or painted with the colors borrowed from the sun and earth and\nsky; in short, the first rude art was born to sing the praise, and tell\nthe fame, and paint the greatness of the gods. But all of this was\nnatural to the time and place; the graven images, the chiseled\nhieroglyphics, and all this rude beginning of literature and art were\nformed upon what men saw and heard and felt, enlarged and magnified to\nfit the stature of the gods.\n\nAs the world grew older art was used to celebrate the greatness and\nachievements of kings and rulers as well as gods, and their tombs were\nornamented with such decorations as these early ages could create; and\nyet all literature and art were only for the gods and the rulers of the\nworld. Then, even more than now, wealth and power brought intellect to\ndo its will, and all its force was spent to sing the praises of the\nrulers of the earth and air. The basis of all this art of pen and brush\nwas the reality of the world, but this was so magnified and distorted\nfor the base use of kings and priests that realism, in the true sense,\ncould not exist. It would not do to paint a picture of a king resembling\na man of flesh and blood, and of course a god must be far greater than a\nking. It would not do to write a tale in which kings and princes, lords\nand ladies, should act like men and women, else what difference between\nthe ruler and the ruled? The marvelous powers that romance and myth had\ngiven to gods and angels were transferred to those of royal blood. The\nwonderful achievements of these kings and princes could be equaled only\nby the gods, and the poor dependents of the world, who lived for the\nglory of the great, were fed with legends and with tales that sung the\npraises of the strong.\n\nLiterature, sculpture, painting, music, and architecture, indeed all\nforms of art, were the exclusive property of the great, and the artist\nthen, like most of those to-day, was retained to serve the strong and\nmaintain the status of the weak. No one dreamed that there was any\nbeauty in a common human life or any romance in a fact. The greatest of\nthe earth had not yet learned to know that every life is a mystery and\nevery death a tragedy; that the spark of the infinite, which alone\ntransforms clay to life, animates alike the breast of the peasant and\nthe soul of the prince. The world had not yet learned that the ant-hill\nis as great as Mont Blanc, and the blade of grass as mysterious as the\noak. It is only now that the world is growing so delicate and refined\nthat it can see the beauty of a fact; that it is developing a taste so\nrare as to distinguish between the false and true; that it can be moved\nby the gentle breeze as well as by the winter\u2019s gale; that it can see\ngreater beauty in a statement true to life, than in the inflated tales,\nwhich children read.\n\nMost of the art and literature the world has known has been untrue. The\npictures of the past have been painted from the distorted minds of\nvisionists, and the pliant brains of tools. They have represented\nimpossible gods and unthinkable saints; angels and cherubs and demons;\neverything but men and women. Saints may be all right in their place,\nbut a saint with a halo around his head was born of myth and not of art.\nAngels may be well enough, but all rational men prefer an angel with\narms to an angel with wings. When these artists were not drawing saints\nand madonnas, they were spending their time in painting kings and royal\nknaves; and the pictures of the rulers were as unlike the men and women\nthat they were said to represent as the servile spirit of the painter\nwas unlike that of the true artist of to-day. Of course an artist would\nnot paint the poor; they had no clothes that would adorn a work of art,\nand no money nor favors that could remunerate the toil. An ancient\nartist could no more afford to serve the poor than a modern lawyer could\ndefend the weak.\n\nAfter literature had so far advanced as to concern other beings than\ngods and kings, the authors of these ancient days told of wondrous\ncharacters endowed with marvelous powers; knights with giant strength\nand magic swords; princes with wondrous palaces and heaps of gold;\ntravelers that met marvelous beasts and slew them in extraordinary ways;\ngiants with forms like mountains, and strength like oxen, who could\nvanquish all but little dwarfs. Railroads were not invented in those\nearly days, but travel was facilitated by the use of seven league boots.\nBalloons and telescopes were not yet known, but this did not keep\nfavored heroes from peering at the stars or looking down from on high\nupon the earth; they had but to plant a magic bean before they went to\nbed at night, and in the morning it had grown so tall that it reached up\nto the sky; and the hero, although not skilled in climbing, needed\nsimply to grasp the stalk and say, \u201cHitchety, hatchety, up I go.\nHitchety, hatchety, up I go,\u201d and by this means soon vanish in the\nclouds. Tales of this sort used once to delight the world, and the\nreaders half believed them true. We give them to children now, and the\nbest of these view them with a half contempt.\n\nThe modern man does not enjoy these myths. He relishes a lie, but it\nmust not be too big; it must be so small that, although he knows in his\ninmost soul that it is not true, he can yet half make himself believe it\nis not false. Most of us have cherished a pleasing, waking dream, and\nhave fondly clung to the sweet delusion while we really knew it was not\nlife. The modern literary stomach is becoming so healthy that it wants a\nstory at least half true; should the falsehood be too strong, it acts as\nan emetic instead of food. These old fairy tales have lost their power\nto charm, as the stories of the gods and kings went down before. They\nhave lost their charm, for as we read them now, they wake no answering\nchord born of the experiences that make up what we know of human life.\n\nWhen the beauty of realism shall be truly known, we shall read the book,\nor look upon the work of art, and in the light of all we know of life,\nshall ask our beings whether the picture that the author or the painter\ncreates for us is like the image that is born of the consciousness that\nmoves our soul, and the experiences that have made us know.\n\nRealism worships at the shrine of nature; it does not say that there may\nnot be a sphere in which beings higher than man can live, or that some\ntime an eye may not rest upon a fairer sunset than was ever born behind\nthe clouds and sea, but it knows that through countless ages nature has\nslowly fitted the brain and eye of man to the earth on which we live and\nthe objects that we see: and the perfect earthly eye must harmonize with\nthe perfect earthly scene.\n\nTo say that realism is coarse and vulgar is to declare against nature\nand her works, and to assert that the man she made may dream of things\nhigher and grander than nature could unfold. The eye of the great\nsculptor reveals to him the lines that make the most perfect human form,\nand he chisels out the marble block until it resembles this image so\ncompletely that it almost seems to live. Nature, through ages of\nexperiment and development, has made this almost faultless form. It is\nperfect because every part is best fitted for the separate work it has\nto do. The artist knows that he could not improve a single organ if he\nwould, for all the rest of nature must be adjusted to the change. He has\nthe skill to reproduce this shape in lasting stone, and the human brain\ncould not conceive a form more beautiful and fair. Here is a perfect\nimage of the highest work that countless centuries of nature\u2019s toil has\nmade, and yet some would seek to beautify and sanctify this work by\ndressing it in the garb that shifting fashion and changing fancy makes\nfor man.