1886 lines
84 KiB
Plaintext
1886 lines
84 KiB
Plaintext
29 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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FRAGMENTS from the pin of Robert G. Ingersoll.
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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FRAGMENTS.
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A letter written to Col. Thomas Donaldson, of Philadelphia,
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declining an invitation to be a guest of the Clover Club of that
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city.
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Washington, D.C, January 16, 1883.
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CLOVER. -- I regret that I cannot be "in clover with you on
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the 28th instant.
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A wonderful thing is clover! It means honey and cream, -- that
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is to say, industry and contentment, -- that is to say, the happy
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bees in perfumed fields, and at the cottage gate "bos" the
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bountiful serenely chewing satisfaction's cud, in that blessed
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twilight pause that like a benediction falls between all toil and
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sleep.
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This clover makes me dream of happy hours; of childhood's rosy
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cheeks; of dimpled babes; of wholesome, loving wives; of honest
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men; of springs and brooks and violets and all there is of
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stainless joy in peaceful human life.
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A wonderful word is "clover"! Drop the "c," and you have the
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happiest of mankind. Drop the "r," and "c," and you have left the
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only thing that makes a heaven of this dull and barren earth. Drop
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the "r," and there remains a warm, deceitful bud that sweetens
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breath and keeps the peace in countless homes whose masters
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frequent clubs. After all, Bottom was right:
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"Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow."
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Yours sincerely and regretfully,
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R.G. INGERSOLL.
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**** ****
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SUPERSTITION puts belief above goodness -- credulity above
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virtue.
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Here are two men. One is industrious, frugal, honest,
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generous. He has a happy home -- loves his wife and children --
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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FRAGMENTS.
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fills their lives with sunshine. He enjoys study, thoughts, music,
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and all the subtleties of Art -- but he does not believe the creed
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-- cares nothing for sacred books, worships no god and fears no
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devil.
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The other is ignorant, coarse, brutal, beats his wife and
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children -- but he believes -- regards the Bible as inspired - bows
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to the priests, counts his beads, says his prayers, confesses and
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contributes, and the Catholic Church declares and the Protestant
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Churches declare that he is the better man.
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The ignorant believer, coarse and brutal as he is, is going to
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heaven. He will be washed in the blood of the Lamb. He will have
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wings -- a harp and a halo.
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The intelligent and generous man who loves his fellow-men --
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who develops his brain, who enjoys the beautiful, is going to hell
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-- to the eternal prison.
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Such is the justice of God -- the mercy of Christ.
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**** ****
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WHILE reading the accounts of the coronation of the Czar, of
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the pageants, processions and feasts, of the pomp and parade, of
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the barbaric splendor, of cloth of gold and glittering gems, I
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could not help thinking of the poor and melancholy peasants, of the
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toiling, half-fed millions, of the sad and ignorant multitudes who
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belong body and soul to this Czar.
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I thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of
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the thousands in prisons for having dared to say a whispered word
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for freedom, of the great multitude who had been driven like cattle
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along the weary roads that lead to the hell of Siberia.
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The cannon at Moscow were not loud enough, nor the clang of
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the bells, nor the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of
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the captives.
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I thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and
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children for the crime of speaking like men.
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And when the priests spoke of the Czar as the "God-selected
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man," the "God-adorned man," my blood grew warm.
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When I read of the coronation of the Czarina I thought of
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Siberia. I thought of girls working in the mines, hauling ore from
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the pits with chains about their waists; young girls, almost naked,
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at the mercy of brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning
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their lives away because between their pure lips the word Liberty
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had burst into blossom,
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Yet law neglects, forgets them, and crowns the Czarina. The
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injustice, the agony and horror in this poor world are enough to
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make mankind insane.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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FRAGMENTS.
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Ignorance and superstition crown impudence and tyranny.
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Millions of money squandered for the humiliation of man, to
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dishonor the people.
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Back of the coronation, back of all the ceremonies, back of
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all the hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie.
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It is not true that God "selected" this Czar to rule and rob
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a hundred millions of human beings,
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It is all an ignorant, barbaric, superstitious lie -- a lie
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that pomp and pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and
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swinging censers, cannot change to truth.
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Those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at Moscow
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see millions of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of
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weeping mothers, whose children have been stolen by the Czar; see
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thousands of villages without schools, millions of houses without
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books, millions and millions of men, women and children in whose
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future there is no star and whose only friend is death.
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The coronation is an insult to the nineteenth century.
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Long live the people of Russia!
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**** ****
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MUSIC. -- The savage enjoys noises -- explosion -- the
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imitation of thunder. This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys
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concussion. His ear and brain are in harmony. So, he takes
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cognizance of but few colors. The neutral tints make no impression
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on his eyes. He appreciates the flames of red and yellow. That is
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to say, there is a harmony between his brain and eye. As he
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advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other sounds, his
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eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has entered
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into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no
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longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference
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between noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The
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strings in Corti's Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are
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developed.
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The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and
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sight increase from age to age.
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The first idea of music is the keeping of time -- a recurring
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emphasis at intervals of equal length or duration. This is
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afterward modified -- the music of joy being fast, the emphasis at
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short intervals, and that of sorrow slow.
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After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the
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blood and muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of
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both. In joy the heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to
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such emotion is quick. In grief -- in sadness, the blood is
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delayed. In music the broad division is one of time. In language,
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words of joy are born of light -- that which shines -- words of
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grief of darkness and gloom. There is still another division: The
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language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of sadness
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from cold.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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FRAGMENTS.
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These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the
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light and shadow -- the heat and cold.
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**** ****
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OF COURSE England has no love for America. By England I mean
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the governing class. Why should monarchy be in love with
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republicanism, with democracy? The monarch insists that he gets his
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right to rule from what he is pleased to call the will of God,
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whereas in a republic the sovereign authority is the will of the
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people. It is impossible that there should be any real friendship
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between the two forms of government.
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We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there
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is an England within England -- an England that does not belong to
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the titled classes -- an England that has not been bribed or
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demoralized by those in authority; and that England has always been
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our friend, because that England is the friend of liberty and of
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progress everywhere. But the lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of
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the titled, those who are willing to crawl that they may rise, are
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now and always have been the enemies of the great Republic.
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it is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the
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highest and lowest are generally friends. There may be a foundation
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for this friendship in the fact that both are parasites -- both
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live on the labor of honest men. After all, there is a kinship
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between the prince and the pauper. Both extend the hand for alms,
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and the fact that one is jeweled and the other extremely dirty
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makes no difference in principle -- and the owners of these hands
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have always been fast friends, and, in accordance with the great
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law of ingratitude, both have held in contempt the people who
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supported them.
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One thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people
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of England are our friends. The best writers, the best thinkers are
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on our side. It is only natural that all who visit America should
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find some fault. We find fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is
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almost a plea of guilty. For my part, I have no doubt about the
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future of America. It not only is, but is to be for many, many
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generations, the greatest nation of the world.
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I DO NOT care so much where, as with whom, I live. If the
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right folks are with me I can manage to get a good deal of
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happiness in the city or in the country. Cats love places and
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become attached to chimney-corners and all sorts of nooks -- but I
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have but little of the cat in me, and am not particularly in love
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with places. After all, a palace without affection is a poor hovel,
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and the meanest hut with love in it is a palace for the soul.
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If the time comes when poverty and want cease for the most
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part to exist, then the city will be far better than the country.
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People are always talking about the beauties of nature and the
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delights of solitude, but to me some people are more interesting
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than rocks and trees. As to city and country life I think that I
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substantially agree with Touchstone:
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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FRAGMENTS.
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"In respect that it is solitary I like it very well; but in
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respect that it is private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect
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it is in the fields it pleases me well; but in respect it is not in
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the court it is tedious."
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**** ****
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WHAT do I think of the launchings in Georgia? I suppose these
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outrages -- these frightful crimes -- make the same impression on
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my mind that they do on the minds of all civilized people. I know
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of no words strong enough, bitter enough, to express my indignation
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and horror. Men who belong to the "superior" race take a negro --
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a criminal, a supposed murderer, one alleged to have assaulted a
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white woman -- chain him to a tree, saturate his clothing with
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kerosene, pile fagots about his feet. This is the preparation for
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the festival. The people flock in from the neighborhood -- come in
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special trains from the towns. They are going to enjoy themselves.
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Laughing and cursing they gather about the victim. A man steps
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from the crowd -- a man who hates crime and loves virtue. He draws
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his knife, and in a spirit of merry sport cuts off one of the
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victim's ears. This he keeps for a trophy -- a souvenir. Another
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gentlemen fond of a jest cuts off the other ear. Another cuts off
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the nose of the chained and helpless wretch. The victim suffered in
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silence. He uttered no groan, no word -- the one man of the two
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thousand who had courage.
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Other white heroes cut and slashed his flesh. The crowd
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cheered. The people were intoxicated with joy. Then the fagots were
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lighted and the bleeding and mutilated man was clothed in flame.
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The people were wild with hideous delight. With greedy eyes
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they watched him burn; with hungry ears they listened for his
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shrieks -- for the music of his moans and cries. He did not shriek.
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The festival was not quite perfect.
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But they had their revenge. They trampled on the charred and
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burning corpse. They divided among themselves the broken bones.
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They wanted mementos -- keepsakes that they could give to their
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loving wives and gentle babes.
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These horrors were perpetrated in the name of justice. The
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savages who did these things belong to the superior race. They are
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citizens of the great Republic. And yet, it does not seem possible
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that such fiends are human beings. They are a disgrace to our
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country, our century and the human race.
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Ex-Governor Atkinson protested against this savagery. He was
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threatened with death. The good people were helpless. While these
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lynchers murder the blacks they will destroy their own country. No
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civilized man wishes to live where the mob is supreme. He does not
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wish to be governed by murderers.
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Let me say that what I have said is flattery compared with
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what I feel. When I think of the other lynching -- of the poor man
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mutilated and hanged without the slightest evidence, of the negro
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who said that these murders would be avenged, and who was brutally
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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FRAGMENTS.
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murdered for the utterance of a natural feeling -- I am utterly at
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a loss for words.
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Are the white people insane? Has mercy fled to beasts? Has the
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United States no power to protect a citizen? A nation that cannot
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or will not protect its citizens in time of peace has no right to
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ask its citizens to protect it in time of war.
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**** ****
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OUR COUNTRY. -- Our country is all we hope for -- all we are.
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It is the grave of our father, of our mother, of each and every one
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of the sacred dead.
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It is every glorious memory of our race. Every heroic deed.
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Every act of self-sacrifice done by our blood. It is all the
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accomplishments of the past -- all the wise things said -- all the
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kind things done -- all the poems written and all the poems lived
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-- all the defeats sustained -- all the victories won -- the girls
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we love -- the wives we adore -- the children we carry in our
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hearts -- all the firesides of home all the quiet springs, the
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babbling brooks, the rushing rivers, the mountains, plains and
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woods -- the dells and dales and vines and vales.
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**** ****
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GIFT GIVING. -- I believe in the festival called Christmas --
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not in the celebration of the birth of any man, but to celebrate
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the triumph of light over darkness -- the victory of the sun.
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I believe in giving gifts on that day, and a real gift should
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be given to those who cannot return it; gifts from the rich to the
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poor, from the prosperous to the unfortunate, from parents to
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children.
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There is no need of giving water to the sea or light to the
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sun. Let us give to those who need, neither asking nor expecting
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return, not even asking gratitude, only asking that the gift shall
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make the receiver happy -- and he who gives in that way increases
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his own joy.
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**** ****
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WE HAVE no right to enslave our children. We have no right to
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bequeath chains and manacles to our heirs. We have no right to
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leave a legacy of mental degradation.
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Liberty is the birthright of all. Parents should not deprive
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their children of the great gifts of nature. We cannot all leave
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lands and gold to those we love; but we can leave Liberty, and that
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is of more value than all the wealth of India.
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The dead have no right to enslave the living. To worship
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ancestors is to curse posterity. He who bows to the Past insults
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the Future; and allows, so to speak, the dead to rob the unborn.
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The coffin is good enough in its way, but the cradle is far better.
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With the bones of the fathers they beat out the brains of the
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children.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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6
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FRAGMENTS.
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RANDOM THOUGHTS.
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The road is short to anything we fear.
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**** ****
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Joy lives in the house beyond the one we reach.
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**** ****
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IN YOUTH the time is halting, slow and lame.
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In age the time is winged and eager as a flame.
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The sea seems narrow as we near the farther shore.
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Youth goes hand in hand with hope -- old age with fear.
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Youth has a wish -- old age a dread.
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In youth the leaves and buds seem loath to grow.
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Youth shakes the glass to speed the lingering sands.
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Youth says to Time: O crutched and limping laggard, get thee wings.
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The dawn comes slowly, but the Westering day leaps
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like a lover to the dusky bosom of the Ethiop night
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**** ****
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I THINK that all days are substantially alike in the long run.
|
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It is no worse to drink on Sunday than on Monday. The idea that one
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day in the week is holy is wholly idiotic. Besides, these closing
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laws do no good.
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Laws are not locks and keys. Saloon doors care nothing about
|
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laws. Law or no law, people will slip in, and then, having had so
|
||
much trouble getting there, they will stay until they stagger out.
|
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These nasty, meddlesome, Pharisaic, hypocritical laws make sneaks
|
||
and hypocrites. The children of these laws are like the fathers of
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the laws. Ever since I can remember, people have been trying to
|
||
make other people temperate by intemperate laws. I have never known
|
||
of the slightest success. It is a pity that Christ manufactured
|
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wine, a pity that Paul took heart and thanked God when he saw the
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sign of the Three Taverns; a pity that Jehovah put alcohol in
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almost everything that grows; a great pity that prayer-meetings are
|
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not more popular than saloons; a pity that our workingmen do not
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amuse themselves reading religious papers and the genealogies in
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the Old Testament.
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Rum has caused many quarrels and many murders.
|
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Religion has caused many wars and covered countless fields
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with dead.
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Of course, all men should be temperate, -- should avoid excess
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-- should keep the golden path between extremes -- should gather
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roses, not thorns. The only way to make men temperate is to develop
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the brain.
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When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect,
|
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men are savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the
|
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passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need education
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|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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7
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FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
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-- facts -- philosophy. Drunkenness is one form of intemperance,
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prohibition is another form. Another trouble is that these little
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||
laws and ordinances can not be enforced.
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||
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||
Both parties want votes, and to get votes they will allow
|
||
unpopular laws to sleep, neglected, and finally refuse to enforce
|
||
them. These spasms of virtue, these convulsions of conscience are
|
||
soon over, and then comes a long period of neglectful rest.