\n\nOnly the vulgar superstition of the past ever suggested that the\nreproduction of human forms in stone was an unholy work. Through long\ndark centuries religion taught that the flesh was vile and bad, and that\nthe soul of man was imprisoned in a charnel house, unfit for human\nsight. The early Christians wounded, bruised, and maimed their house of\nclay; they covered it with skins, which under no circumstances could be\nremoved, and many ancient saints lived and died without ever having\nlooked upon the bodies nature gave. The images of saints and martyrs,\nwhich in the name of religion were scattered through Europe, were\ncovered with paint and clothes, and were nearly as hideous as the monks\nthat placed them there. When the condition of Europe and its religious\nthought are clearly understood, it is not difficult to imagine the\nreception that greeted the first dawn of modern realistic art. Sculpture\nand painting deified the material. They told of beauty in the human form\nwhich hundreds of years of religious fanaticism had taught was bad and\nvile. If the flesh was beautiful, what of the monks and priests, who had\nhidden it from sight, who had kept it covered night and day through all\ntheir foolish lives, who maimed and bruised, cut and lacerated, for the\nglory of the spirit, which they thought was chained within. The church\nhad taught that the death of the flesh was the birth of the soul, and\nthey therefore believed that the artist\u2019s resurrection of the flesh was\nthe death of the soul.\n\nThis old religious prejudice, born of a misty, superstitious past, has\nslowly faded from the minds of men, but we find its traces even yet. The\norigin of the feeling against realistic art has well nigh been forgot,\nbut much of the feeling still remains. No one would now pretend to say\nthat all the body was unholy or unfit for sight, and yet years of custom\nand inherited belief have made us think that a part is good and the rest\nis bad: that nature, in her work of building up the human form, has made\none part sacred and another vile. It is easy to mistake custom for\nnature, and inherited prejudice for morality. There is scarcely a single\nportion of the human body but that some people have thought it holy, and\nscarcely a single portion but that some have believed it vile. It was\nnot shame that made clothing, but clothing that made shame. If we would\neradicate from our beliefs all that inheritance and environment have\ngiven, it would be hard for us to guess how much should still remain.\nCustom has made most things good and most things bad, according to the\nwhim of time and place. To find solid ground we must turn to nature and\nask her what it is that conduces to the highest happiness and the\nlongest life.\n\nThe realistic artist cannot accept the popular belief, whatever that may\nbe, as to just where the dead line on the human body should be drawn\nthat separates the sacred and profane. There are realists that look at\nall the beauty and loveliness of the world, and all its maladjustments\ntoo, and do not seek to answer the old, old question whether back of\nthis is any all-controlling and designing power; they do not answer, for\nthey cannot know; but they strive to touch the subtle chord that makes\ntheir individual lives vibrate in harmony with the great heart of that\nnature, which they love; and they cannot think but that all parts of\nlife are good, and that while men may differ, nature must know best.\n\nOther realists there are that believe they see in nature the work of a\ndivine maker, who created man in his own image as the last and highest\ntriumph of his skill; that the minutest portion of the universe exists\nbecause he wished it thus. To the realist that accepts this\nall-controlling power, any imputation against a portion of his master\u2019s\nwork must reach back to the author that designed it all.\n\nWe need not say that the human body might not be better than it is; we\nneed only know that it is the best that man can have, and that its\nwondrous mechanism has been constructed with infinitely more than human\nskill; that every portion is adapted for its work, and through the\nharmony of every part the highest good is reached; and that all is\nbeautiful, for it makes the being best adapted to the earth. Those who\ndenounce realistic art deny that knowledge is power and that wisdom only\ncan make harmony, and they insist instead that there are some things\nvital to life and happiness that we should not know, but that if we must\nknow these things, we should at all events pretend that we do not. One\nday the world will learn that all things are good or bad according to\nthe service they perform. One day it ought to learn that the power to\ncreate immortality, through infinite succeeding links of human life, is\nthe finest and most terrible that nature ever gave to man, and that to\nignore this power or call it bad, or fail to realize the great\nresponsibility of this tremendous fact, is to cry out against the power\nthat gave us life, and commit the greatest human sin, for it may be one\nthat never dies.\n\nThe true artist does not find all beauty in the human face or form. He\nlooks upon the sunset, painting all the clouds with rosy hue, and his\nhighest wish is to create another scene like this. He never dreams that\nhe could paint a sunset fairer than the one which lights the fading\nworld. A fairer sunset would be something else. He sees beauty in the\nquiet lake, the grassy field, and running brook; he sees majesty in the\ncataract and mountain peak. He knows that he can paint no streams and\nmountain peaks more perfect than the ones that nature made.\n\nThe growth of letters has been like the growth of art from the marvelous\nand mythical to the natural and true. The tales and legends of the\nancient past were not of common men and common scenes. These could not\nimpress the undeveloped intellect of long ago. A man of letters could\nnot deify a serf, or tell the simple story of the poor. He must write to\nmaintain the status of the world, and please the prince that gave him\nfood; so he told of kings and queens, of knights and ladies, of strife\nand conquest; and the coloring he used was human blood.\n\nThe world has grown accustomed to those ancient tales, to scenes of\nblood and war, and novels that would thrill the soul and cause the hair\nto stand on end. It has read these tales so long that the true seems\ncommonplace, and unfit to fill the pages of a book. But all the time we\nforget the fact that the story could not charm unless we half believed\nit true. The men and women in the tale we learn to love and hate; we\ntake an interest in their lives; we hope they may succeed or fail; we\nmust not be told at every page that the people of the book are men of\nstraw, that no such beings ever lived upon the earth. We could take no\ninterest in men and women that are myths conjured up to play their\nparts, and remind us in every word they speak that, regardless of the\nhappiness or anguish the author makes them feel, they are but myths and\ncan know neither joy nor pain.\n\nIt may be that the realistic tale is commonplace, but so is life, and\nthe realistic tale is true. Among the countless millions of the earth it\nis only here and there, and now and then, that some soul is born from\nout the mighty deep that does not soon return to the great sea and leave\nno ripple on the waves.