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**** ****
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THE OLD AND NEW YEAR. -- For countless ages the old earth has
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||
been making, in alternating light and shade, in gleam and gloom,
|
||
the whirling circuit of the sun, leaving the record of its flight
|
||
in many forms -- in leaves of stone, in growth of tree and vine and
|
||
flower, in glittering gems of many hues, in curious forms of
|
||
monstrous life, in ravages of flood and flame, in fossil fragments
|
||
stolen from decay by chance, in molten masses hurled from lips of
|
||
fire, in gorges worn by waveless, foamless cataracts of ice, in
|
||
coast lines beaten back by the imprisoned sea, in mountain ranges
|
||
and in ocean reefs, in islands lifted from the underworld -- in
|
||
continents submerged and given back to light and life.
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||
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||
Another year has joined his shadowy fellows in the wide and
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||
voiceless desert of the past, where, from the eternal hour-glass
|
||
forever fall the sands of time. Another year, with all its joy and
|
||
grief, of birth and death, of failure and success -- of love and
|
||
hate. And now, the first day of the new o'er arches all. Standing
|
||
between the buried and the babe, we cry, "Farewell and Hail!"
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||
|
||
January 1, 1893.
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**** ****
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||
KNOWLEDGE consists in the perception of facts, their relations
|
||
-- conditions, modes and results of action. Experience is the
|
||
foundation of knowledge -- without experience it is impossible to
|
||
know. It may be that experience can be transmitted -- inherited.
|
||
Suppose that an infinite being existed in infinite space. He being
|
||
the only existence, what knowledge could he gain by experience? He
|
||
could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. He would have no use
|
||
for what we call the senses. Could he use what we call the
|
||
faculties of the mind? He could not compare, remember, hope or
|
||
fear. He could not reason. How could he know that he existed? How
|
||
could he use force? There was in the universe nothing that would
|
||
resist -- nothing.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
MOST MEN are economical when dealing with abundance, hoarding
|
||
gold and wasting time -- throwing away the sunshine of life -- the
|
||
few remaining hours, and hugging to their shriveled hearts that
|
||
which they do not and cannot even expect to use. Old age should
|
||
enjoy the luxury of giving. How divine to live in the atmosphere,
|
||
the climate of gratitude, The men who clutch and fiercely hold and
|
||
look at wife and children with eyes dimmed by age and darkened by
|
||
suspicion, giving naught until the end, then give to death the
|
||
gratitude that should have been their own.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
DEATH OF THE AGED. -- After all, there is something tenderly
|
||
appropriate in the serene death of the old. Nothing is more
|
||
touching than the death of the young, the strong. But when the
|
||
duties of life have all been nobly done; when the sun touches the
|
||
horizon; when the purple twilight falls upon the past, the present,
|
||
and the future; when memory, with dim eyes, can scarcely spell the
|
||
blurred and faded records of the vanished days -- then, surrounded
|
||
by kindred and by friends, death comes like a strain of music. The
|
||
day has been long, the road weary, and the traveler gladly stops at
|
||
the welcome inn.
|
||
|
||
Nearly forty-eight years ago, under the snow, in the little
|
||
town of Cazenovia, my poor mother was buried. I was but two years
|
||
old. I remember her as she looked in death. That sweet, cold face
|
||
has kept my heart warm through all the changing years.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THERE is no cunning art to trace
|
||
In any feature, form or face,
|
||
Or wrinkled palm, with criss-cross lines
|
||
The good or bad in peoples' minds.
|
||
Nor can we guess men's thoughts or aims
|
||
By seeing how they write their names.
|
||
We could as well foretell their acts
|
||
By getting outlines of their tracks.
|
||
Ourselves we do not know -- how then
|
||
Can we find out our fellow-men?
|
||
And yet -- although the reason laughs --
|
||
We like to look at autographs --
|
||
And almost think that we can guess
|
||
What lines and dots of ink express. --
|
||
|
||
August 11, 1892.
|
||
R.G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
|
||
From the autograph collection of Miss Eva Ingersoll Farrell.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE WORLD Is growing poor. -- Darwin the naturalist, the
|
||
observer, the philosopher, is dead. Wagner the greatest composer
|
||
the world has produced, is silent. Hugo the poet, patriot and
|
||
philanthropist, is at rest. Three mighty rivers have ceased to
|
||
flow. The smallest insect was made interesting by Darwin's glance;
|
||
the poor blind worm became the farmer's friend -- the maker of the
|
||
farm, -- and even weeds began to dream and hope.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
BUT IF we live beyond life's day and reach the dusk, and
|
||
slowly travel in the shadows of the night, the way seems long, and
|
||
being weary we ask for rest, and then, as in our youth, we chide
|
||
the loitering hours. When eyes are dim and memory fails to keep a
|
||
record of events; when ears are dull and muscles fail to obey the
|
||
will; when the pulse is low and the tired heart is weak. and the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
poor brain has hardly power to think, then comes the dream, the
|
||
hope of rest, the longing for the peace of dreamless sleep.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
SAINTS. -- The saints have poisoned life with piety. They have
|
||
soured the mother's milk. They have insisted that joy is crime --
|
||
that beauty is a bait with which the Devil captures the souls of
|
||
men -- that laughter leads to sin -- that pleasure, in its every
|
||
form, degrades, and that love itself is but the loathsome serpent
|
||
of unclean desire. They have tried to compel men to love shadows
|
||
rather than women -- phantoms rather than people.
|
||
|
||
The saints have been the assassins of sunshine, -- the
|
||
skeletons at feasts. They have been the enemies of happiness. They
|
||
have hated the singing birds, the blossoming plants. They have
|
||
loved the barren and the desolate -- the croaking raven and the
|
||
hooting owl -- tombstones, rather than statues.
|
||
|
||
And yet, with a strange inconsistency, happiness was to be
|
||
enjoyed forever, in another world. There, pleasure, with all its
|
||
corrupting influences, was to be eternal. No one pretended that
|
||
heaven was to be filled with self-denial with fastings and
|
||
scourgings, with weepings and regrets: with solemn and emaciated
|
||
angels, with sad-eyed seraphim with lonely parsons, with mumbling
|
||
monks, with shriveled nuns, with days of penance and with nights of
|
||
prayer.
|
||
|
||
Yet all this self-denial on the part of the saints was founded
|
||
in the purest selfishness. They were to be paid for all their
|
||
sufferings in another world. They were "laying up treasures in
|
||
heaven." They had made a bargain with God. He had offered eternal
|
||
joy to those who would make themselves miserable here. The saints
|
||
gladly and cheerfully accepted the terms. They expected pay for
|
||
every pang of hunger, for every groan, for every tear, for every
|
||
temptation resisted; and this pay was to be an eternity of joy. The
|
||
selfishness of the saints was equaled only by the stupidity of the
|
||
saints.
|
||
|
||
It is not true that character is the aim of life. Happiness
|
||
should be the aim -- and as a matter of fact is and always has been
|
||
the aim, not only of sinners, but of saints. The saints seemed to
|
||
think that happiness was better in another world than here, and
|
||
they expected this happiness beyond the clouds. They looked upon
|
||
the sinner as foolish to enjoy himself for the moment here, and in
|
||
consequence thereof to suffer forever. Character is not an end, it
|
||
is a means to an end. The object of the saint is happiness
|
||
hereafter -- the means, to make himself miserable here. The object
|
||
of the philosopher is happiness here and now, and hereafter, -- if
|
||
there be another world.
|
||
|
||
If struggle and temptation, misery and misfortune, are
|
||
essential to the formation of what you call character, how do you
|
||
account for the perfection of your angels, or for the goodness of
|
||
your God? Were the angels perfected through misfortune? If
|
||
happiness is the only good in heaven, why should it not be
|
||
considered the only good here?