\n\nIn the play of life each actor seems important to himself; the world he\nknows revolves around him as the central figure of the scene; his\nfriends rejoice in all the fortune he attains and weep with him in all\nhis grief. To him the world is bounded by the faces that he knows, and\nthe scenes in which he lives. He forgets the great surging world\noutside, and cannot think how small a space he fills in that infinity\nwhich bounds his life. He dies, and a few sorrowing friends mourn him\nfor a day, and the world does not know he ever lived or ever died. In\nthe ordinary life nearly all events are commonplace; but a few important\ndays are thinly sprinkled in amongst all of those that intervene between\nthe cradle and the grave. We eat and drink, we work and sleep, and here\nand there a great joy or sorrow creeps in upon our lives, and leaves a\nday that stands out against the monotony of all the rest, like the\npyramids upon the level plains; but these events are very few and are\nimportant only to ourselves, and for the rest we walk with steady pace\nand slow along the short and narrow path of life, and rely upon the\ncommon things alone to occupy our minds and hide from view the marble\nstone that here and there gleams through the over-hanging trees just\nwhere the road leaves off.\n\nThe old novel which we used to read and to which the world so fondly\nclings, had no idea of relation or perspective. It had a hero and a\nheroine, and sometimes more than one. The revolutions of the planets\nwere less important than their love. War, shipwreck, and conflagration,\nall conspired to produce the climax of the scene, and the whole world\nstood still until the lovers\u2019 hearts and hands were joined. Wide oceans,\nburning deserts, arctic seas, impassable jungles, irate fathers, and\neven designing mothers, were helpless against the decree that fate had\nmade, and when all the barriers were passed and love had triumphed over\nimpossibilities, the tale was done; through the rest of life nothing of\ninterest could occur. Sometimes in the progress of the story, if the\ncomplications were too great, a thunderbolt or an earthquake was\nintroduced to destroy the villain and help on the match. Earthquakes\nsometimes happen, and the realistic novelist might write a tale of a\nscene like this, but then the love affair would be an incident of the\nearthquake, and not the earthquake an incident of the love affair.\n\nIn real life the affections have played an important part and sometimes\ngreat things have been done and suffered in the name of love, but most\nof the affairs of the human heart have been as natural as the other\nevents of life.\n\nThe true love story is generally a simple thing. \u201cBeside a country road,\non a sloping hill, lives a farmer, in the house his father owned before.\nHe has a daughter, who skims the milk, and makes the beds, and goes to\nsinging school at night. There are other members of the household, but\nour tale is no concern of theirs. In the meadow back of the house a\nwoodchuck has dug its hole, and reared a family in its humble home.\nAcross the valley only a mile away, another farmer lives. He has a son,\nwho plows the fields and does the chores and goes to singing school at\nnight. He cannot sing, but attends the school as regularly as if he\ncould. Of course he does not let the girl go home alone, and in the\nspring, when singing school is out, he visits her on Sunday eve without\nexcuse. If the girl had not lived so near, the boy would have fancied\nanother girl about the same age, who also went to singing school. Back\nof the second farmer\u2019s house is another woodchuck hole and woodchuck\nhome. After a year or two of courtship the boy and girl are married as\ntheir parents were before, and they choose a pretty spot beside the\nroad, and build another house near by, and settle down to common life:\nand so the world moves on. And a woodchuck on one farm meets a woodchuck\non the other, and they choose a quiet place beside a stump, in no one\u2019s\nway, where they think they have a right to be, and dig another hole and\nmake another home.\u201d For after all, men and animals are much alike, and\nnature loves them both and loves them all, and sends them forth to drive\nthe loneliness from off the earth, and then takes them back into her\nloving breast to sleep.\n\nIt may be that there are few great incidents in the realistic take, but\neach event appeals to life and cannot fail to wake our memories and make\nus live the past again. The great authors of the natural school\u2014Tolstoi,\nHardy, Howells, Daudet, Ibsen, Flaubert, Zola and their kind, have made\nus think and live. Their words have burnished up our minds and revealed\na thousand pictures that hang upon the walls of memory, covered with the\ndust of years, and hidden from our sight. Sometimes of course we cry\nwith pain at the picture that is thrown before our view, but life\nconsists of emotions, and we cannot truly live unless the depths are\nstirred. These great masters, it is true, may sometimes shock the\nover-sensitive with the tales they tell of life, but if the tale is\ntrue, why hide it from our sight?\n\nThere is nothing more common than the protest against the wicked stories\nof the realistic school, filled with tales of passion and of sin; but he\nthat denies passion denies all the life that exists upon the earth, and\ncries out against the mother that gave him birth. And he that ignores\nthis truth passes with contempt the greatest fact that nature has\nimpressed upon the world. Those who condemn as sensual the tales of\nTolstoi and Daudet still defend the love stories of which our literature\nis full. Those weak and silly tales that make women fit only to be the\nplaythings of the world, and deny to them a single thought or right\nexcept to serve their master, man. These objectors do not contend that\ntales dealing with the feelings and affections shall not be told, they\napprove these tales; they simply insist that they shall be false instead\nof true. The old novel filled the mind of the school girl with a\nthousand thoughts that had no place in life\u2014with ten thousand pictures\nshe could never see. It taught that some time she should meet a prince\nin disguise to whom she would freely give her hand and heart. So she\nwent out upon the road to find this prince, and the more disguised he\nwas, the more certain did she feel that he was the prince for whom she\nsought. The realist paints the passions and affections as they are. Both\nman and woman can see their beauty and their terror, their true\nposition, and the relation that they bear to all the rest of life. He\nwould not beguile the girl into the belief that her identity should be\ndestroyed and merged for the sake of this feeling, which not once in ten\nthousand times could realize the promises the novel made; but he would\nleave her as an individual to make the most she can, and all she can, of\nlife, with all the hope and chance of conquest, which men have taken for\nthemselves. Neither would the realist cry out blindly against these deep\npassions, which have moved men and women in the past, and which must\ncontinue fierce and strong as long as life exists. He is taught by the\nscientist that the fiercest heat may be transformed to light, and is\ntaught by life that from the strongest passions are sometimes born the\nsweetest and the purest souls.