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
In order to be happy, we must be in harmony with the
|
||
conditions of happiness. It cannot be obtained by prayer, -- it
|
||
does not come from heaven -- it must be found here, and nothing
|
||
should be done, or left undone, for the sake of any supernatural
|
||
being, but for the sake of ourselves and other natural beings.
|
||
|
||
The early Christians were preparing for the end of the world.
|
||
In their view, life was of no importance except as it gave them
|
||
time to prepare for "The Second Coming." They were crazed by fear.
|
||
Since that time, the world not coming to the expected end, they
|
||
have been preparing for "The Day of judgment," and have, to the
|
||
extent of their ability, filled the world with horror. For
|
||
centuries, it was, and still is, their business to destroy the
|
||
pleasures of this life. In the midst of prosperity they have
|
||
prophesied disaster. At every feast they have spoken of famine, and
|
||
over the cradle they have talked of death. They have held skulls
|
||
before the faces of terrified babes. On the cheeks of health they
|
||
see the worms of the grave, and in their eyes the white breasts of
|
||
love are naught but corruption and decay.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE WASTE FORCES OF NATURE. -- For countless years the great
|
||
cataracts, as for instance, Niagara, have been singing their solemn
|
||
songs, filling the savage with terror, the civilized with awe;
|
||
recording its achievements in books of stone -- useless and
|
||
sublime; inspiring beholders with the majesty of purposeless force
|
||
and the wastefulness of nature.
|
||
|
||
Force great enough to turn the wheels of the world, lost,
|
||
useless.
|
||
|
||
So with the great tides that rise and fall on all the shores
|
||
of the world -- lost forces. And yet man is compelled to use to
|
||
exhaustion's point the little strength he has.
|
||
|
||
This will be changed.
|
||
|
||
The great cataracts and the great tides will submit to the
|
||
genius of man. They are to be for use. Niagara will not be allowed
|
||
to remain a barren roar. It must become the servant of man. It will
|
||
weave robes for men and women. It will fashion implements for the
|
||
farmer and the mechanic. It will propel coaches for rich and poor.
|
||
It will fill streets and homes with light, and the old barren roar
|
||
will be changed to songs of success, to the voices of love and
|
||
content and joy.
|
||
|
||
Science at last has found that all forces are convertible into
|
||
each other, and that all are only different aspects of one fact.
|
||
|
||
So the flood is still a terror, but, in my judgment, the time
|
||
will come when the floods will be controlled by the genius of man,
|
||
when the tributaries of the great rivers and their tributaries will
|
||
be dammed in such a way as to collect the waters of every flood and
|
||
give them out gradually through all the year, maintaining an equal
|
||
current at all times in the great rivers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
We have at last found that force occupies a circle, that
|
||
Niagara is a child of the Sun -- that the sun shines, the mist
|
||
rises, clouds form, the rain falls, the rivers flow to the lakes,
|
||
and Niagara fills the heavens with its song. Man will arrest the
|
||
falling flood; he will change its force to electricity; that is to
|
||
say, to light, and then force will have made the circuit from light
|
||
to light.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ARE MEN'S characters fully determined at the age of thirty?
|
||
|
||
It depends, first, on what their opportunities have been --
|
||
that is to say, on their surroundings, their education, their
|
||
advantages; second, on the shape, quality and quantity of brain
|
||
they happen to possess; third, on their mental and oral courage;
|
||
and, fourth, on the character of the people among whom they live.
|
||
|
||
The natural man continues to grow. The longer he lives, the
|
||
more he ought to know, and the more he knows, the more he changes
|
||
the views and opinions held by him in his youth. Every new fact
|
||
results in a change of views more or less radical. This growth of
|
||
the mind may be hindered by the "tyrannous north wind" of public
|
||
opinion; by the bigotry of his associates; by the fear that he
|
||
cannot make a living if he becomes unpopular; and it is to some
|
||
extent affected by the ambition of the person, that is to say, if
|
||
he wishes to hold office the tendency is to agree with his
|
||
neighbor, or at least to round off and smooth the corners and
|
||
angles of difference. If a man wishes to ascertain the truth,
|
||
regardless of the opinions of his fellow-citizens, the probability
|
||
is that he will change from day to day and from year to year --
|
||
that is, his intellectual horizon ill widen -- and that what he
|
||
once deemed of great importance will be regarded as an exceedingly
|
||
small segment of a greater circle.
|
||
|
||
Growth means change. If a man grows after thirty years he must
|
||
necessarily change. Many men probably reach their intellectual
|
||
height long before they have lived thirty years, and spend the
|
||
balance of their lives in defending the mistakes of their youth. A
|
||
great man continues to grow until his death, and growth -- as I
|
||
said before -- means change. Darwin was continually finding new
|
||
facts, and kept his mind as open to a new truth as the East is to
|
||
the rising of another sun. Humboldt at the age of ninety maintained
|
||
the attitude of a pupil, and was, until the moment of his death,
|
||
willing to learn.
|
||
|
||
The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn -- The
|
||
less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.
|
||
|
||
The smallest minds mature the earliest. The less there is to
|
||
a man the quicker he attains his growth. I have known many people
|
||
who reached their intellectual height while in their mother's arms,
|
||
I have known people who were exceedingly smart babies to become
|
||
excessively stupid people. It is with men as with other things. The
|
||
mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest
|
||
men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have
|
||
lived. Small people delight in what they call consistency -- that
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now
|
||
exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a
|
||
certificate that they have not grown -- that they have not
|
||
developed -- and that they know just as little now as they ever
|
||
did. The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true
|
||
to the knowledge of to-day, without the slightest reference to what
|
||
your opinion was years ago.
|
||
|
||
There is another view of this subject. Few men have settled
|
||
opinions before or at thirty. Of course, I do not include persons
|
||
of genius. At thirty the passions have, as a rule, too much
|
||
influence; the intellect is not the pilot. At thirty most men have
|
||
prejudices rather than opinions -- that is to say, rather than
|
||
judgments -- and few men have lived to be sixty without materially
|
||
modifying the opinions they held at thirty.
|
||
|
||
As I said in the first place, much depends on the shape,
|
||
quality and quantity of brain; much depends on mental and moral
|
||
courage. There are many people with great physical courage who are
|
||
afraid to express their opinions; men who will meet death without
|
||
a tremor and will yet hesitate to express their views.
|
||
|
||
So, much depends on the character of the people among whom we
|
||
live. A man in the old times living in New England thought several
|
||
times before he expressed any opinion contrary to the views of the
|
||
majority. But if the people have intellectual hospitality, then men
|
||
express their views -- and it may be that we change somewhat in
|
||
proportion to the decency of our neighbors. In the old times it was
|
||
thought that God was opposed to any change of opinion, and that
|
||
nothing so excited the anger of the deity as the expression of a
|
||
new thought. That idea is fading away.
|
||
|
||
The real truth is that men change their opinions as long as
|
||
they grow, and only those remain of the same opinion still who have
|
||
reached the intellectual autumn of their lives; who have gone to
|
||
seed, and who are simply waiting for the winter of death. Now and
|
||
then there is a brain in which there is the climate of perpetual
|
||
spring -- men who never grow old -- and when such a one is found we
|
||
say, "Here is a genius."
|
||
|
||
Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the
|
||
sowing of the seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter,
|
||
intellectual death. But there is now and then a genius who has no
|
||
winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom
|
||
of his thought no snow falls. Genius has the climate of perpetual
|
||
growth.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE MOIETY SYSTEM. -- The Secretary of the Treasury recommends
|
||
a revival of the moiety system. Against this infamous step every
|
||
honest citizen ought to protest.