\n\nIn these days of creeds and theories, of preachers in the pulpit and of\npreachers out, we are told that all novels should have a moral and be\nwritten to serve some end. So we have novels on religion, war, marriage,\ndivorce, socialism, theosophy, woman\u2019s rights, and other topics without\nend. It is not enough that the preachers and lecturers shall tell us how\nto think and act; the novelist must try his hand at preaching too. He\nstarts out with a theory, and every scene and incident must be bent to\nmake it plain that the author believes certain things. The doings of the\nmen and women in the book are secondary to the views the author holds.\nThe theories may be true, but the poor characters that must adjust their\nlives to these ideal states are sadly warped and twisted out of shape.\nThe realist would teach a lesson, too, but he would not violate a single\nfact for all the theories in the world\u2014for a theory could not be true if\nit did violence to life. He paints his picture so true and perfect that\nall men who look upon it know it is a likeness of the world that they\nhave seen; they know that these are men and women and little children\nthat they meet upon the streets; they see the conditions of their lives,\nand the moral of the picture sinks deep into their minds.\n\nThere are so-called scientists that make a theory and then gather facts\nto prove their theory true; the real scientist patiently and impartially\ngathers facts, and then forms a theory to explain and harmonize these\nfacts. All life bears a moral, and the true artist must teach a lesson\nwith his every fact. Some contend that the moral teacher must not tell\nthe truth; the realist holds that there can be no moral teaching like\nthe truth. The world has grown tired of preachers and sermons; to-day it\nasks for facts. It has grown tired of fairies and angels, and asks for\nflesh and blood. It looks on life as it exists, both its beauty and its\nhorror, its joy and its sorrow; it wishes to see it all; not the prince\nand the millionaire alone, but the laborer and the beggar, the master\nand the slave. We see the beautiful and the ugly, and with it know what\nthe world is and what it ought to be; and the true picture, which the\nauthor saw and painted, stirs the heart to holier feelings and to\ngrander thoughts.\n\nIt is from the realities of life that the highest idealities are born.\nThe philosopher may reason with unerring logic, and show us where the\nworld is wrong. The economist may tell us of the progress and poverty\nthat go hand in hand; but these are theories, and the abstract cannot\nsuffer pain. Dickens went out into the streets of the great city and\nfound poor little Jo sweeping the crossing with his broom. All around\nwas the luxury and the elegance, which the rich have ever appropriated\nto themselves; great mansions, fine carriages, beautiful dresses, but in\nall the great city of houses and homes, poor little Jo could find no\nplace to lay his head. His home was in the street, and every time he\nhalted for a moment in the throng, the policeman touched him with his\nclub and bade him \u201cmove on.\u201d At last, ragged, wretched, almost dead with\n\u201cmoving on,\u201d he sank down upon the cold stone steps of a magnificent\nbuilding erected for \u201cThe Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.\u201d\nAs we think of wretched, ragged Jo in the midst of all this luxury and\nwealth, we see the tens of thousands of other waifs in the great cities\nof the world, and we condemn the so-called civilization of the earth\nthat builds the mansions of the rich and great upon the rags and\nmiseries of the poor.\n\nThe true realist cannot worship at the shrine of power, nor prostitute\nhis gifts for gold. With an artist\u2019s eye he sees the world exactly as it\nis, and tells the story faithful unto life. He feels for every heart\nthat beats, else he could not paint them as he does. It takes the soul\nto warm a statue into life and make living flesh and coursing blood, and\neach true picture that he paints or draws makes the world a better place\nin which to live.\n\nThe artists of the realistic school have a sense so fine that they\ncannot help but catch the inspiration that is filling all the world\u2019s\nbest minds with the hope of greater justice and more equal social life.\nWith the vision of the seer they feel the coming dawn when true equality\nshall reign upon the earth; the time when democracy shall no more be\nconfined to constitutions and to laws, but will be a part of human life.\nThe greatest artists of the world to-day are telling facts and painting\nscenes that cause humanity to stop, and think, and ask why one should be\na master and another be a serf; why a portion of the world should toil\nand spin, should wear away its strength and life, that the rest should\nlive in idleness and ease.\n\nThe old-time artists thought they served humanity by painting saints and\nmadonnas and angels from the myths they conjured in their brains. They\npainted war with long lines of soldiers dressed in uniforms, and looking\nplump and gay; and a battle scene was always drawn from the side of the\nvictorious camp, with the ensign proudly planting his bright colors on\nthe rampart of the foe. One or two were dying, but always in their\ncomrades\u2019 arms, and listening to shouts of victory that filled the air,\nand thinking of the righteous cause for which they fought and died. In\nthe last moments they dreamed of pleasant burial yards at home, and of\ngraves kept green by loving, grateful friends; and a smile of joy shone\non their wasted faces that was so sweet, that it seemed a hardship not\nto die in war. They painted peace as a white winged dove settling down\nupon a cold and fading earth. Between the two it was plain which choice\na boy would make, and thus art served the state and king.\n\nBut Verestchagin painted war; he painted war so true to life that as we\nlook upon the scene, we long for peace. He painted war as war has ever\nbeen, and as war will ever be\u2014a horrible and ghastly scene, where men,\ndrunk with blind frenzy which rulers say is patriotic pride, and made\nmad by drums and fifes and smoke and shot and shell and flowing blood,\nseek to maim and wound and kill, because a ruler gives the word. He\npaints a battle field, a field of life and death; a field of carnage and\nof blood; and who are these that fight like fiends and devils driven to\ndespair? What cause is this that makes these men forget that they are\nmen, and vie with beasts to show their cruel thirst for blood? They\nshout of home and native land, but they have no homes, and the owners of\ntheir native land exist upon their toil and blood. The nobles and\nprinces, for whom this fight is waged, are far away upon a hill, beyond\nthe reach of shot and shell, and from this spot they watch their slaves\npour out their blood to satisfy their rulers\u2019 pride and lust of power.