|
||
|
||
In this country, taxes cannot be collected through such
|
||
Instrumentalities. An informer is not indigenous to our soil. He
|
||
always has been and always will be held in merited contempt.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
Every inducement, by this system, is held out to the informer
|
||
to become a liar. The spy becomes an officer of the Government. He
|
||
soon becomes the terror of his superior. He is a sword without a
|
||
hilt and without a scabbard, Every taxpayer becomes the lawful prey
|
||
of a detective whose property depends upon the destruction of his
|
||
prey.
|
||
|
||
These informers and spies are corrupters of public morals.
|
||
They resort to all known dishonest means for the accomplishment of
|
||
what they pretend to be an honest object. With them perjury becomes
|
||
a fine art. Their words are a commodity bought and sold in courts
|
||
of justice.
|
||
|
||
This is the first phase. In a little while juries will refuse
|
||
to believe them, and every suit in which they are introduced will
|
||
be lost by the Government. Of this the real thieves will be quick
|
||
to take advantage. So many honest men will nave been falsely
|
||
charged by perjured informers and moiety miscreants, that to
|
||
convict the guilty will become impossible. If the Government wishes
|
||
to collect the taxes it must set an honorable example. It must deal
|
||
kindly and honestly with the people. It must not inaugurate a
|
||
vampire system of espionage. It must not take it for granted that
|
||
every manufacturer and importer is a thief, and that all spies and
|
||
informers are honest men.
|
||
|
||
The revenues of this country are as honestly paid as they are
|
||
expended. There has been as much fair dealing outside as inside of
|
||
the Treasury Department.
|
||
|
||
But, however that may be, the informer system will not make
|
||
them honest men, but will in all probability produce exactly the
|
||
opposite result. If our system of taxation is so unpopular that the
|
||
revenues cannot be collected without bribing men to tell the truth;
|
||
if our officers must be offered rewards beyond their salaries to
|
||
state the facts; if it is impossible to employ men to discharge
|
||
their duties honestly, then let us change the system. The moiety
|
||
system makes the Treasury Department a vast vampire sucking the
|
||
blood of the people upon shares. Americans detest informers, spies,
|
||
detectives, turners of State's evidence, eavesdroppers, paid
|
||
listeners, hypocrites, public smellers, trackers, human hounds and
|
||
ferrets. They despise men who "suspect" for a living; they hate
|
||
legal layers-in-wait and the highwaymen of the law. They abhor the
|
||
betrayers of friends and those who lead and tempt others to commit
|
||
a crime in order that they may detect it. In a monarchy, the
|
||
detective system is a necessity. The great thief has to be
|
||
sustained by smaller ones. -- December 4, 1877.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
LANGUAGE. -- Most people imagine that men have always talked;
|
||
that language is as old as the race; and it is supposed that some
|
||
language was taught by some mythological god to the first pair. But
|
||
we now know, if we know anything, that language is a growth; that
|
||
every word had to be created by man, and that back of every word is
|
||
some want, some wish, some necessity of the body or mind, and also
|
||
a genius to embody that want or that wish, to express that thought
|
||
in some sound that we call a word.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
At first, the probability is that men uttered sounds of fear,
|
||
of content, of anger, or happiness. And the probability is that the
|
||
first sounds or cries expressed such feelings, and these sounds
|
||
were nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
|
||
|
||
After a time, man began to give his ideas to others by rude
|
||
pictures, drawings of animals and trees and the various other
|
||
things with which he could give rude thoughts. At first he would
|
||
make a picture of the whole animal. Afterward some part of the
|
||
animal would stand for the whole, and in some of the old picture-
|
||
writings the curve of the nostril of a horse stands for the animal.
|
||
This was the shorthand of picture-writing. But it was a long
|
||
journey to where marks would stand, not for pictures, but for
|
||
sounds. And then think of the distance still to the alphabet. Then
|
||
to writing, so that marks took entirely the place of pictures. Then
|
||
the invention of movable type, and then the press, making it
|
||
possible to save the wealth of the brain; making it possible for a
|
||
man to leave not simply his property to his fellow-man, not houses
|
||
and lands and dollars, but his ideas, his thoughts, his theories,
|
||
his dreams, the poetry and pathos of his soul. Now each generation
|
||
is heir to all the past.
|
||
|
||
If we had free thought, then we could collect the wealth of
|
||
the intellectual world. In the physical world, springs make the
|
||
creeks and brooks, and they the rivers, and the rivers empty into
|
||
the great sea. So each brain should add to the sum of human
|
||
knowledge. If we deny freedom of thought, the springs cease to
|
||
gurgle, the rivers to run, and the great ocean of knowledge becomes
|
||
a desert of barren ignorant sand.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THIS IS AN AGE OF MONEY-GETTING, of materialism, of cold,
|
||
unfeeling science. The question arises, Is the world growing less
|
||
generous, less heroic, less chivalric?
|
||
|
||
Let us answer this. The experience of the individual is much
|
||
like the experience of a generation, or of a race. An old man
|
||
imagines that everything was better when he was young; that the
|
||
weather could then be depended on; that sudden changes are recent
|
||
inventions. So he will tell you that people used to be honest; that
|
||
the grocers gave full weight and the merchants full measure, and
|
||
that the bank cashier did not spend the evening of his days in
|
||
Canada.
|
||
|
||
He will also tell you that the women were handsome and
|
||
virtuous. There were no scandals then, no divorces, and that in
|
||
religion all were orthodox -- no Infidels. Before he gets through,
|
||
he will probably tell you that the art of cooking has been lost --
|
||
that nobody can make biscuit now, and that he never expects to eat
|
||
another slice of good bread.
|
||
|
||
He mistakes the twilight of his own life for the coming of the
|
||
night of universal decay and death. He imagines that that has
|
||
happened to the world, which has only happened to him. It does not
|
||
occur to him that millions at the moment he is talking are
|
||
undergoing the experience of his youth, and that when they become
|
||
old they will praise the very days that he denounces.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
The Garden of Eden has always been behind us. The Golden Age,
|
||
after all, is the memory of youth -- it is the result of remembered
|
||
pleasure in the midst of present pain.
|
||
|
||
To old age youth is divine, and the morning of life cloudless.
|
||
|
||
So now thousands and millions of people suppose that the age
|
||
of true chivalry has gone by and that honesty has about concluded
|
||
to leave the world. As a matter of fact, the age known as the age
|
||
of chivalry was the age of tyranny, of arrogance and cowardice. Men
|
||
clad in complete armor cut down the peasants that were covered with
|
||
leather, and these soldiers of the chivalric age armored themselves
|
||
to that degree that if they fell in battle they could not rise,
|
||
held to the earth by the weight of iron that their bravery had got
|
||
itself entrenched within. Compare the difference in courage between
|
||
going to war in coats of mail against sword and spear, and charging
|
||
a battery of Krupp guns!
|
||
|
||
The ideas of justice have grown larger and nobler. Charity now
|
||
does, without a thought, what the average man a few centuries ago
|
||
was incapable of imagining. In the old times slavery was upheld,
|
||
and imprisonment for debt. Hundreds of crimes -- or rather
|
||
misdemeanors -- were punishable by death. Prisons were loathsome
|
||
beyond description. Thousands and thousands died in chains. The
|
||
insane were treated like wild beasts; no respect was paid to sex or
|
||
age. Women were burned and beheaded and torn asunder as though they
|
||
had been hyenas, and children were butchered with the greatest
|
||
possible cheerfulness.