\nWhat is the enemy they fight? Men like themselves; who blindly go to\ndeath at another king\u2019s command, slaves, who have no land, who freely\ngive their toil or blood, whichever one their rulers may demand. These\nfighting soldiers have no cause for strife, but their rulers live by\nkindling in their hearts a love of native land, a love that makes them\nhate their brother laborers of other lands, and dumbly march to death to\nsatisfy a king\u2019s caprice. But let us look once more after the battle has\nbeen fought. Here we see the wreck and ruin of the strife; the field is\nsilent now, given to the dead, the beast of prey and night. A young\nsoldier lies upon the ground; the snow is falling fast around his form;\nthe lonely mountain peaks rise up on every side; the wreck of war is all\nabout. His uniform is soiled and stained, a spot of red is seen upon his\nbreast. It is not the color that his country wove upon his coat to catch\nhis eye and bait him to his death; it is hard and jagged and cold. It is\nhis life\u2019s blood, which leaked out through a hole that followed the\npoint of a sabre to his heart. His form is stiff and cold, for he is\ndead. The cruel wound and icy air have done their work. The government\nthat took his life taught this poor boy to love his native land; as a\nchild he dreamed of scenes of glory and of power, and the great wide\nworld just waiting to fall captive to his magic strength. He dreamed of\nwar and strife, of victory and fame; if he should die, kind hands would\nsmooth his brow, and loving friends would keep his grave and memory\ngreen, because he died in war. But no human eye is there at last, as the\nmist of night and mist of death shut out the lonely mountains from his\nsight. The snow is all around, and the air above is grey with falling\nflakes, which soon will hide him from the world; and when the summer\ntime shall come again, no one can tell his bleaching bones from all the\nrest. The only life upon the scene is the buzzard slowly circling in the\nair above his head, waiting to make sure that death has come. The bird\nlooks down upon the boy, into the eyes through which he first looked out\nupon the great, wide world, and which his mother fondly kissed; upon\nthese eyes the buzzard will commence his meal.\n\nNot all the world is beautiful, and not all of life is good. The true\nartist has no right to choose the lovely spots alone and make us think\nthat this is life. He must bring the world before our eyes and make us\nread and learn. As he loves the true and noble, he must show the false\nand bad. As he yearns for true equality, he must paint the master and\nthe slave. He must tell the truth, and tell it all, must tell it o\u2019er\nand o\u2019er again, till the deafest ear will listen and the dullest mind\nwill think. He must not swerve to please the world by painting only\npleasant sights and telling only lovely tales. He must think, and paint,\nand write, and work, until the world shall learn so much and grow so\ngood, that the true will all be beautiful and all the real be ideal.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                           THE \u00b7 SKELETON\n                           IN \u00b7 THE \u00b7 CLOSET\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                       THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET\n\n\nThe closet has so long been allotted to the skeleton that we have come\nto regard this room as its fit and natural home; it has been given over\nto this guest because it is the darkest, the closest and least\nconspicuous in the house. The door can be securely fastened and only now\nand then can the grating bones be heard by the world outside. Still,\nhowever secluded and unused this guest chamber seems to be, and however\ncarefully we bolt the door and darken every chink and crevice in the\nwalls, we are ever conscious that the occupant is there, and will remain\nuntil the house is closed, and the last tenant has departed, never to\nreturn. The very fact that we try so hard to keep the skeleton in its\nproper room, makes it the more impossible to forget that it is there.\nNow and then we awake with a start at the thought of what might happen\nshould it break the door and wander through the house, and then stray\nout into the wide world, and tell all the peaceful, trusting neighbors\nfrom what house it stole away; and yet we are somehow conscious that the\nrumor of its dread presence has already traveled as far as we are known.\nMan is a wonderfully adaptable animal; he fits himself easily into the\nenvironment where he is placed. He passes from infancy to childhood and\nfrom childhood to boyhood as smoothly as the placid river flows to the\nwaiting sea. Every circumstance and surrounding of his life seems to\nhave been made for him. Suddenly a new desire takes possession of his\nsoul; he turns his back on the home of his childhood days and goes out\nalone. In a little time a new family is reared about him, and he forgets\nthe group that clustered round his father\u2019s hearth. He may lose a leg or\na fortune, and he soon conforms to his changed condition and life goes\non as naturally and as easily as before. A child is born beneath his\nroof; it takes a place within his heart and home, and in a little while\nhe can scarcely think of the day it was not there. Death comes, and a\nmember of his little band is carried out, but time drops its healing\nbalm upon the wounds and life goes on almost unconscious that the dead\nhas ever lived. But while we adjust ourselves naturally to all things\nliving and to ever varying scenes, the skeleton in the closet is always\nan intruder, no matter how long it may have dwelt beneath the roof. Even\nthough we may forget its actual presence for a little time, still no\nscene is so perfect and no enjoyment so great but we feel a cloud\ncasting its shadow across our happiness or the weight of some burden on\nour soul; and when we stop to ask the cause, the grinning skeleton\nreminds us that it is with us even here.\n\nThis specter stands quite apart from the other sorrows of our life; age\nseems powerless to forget, and time will not bring its ever-fresh,\nrecurring scenes to erase the memory of the past. This is not because\nthe skeleton is really such a dreadful guest. The kind and loving ivy\ncreeps tenderly around each yawning scar and crumbling stone, until the\nwhole ruin is covered with a lovely green. The decaying pile stands free\nand open to the sun and rain and air. It does not hide its head or\napologize for the blemishes and seams that mark its face, and a kind,\nforgiving nature takes the ruin, scars and all, and blends these with\nher softening years and lovely face into a beautiful harmonious whole;\nbut unlike the ruin, the skeleton in the closet is a neglected, outcast\nchild. With every breath we insist that there is nothing in the room. We\nrefuse to take it to our hearts and homes and acknowledge it as our own.\nWe seek to strangle it to death, and each fresh attempt not only shows\nour murderous design, but proves that the skeleton is not a pulseless\nthing but is endowed with immortal life. The brighter the fire-light\nthat glows around our hearth, the more desolate and drear sounds the\nwail of the wind outside, for through its cold blasts wanders the\noutcast, whose rightful place is in the brightest corner of the room.\n\nOur constant annoyance and sorrow at this dread presence is not caused\nby the way the skeleton behaves to us, but from the way we treat our\nguest. If we looked it squarely in its grinning skull, it might not seem\nso very loathsome to the sight. It has the right to grin. It may be but\na grim smile over the consciousness that it has sounded the last sorrow\nand that henceforth no greater evils are in store; it may be a mocking,\nsardonic grin at the thought of our discomfiture over its unwelcome\npresence and the knowledge that we cannot drive it out.