|
||
|
||
So it seems to me that the world is more chivalric, more
|
||
generous, nearer just and fair, more charitable, than ever before.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE COLORED MAN IS DOING WELL. He is hungry for knowledge.
|
||
Their children are going to school. Colored boys are taking prizes
|
||
in the colleges. A colored man was the orator of Harvard. They are
|
||
industrious, and in the South many are becoming rich. As the
|
||
people, black and white, become educated they become better
|
||
friends. The old prejudice is the child of ignorance. The colored
|
||
man will succeed if the South succeeds. The South is richer to-day
|
||
than ever before, more prosperous, and both races are really
|
||
improving. The greatest danger in the South, and for that matter
|
||
all over the country, is the mob. It is the duty of every good
|
||
citizen to denounce the mob. Down with the mob.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
FREEDOM of religion is the destruction of religion. In Rome,
|
||
after people were allowed to worship their own gods, all gods fell
|
||
into disrepute. It will be so in America. Here is freedom of
|
||
religion, and all devotees find that the gods of other devotees are
|
||
just as good as theirs. They find that the prayers of others are
|
||
answered precisely as their prayers are answered.
|
||
|
||
The Protestant God is no better than the Catholic, and the
|
||
Catholic is no better than the Mormon, and the Mormon is no better
|
||
than Nature for answering prayers. In other words, all prayers die
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
in the air which they uselessly agitate. There is undoubtedly a
|
||
tendency among the Protestant denominations to unite. This tendency
|
||
is born of weakness, not of strength. In a few years, if all should
|
||
unite, they would hardly have power enough to obstruct, for any
|
||
considerable time, the march of the intellectual host destined to
|
||
conquer the world. But let us all be good natured; let us give to
|
||
others all the rights that we claim for ourselves. The future, I
|
||
believe, has both hands full of blessings for the human race.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE DEISTS AND NATURE. -- We who deny the supernatural origin
|
||
of the Bible, must admit not only that it exists, but that it was
|
||
naturally produced. If it is not supernatural, it is natural. It
|
||
will hardly do for the worshipers of Nature to hold the Bible in
|
||
contempt, simply because it is not a supernatural book,
|
||
|
||
The Deists of the last century made a mistake. They proceeded
|
||
to show that the Bible is immoral, untrue, cruel and absurd, and
|
||
therefore came to the conclusion that it could not have been
|
||
written by a being of infinite wisdom and goodness, -- the being
|
||
whom they believed to be the author of Nature. Could not infinite
|
||
wisdom and goodness just as easily command crime as to permit it?
|
||
Is it really any worse to order the strong to slay the weak, than
|
||
to stand by and refuse to protect the weak?
|
||
|
||
After all, is Nature, taken together, any better than the
|
||
Bible? If God did not command the Jews to murder the Canaanites,
|
||
Nature, to say the least, did not prevent it. If God did not uphold
|
||
the practice of polygamy, Nature did. The moment we deny the
|
||
supernatural origin of the Bible, we declare that Nature wrote its
|
||
every word, commanded all its cruelties, told all its falsehoods.
|
||
The Bible is, like Nature, a mixture of what we call "good" and
|
||
"bad," -- of what appears, and of what in reality is.
|
||
|
||
The Bible must have been a perfectly natural production not
|
||
only, but a necessary one. There was, and is, no power in the
|
||
universe that could have changed one word. All the mistakes in
|
||
translation were necessarily made, and not one, by any possibility,
|
||
could have been avoided. That book, like all other facts in Nature,
|
||
could not have been otherwise than it is. The fact being that
|
||
Nature has produced all superstitions, all persecution, all
|
||
slavery, and every crime, ought to be sufficient to deter the
|
||
average man from imagining that this power, whatever it may be, is
|
||
worthy of worship.
|
||
|
||
There is good in Nature. It is the nature in us that perceives
|
||
the evil, that pursues the right. In man, Nature not only
|
||
contemplates herself, but approves or condemns her actions. Of
|
||
course, "good and bad" are relative terms, and things are "good" or
|
||
"bad" as they affect man well or ill.
|
||
|
||
Infidels, skeptics, -- that is to say, Freethinkers, have
|
||
opposed the Bible on account of the bad things in it, and
|
||
Christians have upheld it, not on account of the bad, but on
|
||
account of the good. Throw away the doctrine of inspiration, and
|
||
the Bible will be more powerful for good and far less for evil.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
Only a few years ago, Christians looked upon the Bible as the
|
||
bulwark of human slavery. It was the word of God, and for that
|
||
reason was superior to the reason of uninspired man. Had it been
|
||
considered simply as the work of man, it would not have been quoted
|
||
to establish that which the man of this age condemns. Throw away
|
||
the idea of inspiration, and all passages in conflict with liberty,
|
||
with science, with the experience of the intelligent part of the
|
||
human race, instantly become harmless. They are no longer guides
|
||
for man. They are simply the opinions of dead barbarians. The good
|
||
passages not only remain, but their influence is increased, because
|
||
they are relieved of a burden.
|
||
|
||
No one cares whether the truth is inspired or not. The truth
|
||
is independent of man, not only, but of God. And by truth I do not
|
||
mean the absolute, I mean this: Truth is the relation between
|
||
things and thoughts, and between thoughts and thoughts. The
|
||
perception of this relation bears the same relation to the logical
|
||
faculty in man, that music does to some portion of the brain --
|
||
that is to say, it is a mental melody. This sublime strain has been
|
||
heard by a few, and I am enthusiastic enough to believe that it
|
||
will be the music of the future.
|
||
|
||
For the good and for the true in the Old and New Testaments I
|
||
have the same regard that I have for the good and true, no matter
|
||
where they may be found. We who know how false the history of to-
|
||
day is; we who know the almost numberless mistakes that men make
|
||
who are endeavoring to tell the truth; we who know how hard it is,
|
||
with all the facilities we now have -- with the daily press, the
|
||
telegraph, the fact that nearly all can read and write -- to get a
|
||
truthful report of the simplest occurrence, must see that nothing
|
||
short of inspiration (admitting for the moment the possibility of
|
||
such a thing,) could have prevented the Scriptures from being
|
||
filled with error.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
AT LAST, the schoolhouse is larger than the church. The common
|
||
people have, through education, become uncommon. They now know how
|
||
little is really known by kings, presidents, legislators, and
|
||
professors. At last, they are capable of not only understanding a
|
||
few questions, but they have acquired the art of discussing those
|
||
that no one understands. With the facility of the cultured, they
|
||
can now hide behind phrases and make barricades of statistics. They
|
||
understand the sophistries of the upper classes; and while the
|
||
cultured have been turning their attention to the classics, to the
|
||
dead languages, and the dead ideas that they contain, -- while they
|
||
have been giving their attention to ceramics, artistic decorations,
|
||
and compulsory prayers, the common people have been compelled to
|
||
learn the practical things. They are acquainted with facts, because
|
||
they have done the work of the world.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
CRUELTY. -- Sometimes it has seemed to me that cruelty is the
|
||
eliminate of crime, and that generosity is the spring, Summer and
|
||
Autumn of virtue. Every form of wickedness, of meanness, springs
|
||
from selfishness, that is to say, from cruelty. Every good man
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
hates and despises the wretch who abuses wife and child -- who
|
||
rules by curses and blows and makes his home a kind of hell, So, no
|
||
generous man wishes to associate with one who overworks his horse
|
||
and feeds the lean and fainting beast with blows.