\n\nThere is no truer index to real character than the way we treat the\nskeletons with which we live. Some run to the closet door, and try to\nlock it fast when a neighbor comes their way. If perchance any fear of\ndiscovery is felt, they stand guard outside and solemnly protest that\nthere is nothing in the room. Their anxiety and haste plainly show fear\nlest their hated guest shall reveal its face; and of course there rises\nin the neighbor\u2019s mind a vision of a skeleton more horrible by far than\nthe one inside the door or than anyone can be. If the luckless jailer\nreally fears that the rattle of the prisoner\u2019s bones has been heard\noutside, he feels it his duty to carefully explain or tediously cover up\nevery detail and circumstance that caused the presence of the specter in\nthe house. All this can only show that the guest is terrible to behold\nor that the jailer is so poor and weak that he himself is a helpless\nprisoner to his foolish pride and unmanly fear. It can only serve to\nemphasize the presence he tries so vainly to deny. There are also those\nwho know that their skeleton has been seen, or who having lost all else\nbut this persistent, grinning guest, drag it out and parade it in the\nworld to gain the sympathy or the money of their neighbors and their\nfriends, like the crippled beggar standing on the corner holding out his\nhat to every passer-by. The true man neither guiltily conceals nor\nanxiously explains nor vulgarly parades. He lives his life the best he\ncan, and lets it stand for what it is. A thousand idle tales may be true\nor false. One may have seen but certain things, and placed him with the\nsaints. Another little soul, who never felt the breadth and depth of\nhuman life, may have seen his scars alone, and cast him out. But\nstanding by his side, or clasping his strong, sympathetic hand, no one\nthinks of halos or scars or asks an explanation of this or that, for in\nhis whole being is felt the divine presence of a great soul, who has\nlived and loved, sinned and suffered, and been strengthened and purified\nby all.\n\nThe skeleton is really kind that it only grins as we look it in the\nface. Of all our household it has received the hardest treatment at our\nhands. It has helped us more than any of the rest, and been locked in\nthe closet for its pains. It may perchance have come at our own\ninvitation, bringing us the keenest, wildest joy our life had ever\nknown. We gladly drained the pleasure to the dregs, and then coolly\nlocked the memory close in the darkest hole that we could find. The day\nit came, has well nigh faded from our minds, and the mad, wild joy we\nknew can never more be wakened from the burned-out passions of the past,\nbut the skeleton, which rose up grim and ghastly from the dying flame,\nremains to mock and jeer and make us sad. And now when the day is spent\nand the cup is drained, we charge the poor specter with our lasting\npain, and forget the joy it brought. We look with dread at these\nmocking, grinning bones, which we cannot drive away, and we forget the\ntime, long, long ago, when those dry sticks were covered up with\nbeautiful and tempting flesh.\n\nIt may be that we shall always shudder as we hear the rattle of the\nbones when we pass the closet door, but in justice to the inmate, we\nshould give him credit for the joys of long ago. And this brings us back\nto the old question of the balancing of pain and pleasure, good and\nevil, right and wrong. It may be that in the mysterious adjustment of\nnature\u2019s balances, a moment of supreme bliss will outweigh an eternity\nof pain. In the infinite economy, which life counted for the more,\u2014that\nof Napoleon, or the poor French peasant that passed through an obscure\nexistence to an unknown grave? The brief glory of Austerlitz was\nfollowed by the bitterness of Waterloo, and the long silence of an\nexile\u2019s life, while the peasant trod his short path without ambition,\nand filled a nameless grave without regret. Which is the greater and\nfiner, the blameless life of the patient brute, or the winding, devious\npath of a human soul? It is only the dull level that brings no sorrow or\nregret. It is a sterile soil where no weeds will grow, and a bare closet\nwhere no skeleton will dwell.\n\nNeither should we remember the skeleton only for the joy it brought;\nfrom the day it came, it has been the greatest benefactor that our life\nhas known. When the mad delirium had passed away, and the last lingering\nfragrance was almost spent, this despised skeleton remained as the sole\ncompanion, whose presence should forever bind us back to those feelings\nthat were fresh and true and straight from nature\u2019s heart, and that\nworld which once was green and young and filled with pulsing life. As\nthe shadows gather round our head, and our once-straying feet fall\nmechanically into the narrow path so straight and even at the farther\nend, we may shudder now and then at the thought of the grim skeleton\nwhose life is so far removed from our sober later selves; but with the\nshudder comes a spark, a flash of that great, natural light and heat\nthat once possessed this tottering frame, and gave a glow of feeling and\na strength of purpose so deep and all-controlling that the artificial\nlife of an artificial world seems no more than a dim candle shining by\nthe glorious sun.\n\nIt is the exhausted emotions of age, which men call prudence, that are\never warning youth of the follies of its sins. It is the grinning\nskeleton, speaking truly from the memory of other days, that insists\nthat life\u2019s morning held the halcyon hours. Does old age outlive the\nfollies of childhood or does the man outgrow the wisdom of youth? The\nmost vociferous preachers are often those whose natural spirits have led\nthem to drink the deepest of life. They are so foolish as to think that\nothers can be taught by their experiences, and mumbling grey-beards\nendorse the excellence and wisdom of the sermons that they preach. They\nare not wise enough to know that their prattle is more vain and foolish\nthan the babblings of their childhood days. It was the growing, vital\nsap of life that made them children years ago; it is the icy, palsying\ntouch of age that makes them babbling, preaching children once again. As\nwell might the calm and placid lake teach the beauty of repose to the\nboiling, seething cataract, that thunders down Niagara\u2019s gulf. When the\ntroubled waters shall have reached the lake they shall be placid too.\nNature is wiser far than man. She makes the first childhood precede the\nsecond. If the age of prudence came with youth, it would be a dull and\nprosy world for a little time; then life would be extinct upon the earth\nand death triumphant over all.\n\nBut these are the smallest reasons why we should venerate the neglected\nskeleton, which we have ruthlessly cast into the closet as if it were a\nhideous thing. This uncanny skeleton, ever thrusting its unwelcome bones\ninto our presence and our lives, has been the most patient, persistent,\nconstant teacher that all our years have known. We look backward through\nthe long dim vista of the past, back to the little trusting child that\nonce nestled on its mother\u2019s breast and from whose loving lips and\ngentle soul it first was told of life, its temptations and its sins;\nbackward to her, whose whole thought was a benediction to the life that\nwas once a portion of herself. We remember still this mother\u2019s words\nteaching us the way to live and telling us the way to die. We always\nknew that no selfish thought inspired a single word she said and yet\ntime and time again we strayed and wandered from the path she pointed\nout. We could not keep the road and after while we did not try. Again\nour teacher told us of the path. He, too, was good and kind and knew the\nway we ought to go, and showed us all the bad results of sin, and still\nwe stumbled on. The preacher came and told us of the beauteous heaven,\nstraight at the other end of the narrow path, and the yawning gulf of\nhell to which our shifting footsteps led; but we heeded not his solemn\ntones, though they seemed to come with the authority of God himself. As\nthe years went on, our mother\u2019s voice was stilled, the teacher\u2019s words\nwere hushed, the preacher\u2019s threats became an empty, hollow sound; and\nin their place came the grinning skeleton, born of our own desires and\ndeeds; less loving than the gentle mother, more real and life-like than\nthe teacher, saner and truer than the preacher\u2019s idle words. It was ever\npresent and persistent; it was a portion of our very selves.\n\nWe detested and feared the hated thing; we locked it in the closet, and\ndenied that it was there; but through the brightness of the day and the\nlong and silent watches of the night, we heard its rattling bones, and\nfelt its presence at our side. No teacher of our youth was like that\ngrim and ghastly skeleton, which we tried to hide away. The schoolmaster\nof our early life took our fresh, young, plastic minds and sought to\ncrowd them full of useless, unrelated facts that served no purpose\nthrough the years that were to come. These lessons that our teacher made\nus learn by rote filled so small a portion of our daily lives that most\nof them were forgotten when the school-house door was closed. When now\nand then we found some use for a trifling thing that we had learned\nthrough years at school, we were surprised to know that the pedagogue\nhad taught us even this. In those early days it seemed to us that life\nwould consist of one long examination in which we should be asked the\nnames of states, the rule of three, and the words the Romans used for\nthis and that. All that we were taught of the great world outside and\nthe problem that would one day try our souls, was learned from the copy\nbooks where we wrote the same old maxim until all the paper was used up.\nIn after years, we learned that, while the copy book might have taught\nus how to write in a stilted, unused hand, still all its maxims were\nuntrue.\n\nWe left the school as ignorant of life as we commenced, nay, we might\nmore easily have learned its lesson without the false, misleading\ntheories we were taught were true. When the doors were opened and the\nwide world met us face to face, we tested what we learned, and found it\nfalse, and then we blundered on alone. We were taught by life that the\nfire and vigor of our younger years could not be governed by the\nplatitudes of age. Nature was ever present with her strong and earthly\ngrasp, her keen desires, her white hot flame. We learned the precepts of\nthe books, but we lived the life that nature taught.\n\nOur pathetic blunders and mistakes, and the skeleton that followed in\ntheir wake, remained to teach us what was false and point to what was\ntrue. This grim, persistent teacher made but little of the unimportant\nfacts that the schoolmaster sought to make us learn, and it laughed to\nscorn the preacher\u2019s doctrine, that in some way we could avoid the\nresults of our mistakes and sins. It did not preach, it took its place\nbeside us as another self and by its presence sought to make us know\nthat we could not be at peace until we clasped it to our breast and\nfreely accepted the unwelcome thing as a portion of our lives.\n\nOnly the smallest fraction that we learned in youth was assimilated and\nmade a portion of ourselves; the rest faded so completely that it seemed\nnever to have been. The teacher soon became a dim, uncertain memory of\nthe past, whose voice had long since died away; but the skeleton in the\ncloset never wearied nor grew old. It ever made us learn again the\nlesson we would fain forget; opened at each succeeding period of our\nlives the pages we would gladly put away, until, at last, the ripening\ntouch of time and the specter\u2019s constant presence made us know. From the\nday it came beneath our roof, it remained the liveliest, wisest, most\npersistent member of the family group, the tireless, watchful teacher,\nwho would neither sleep nor allow its pupil to forget.\n\nIt may be that there are lives so barren and uneventful that this guest\npasses ever by their door, but unfortunate indeed is that abode where it\nwill not dwell. The wide vistas can be seen only from the mountain top,\nand the infinite depths of life can be sounded only by the soul that has\nbeen softened and hallowed by the sanctifying touch of misery and sin.\n\nLife is a never-ending school, and the really important lessons all tend\nto teach man his proper relation to the environment where he must live.\nWith wild ambitions and desires untamed, we are spawned out into a\nshoreless sea of moving molecules of life, each separate atom journeying\non an unknown course, regardless of the countless other lives it meets\nas it blindly rushes on; no lights nor headlands stand to point the\nproper way the voyager should take, he is left to sail an untried bark\nacross an angry sea. If no disaster should befall, it does not show that\nthe traveler is wise or good, but that his ambitions and desires are few\nor he has kept close inside the harbor line. At first we seek to swim\nthe flood, to scale the rocky heights, to clutch the twinkling stars. Of\ncourse we fail and fall, and the scars our passions and ambitions leave,\nremain, though all our particles are made anew year after year. We learn\nat last to leave the stars to shine where they belong, to take all\nthings as they are and adjust our lives to what must be.\n\nThe philosophy of life can come only from those experiences that leave\nlasting scars and results that will not die. Rather than seek to cover\nup these gaping wounds, we should accept with grace the tales they tell,\nand show them as trophies of the strife we have passed through. Those\nscars are honorable that have brought our lives into greater harmony\nwith the universal power. For resist it as we will, this infinite,\nloving presence will ever claim us as a portion of its self until our\nsmallest fragments return once more to earth, and are united with the\nelements from which we came.\n\nNo life can be rounded and complete without the education that the\nskeleton alone can give. Until it came we never knew the capacities of\nthe human soul. We had learned by rote to be forgiving, kind and true.\nBut the anguish of the human soul cannot be told\u2014it must be felt or\nnever known. That charity born of true comradeship, which is the highest\nand holiest sentiment of life, can be taught by the skeleton alone. The\nself-righteous, who prate of forgiveness to their fellow men and who\nlook down upon their sinning brothers from above, are hypocrites or\nfools. They either have not lived or else desire to pass for something\nthey are not. No one can understand the devious, miry paths trodden by\nanother soul unless he himself has wandered through the night.\n\nThose placid, human lives that have moved along a narrow, even path;\nthat learned by rote the lessons that the churches and the schools have\never taught; whose perfection consists in refraining from doing certain\nthings in certain ways; who never had a noble thought or felt a great\ndesire to help their fellow men\u2014those blameless, aimless, worthless\nsouls, are neither good nor bad. They neither feel nor think; no\nskeleton would deem it worth its while to come inside their door.