|
||
|
||
The barbarian delights in inflicting pain. He loves to see his
|
||
victim bleed, -- but the civilized man stanches blood, binds up
|
||
wounds and decreases pain. He pities the suffering animal as well
|
||
as the suffering man.
|
||
|
||
He would no more inflict wanton wounds upon a dog than on a
|
||
man. The heart of the civilized man speaks for the dumb and
|
||
helpless.
|
||
|
||
A good man would no more think of flaying a living animal than
|
||
of murdering his mother. The man who cuts a hoof from the leg of a
|
||
horse is capable of committing any crime that does not require
|
||
courage. Such an experiment can be of no use. Under no
|
||
circumstances are hoofs taken from horses for the good of the
|
||
horses any more than their heads would be cut off.
|
||
|
||
Think of the pain inflicted by separating the hoof of a living
|
||
horse from the flesh! If the poor beast could speak what would he
|
||
say? The same knowledge could be obtained by cutting away the hoof
|
||
of a dead horse. Knowledge of every bone, ligament, artery and
|
||
vein, of every cartilage and joint can be obtained by the
|
||
dissection of the dead. "But," says the biologist, "we must dissect
|
||
the living."
|
||
|
||
Well, millions of living animals have been cut in pieces;
|
||
millions of experiments have been tried; all the nerves have been
|
||
touched; every possible agony has been inflicted that ingenuity
|
||
could invent and cruelty accomplish. Many volumes have been
|
||
published filled with accounts of these experiments, giving all the
|
||
details and the results. People who are curious about such things
|
||
can read these reports. There is no need of repeating these savage
|
||
experiments, It is now known how long a dog can live with all the
|
||
pores of his skin closed, how long he can survive the loss of his
|
||
skin, or one lobe of his brain, or both of his kidneys, or part of
|
||
his intestines, or without his liver, and there is no necessity of
|
||
mutilating and mangling thousands of other dogs to substantiate
|
||
what is already known.
|
||
|
||
Of what possible use is it to know just how long an animal can
|
||
live without water -- at what time he becomes insane from thirst,
|
||
or blind or deaf?
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE WORLD'S FAIR Will do great good. A great many thousand
|
||
people of the Old World will for the first time understand the new;
|
||
will for the first time appreciate what a free people can do. For
|
||
the first time they will know the value of free institutions, of
|
||
individual independence, of a country where people express their
|
||
thoughts, are not afraid of each other, not afraid to try -- a
|
||
people so accustomed to success that disaster is not taken into
|
||
calculation. Of course, we have great advantages. We have a new
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
half of the world. We have soil better than is found in other
|
||
countries, and the soil is new and generous and anxious to be
|
||
cultivated. So we have everything in hill and mountain that man can
|
||
need -- silver, and gold, and iron beyond computation -- and, in
|
||
addition to all that, our people are the most inventive. We sustain
|
||
about the same relation to invention that Italy in her palmy days
|
||
did to art, or that Spain did to superstition.
|
||
|
||
And right here it may be well enough to say that I think it
|
||
was exceedingly unfortunate that this country was discovered under
|
||
the auspices of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella were a couple of
|
||
wretches. The same year that Columbus discovered America, these
|
||
sovereigns expelled the Jews from Spain, and the expulsion was
|
||
accompanied by every outrage, by every atrocity to which man --
|
||
that is to say, savage man -- that is to say, the superstitious
|
||
savage -- is capable of inflicting.
|
||
|
||
The Spaniards came to America and destroyed two civilizations
|
||
far better than their own. They were natural robbers, buccaneers,
|
||
and thought nothing of murdering thousands for gold. I am perfectly
|
||
willing to celebrate the fact of discovery, but for the sovereigns
|
||
of Spain I am not willing to celebrate, except, perhaps their
|
||
deaths. There is at least some joy to be extracted from that.
|
||
|
||
In spite of the untoward circumstances under which the
|
||
continent was discovered and settled, there is one thing that
|
||
counteracted to a certain degree the influence of the Old World in
|
||
the New. Possibly we owe our liberty to the Indians. If there had
|
||
been no hostile savages on this continent, the kings and princes of
|
||
the Old World would have taken possession and would have divided it
|
||
out among their favorites. They tried to do that, but their
|
||
favorites could not take possession. They had to fight for the soil
|
||
and in the conflict of centuries they found that a good fighter was
|
||
a good citizen, and the ideas of caste were slowly lost.
|
||
|
||
Then another thing was of benefit to us. The settlers felt
|
||
that they had earned the soil; that they had fought for it, gained
|
||
it by their sufferings, their courage, their self-denial, and their
|
||
labor; and the idea crept into their heads that the kings in
|
||
Europe, who had done nothing, had no right to dictate to them.
|
||
|
||
Thus at first the spirit of caste was destroyed by
|
||
respectability resting on usefulness. The spirit of subserviency to
|
||
the Old World also died, and the people who had rescued the land
|
||
made up their minds not only to own it, but to control it. They
|
||
were also firmly convinced that the profits belonged to them. ln
|
||
this way manhood was recognized in the New World. In this way grew
|
||
up the feeling of nationality here.
|
||
|
||
What I wish to see celebrated in this great exposition are the
|
||
triumphs that have been achieved in this New World. These I wish to
|
||
see above all. At the same time I want the best that labor and
|
||
thought have produced in all countries. It seems to me that in the
|
||
presence of the wonderful machines, of those marvelous mechanical
|
||
contrivances by which we take advantage of the forces of nature, by
|
||
which we make servants of the elemental powers -- in the presence,
|
||
I say, of these, it seems to me respect for labor must be born. We
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
shall begin to appreciate the men of use instead of those who have
|
||
posed as decorations. All the beautiful things, all the useful
|
||
things, come from labor, and it is labor that has made the world a
|
||
fit habitation for the human race.
|
||
|
||
Take from the World's Fair what labor has produced -- the work
|
||
of the great artists -- and nothing will be left. What have the
|
||
great conquerors to show in this great exhibition? What shall we
|
||
get from the Caesars and the Napoleons? What shall we get from
|
||
popes and cardinals? What shall we get from the nobility? From
|
||
princes and lords and dukes? What excuse have they for having
|
||
existence and for having lived on the bread earned by honest men?
|
||
They stand in the show-windows of history, lay figures, on which
|
||
fine goods are shown, but inside the raiment there is nothing, and
|
||
never was. This exposition will be the apotheosis of labor. No man
|
||
can attend it without losing, if he has any sense at all, the
|
||
spirit of caste; or, if he still maintains it, he will put the
|
||
useful in the highest class, and the useless, whether carrying
|
||
scepters or dishes for alms, in the lowest.
|
||
|
||
October, 1892.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE SAVAGE made of the river, the tree, the mountain, a
|
||
fetich. He put within, or behind these things, a spirit - according
|
||
to Mr. Spencer, the spirit of a dead ancestor, This is considered
|
||
by the modern Christian, and in fact by the modern philosopher, as
|
||
the lowest possible phase of the religious idea. To put behind the
|
||
river or the tree, or within them, a spirit, a something, is
|
||
considered the religion of savagery; but to put behind the
|
||
universe, or within it, the same kind of fetich, is considered the
|
||
height of philosophy.
|
||
|
||
For my part, I see no possible distinction in these systems,
|
||
except that the view of the savage is altogether the more poetic.