\n\nThe world judges the conduct of youth by the standards of age. Even when\ndue allowance is made for the inexperience and haste of the young, it is\nassumed that youth and age are measured by the calendar alone. Few have\never been wise enough to know that every passion and circumstance must\nbe fully weighed, before an honest verdict can be written down; and that\ntherefore only the infinite can judge a human soul.\n\nThough accursed, doubted, and despised, Nature ever persists in her\nrelentless plan. She would make us learn the lessons that youth so\neasily forgets. She finds us headstrong, unreasoning, and moved by the\nsame feelings that sway the brute. She decrees that every act, however\nblind or wilful, must leave its consequences on our lives, and these\nimmortal consequences we treat as skeletons and lock them up. But these\nuncanny specters wrap us closely in their bony arms; they ever peer with\nsightless eyes into our soul; they are with us if we sleep or wake, and\ntheir persistent presence will not let us sleep. It is the hated,\nimprisoned skeleton that we vainly sought to hide away, that takes an\nuntamed, fiery soul within its cruel, loving clasp, and holds it closely\nin its unforgiving grasp until the vain longings and wild desires of\nyouth are subdued, and cooled, and the deeper harmonies of life are\nlearned. It is the hated skeleton that finds within our breast a heart\nof flint and takes this hard and pulseless thing and scars and twists\nand melts it in a thousand tortuous ways until the stony mass is purged\nand softened and is sensitive to every touch.\n\nIt is this same despised skeleton that finds us vain and boastful and\ncritical of others\u2019 sins, that watches every word we speak and even each\nunuttered thought; it is with us when we tightly draw our robes and pass\nour fellow on the other side; it hears us when we seek to show how good\nwe are by boasting of our neighbor\u2019s sins; for every spot of black or\nred that we see upon another\u2019s robes, it points its bony fingers to a\nscar upon our heart, to remind us that we are like the rest; and the\nsame finger ever points us to our wounds until we feel and understand\nthat the clay the Master used for us was as weak and poor as that from\nwhich he made the rest.\n\nHowever blind and stubborn we may be, however long we deny the lesson\nthat the skeleton would teach, still it will not let us go until with\nperfect peace and harmony we look at all the present and the past, at\nall that was, and all that is, and feel no regrets for what is gone, and\nno fears for what must come. It may be that our stubborn, stiffnecked\nsoul will still persist until the hair is white and the heavy shadows\nhang about our heads, but the skeleton with his soothing, softening\nally, time, sits with the last watchers at our suffering bed, and goes\nif need be, to the silent grave, where alike the darkest crimson spot\nand the softest, purest clay are reunited once again with the loving,\nuniversal mother who has forgiven all and conquered all. It matters not\nhow high we seem to climb, or what the careless world may think for good\nor ill. It matters not how many small ambitions we may seem to have\nachieved. Even the unworthy cannot be forever soothed by the hollow\nvoice of fame. All triumphs are futile without the victory over self;\nand when the triumph over self is won, there are no more battles to be\nfought, for all the world is then at peace. It is the skeleton in the\ncloset pointing ever to the mistakes and maladjustments of our past, the\nskeleton standing there before our gaze that makes us still remember\nwhere our lives fell short; that teaches us so slowly but so surely to\nturn from the unworthy victories and the dire defeats of life to the\nmastery of ourselves. It is the skeleton from whom we learn that we can\nlive without the world, but not without ourselves.\n\nWithout the skeleton we could never feel another\u2019s sorrow, or know\nanother\u2019s pain. Philosophy and theology cannot tell us how another\u2019s\nlife became a hopeless wreck. It is ourselves alone that reveals the\nprecipice along which every footpath leads. It is from life we learn\nthat it is but an accident when we fall, and equally an accident when we\nkeep the path. The pupil of the schools may look down with pitying\nglance upon the unfortunate victim of what seems to be his sin. He may\npoint to a love that will forgive and kindly plead with him to take\nanother path, but the wayfarer that the skeleton has taught will clasp\nthis fellow mortal to his heart, for in his face he sees but the\nreflection of himself. The wise and good may forgive the evil and the\nwrong, but only the sinner knows that there is no sin.\n\nThe charity that is born of life and sin is not fine because of its\neffect on some one else, but for what it does for us. True charity is\nonly the sense of the kinship of all living things. This is the charity\nthat neither humiliates nor offends. It is the sense that brings a new\nmeaning to life and a new purpose to the soul.\n\nLet us do simple justice to this neglected, outcast guest, the useful,\nfaithful teacher of our lives. Let us open the closet door, and let the\nskeleton come out, and lock the schoolmaster in its place. Let us leave\nthis faithful friend to roam freely at its will. Let us look it squarely\nin the face with neither fear or shame, but with gratitude for the\nlessons it has taught. It may be that the jeering crowd will point in\nscorn as they see us with the grewsome figure at our side, but when we\nfully learn the lesson that it came to teach, we shall need to look no\nmore without for the approval or disapproval of our acts, but seek to\nsatisfy ourselves alone. Let us place a new chair beside the hearth, in\nthe cosiest nook, and bid the skeleton take its place as the worthiest\nguest. Let us neither parade nor hide our new-found friend, but treat it\nas a fact of life\u2014a fact that is, a fact that had the right to be, and a\nfact that taught us how to find ourselves. Let us not forget the\nparents, who watch us in our youth, and the friends that were ever good\nand true. But above all, let us remember this grim and silent teacher,\nwho never neglected or forgot, who showed us life as only it could show,\nwho opened up new vistas to our soul, who touched our human hearts, who\nmade us know and love our fellowman, who softened and mellowed and\npurified our souls until we felt the kinship that we bore to all living\nthings. Until it came we knew only the surface of the world. Before it\ncame, we had tasted of the shallow cup of joy and the bitter cup of\npain, but we needed this to teach us from the anguish of the soul that\nthere is a depth profound and great, where pain and pleasure both are\none. That there is a life so deep and true that earth\u2019s rewards and\npenalties alike are but a hollow show; that there is a conquest of\nourselves, which brings perfect peace and perfect rest.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                       PRINTED FOR C. L. RICKETTS\n                       BY R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS\n                       COMPANY, AT THE LAKESIDE\n                       PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL. MCMII\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors.\n 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.","title":"A Persian Pearl, and Other Essays","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":30829}