|
||
The fetich of the savage is the noumenon of the Greek, the God of
|
||
the theologian, the First Cause of the metaphysician. the
|
||
Unknowable of Spencer.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE UNTHINKABLE. -- It is admitted by all who have thought
|
||
upon the question that a First Cause is unthinkable -- that a
|
||
creative power is beyond the reach of human thought. It therefore
|
||
follows that the miraculous is unthinkable. There is no possible
|
||
way in which the human mind can even think of a miracle. It is
|
||
infinitely beyond our power of conception. We can conceive of the
|
||
statement, but not of the thing. It is impossible for the intellect
|
||
to conceive of a clay pot producing oil. It is impossible to
|
||
conceive even, of human life being perpetuated in the midst of
|
||
fire. This is just as unthinkable as that twice two are twenty-
|
||
seven. A man can say that three times three are two, but it is
|
||
impossible to think of any such thing -- that is, to think of such
|
||
a statement as true. A man may say that he heard a stone sing a
|
||
song and heard it afterward repeat a part of Milton's "Paradise
|
||
Lost." Now, I can conceive of a man telling such a falsehood, but
|
||
I cannot conceive of the thing having happened.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
21
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
CAN HUMAN TESTIMONY OVERCOME THE APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT
|
||
EXPLANATION? -- It can only be believed by a philosophic mind when
|
||
explained -- that is to say, by being destroyed as a miracle, and
|
||
persisting simply as a fact.
|
||
|
||
Now, I say that a miracle is unthinkable because a power above
|
||
Nature, a power that created Nature, is unthinkable. And if a power
|
||
above Nature be unthinkable, the miracles claiming to be
|
||
supernatural are unthinkable. In other words, all consequences
|
||
flowing from a belief in an infinite Creator are necessarily
|
||
unthinkable.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
EDOUARD REMENYI. -- This week the great violinist, Edouard
|
||
Remenyi, as my guest, visited the Bass Rocks House, Cape Ann,
|
||
Mass., and for three days delighted and entranced the fortunate
|
||
idlers of the beach. He played nearly all the time, night and day,
|
||
seemingly carried away with his own music. Among the many
|
||
selections given, were the andante from the Tenth Sonata in E flat,
|
||
also from the Twelfth Sonata in G minor, by Mozart. Nothing could
|
||
exceed the wonderful playing of the selections from the Twelfth
|
||
Sonata. A hush as of death fell upon the audience, and when he
|
||
ceased, tears fell upon applauding hands. Then followed the Elegie
|
||
from Ernst; then "The Ideal Dance" composed by himself -- a fairy
|
||
piece, full of wings and glancing feet, moonlight, and melody,
|
||
where fountains fall in showers of pearl, and waves of music die on
|
||
sands of gold -- then came the "Barcarole" by Schubert, and he
|
||
played this with infinite spirit, in a kind of inspired frenzy, as
|
||
though music itself were mad with joy; then the grand Sonata in G,
|
||
in three movements, by Beethoven. --
|
||
|
||
August, 1880.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
REMENYI'S PLAYING. -- In my mind the old tones are still
|
||
rising and falling -- still throbbing, pleading, beseeching,
|
||
imploring, wailing like the lost -- rising winged and triumphant,
|
||
superb and victorious -- then caressing, whispering every thought
|
||
of love -- intoxicated, delirious with joy -- panting with passion
|
||
-- fading to silence as softly and imperceptibly as consciousness
|
||
is lost in steep.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE KINDERGARTEN is perfectly adapted to the natural needs and
|
||
desires of children. Most children dislike the old system and go
|
||
"unwillingly to school." They feel imprisoned and wait impatiently
|
||
for their liberty. They learn without understanding and take no
|
||
interest in their lessons. In the Kindergarten there is perfect
|
||
liberty, and study is transformed into play. To learn is a
|
||
pleasure. There are no wearisome tasks -- no mental drudgery --
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
22
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
nothing but enjoyment, -- the enjoyment of natural development in
|
||
natural ways. Children do not have to be driven to the
|
||
Kindergarten. To be kept away is a punishment.
|
||
|
||
The experience in many towns and cities justifies our belief
|
||
that the Kindergarten is the only valuable school for little
|
||
children. They are brought in contact with actual things -- with
|
||
forms and colors -- things that can be seen and touched, and they
|
||
are taught to use their hands and senses -- to understand qualities
|
||
and relations, and all is done under the guise of play. We agree
|
||
with Froebel who said: "Let us live for our children."
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE METHODIST CHURCH STATISTICS. -- First. In 1800, a
|
||
resolution in favor of gradual emancipation was defeated.
|
||
|
||
Second. In 1804, resolutions passed requiring ministers to
|
||
exhort slaves to be obedient to their masters.
|
||
|
||
Third. In 1808, everything about laymen owning slaves stricken
|
||
out.
|
||
|
||
Fourth. In 1820, a resolution that ministers should not hold
|
||
slaves was defeated.
|
||
|
||
Fifth. In 1836, a resolution passed that the Methodist Church
|
||
opposed abolition of slavery -- one hundred and twenty to fourteen.
|
||
|
||
Sixth. In 1845-1846, the Methodist Church divided -- Bishop
|
||
Andrews owned slaves.
|
||
|
||
Seventh. As late as 1860 there were over ten thousand
|
||
Methodists who were slave-holders in the M.E. Church, North.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Response to an invitation to a dinner and a billiard
|
||
tournament at the Manhattan Athletic Club, New York City.
|
||
|
||
|
||
117 East 21st Str., N. Y.
|
||
|
||
Feby. 18, 1899.
|
||
|
||
My DEAR DR. RANNEY:
|
||
|
||
I go to Boston to-morrow. So, you see it is impossible for me
|
||
to be with you on the 22d inst. I would like to make a few remarks
|
||
on "orthodox billiards." The fact is that the whole world is a
|
||
table, we are the balls and Fate plays the game. We are knocked and
|
||
whacked against each other, -- followed and drawn -- whirled and
|
||
twisted, pocketed and spotted, and all the time we think that we
|
||
are doing the playing. But no matter, we feel that we are in the
|
||
game, and a real good illusion is, after all, it may be, the only
|
||
reality that we know. At the same time, I feel that Fate is a
|
||
careless player -- that he is always a little nervous and generally
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
23
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
forgets to chalk his cue. I know that he has made lots of mistakes
|
||
with me -- lots of misses.
|
||
|
||
With many thanks, I remain, yours always.
|
||
|
||
R.G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS, 1891. -- It is beautiful to give one
|
||
day to the ideal -- to have one day apart; one day for generous
|
||
deeds, for good will, for gladness; one day to forget the shadows,
|
||
the rains, the storms of life; to remember the sunshine, the
|
||
happiness of youth and health; one day to forget the briers and
|
||
thorns of the winding path, to remember the fruits and flowers; one
|
||
day in which to feed the hungry, to salute the poor and lowly one
|
||
day to feel the brotherhood of man; one day to remember the heroic
|
||
and loving deeds of the dead; one day to get acquainted with
|
||
children, to remember the old, the unfortunate and the imprisoned;
|
||
one day in which to forget yourself and think lovingly of others;
|
||
one day for the family, for the fireside, for wife and children,
|
||
for the love and laughter, the joy and rapture, of home; one day in
|
||
which bonds and stocks and deeds and notes and interest and
|
||
mortgages and all kinds of business and trade are forgotten, and
|
||
all stores and shops and factories and offices and banks and
|
||
ledgers and accounts and lawsuits are cast aside, put away and
|
||
locked up, and the weary heart and brain are given a voyage to
|
||
fairyland.
|
||
|
||
Let us hope that such a day is a prophecy of what all days
|
||
will be.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE ORTHODOX PREACHERS are several centuries in the rear. They
|
||
all love the absurd, and glory in believing the impossible. They
|
||
are also as conservative as though they were dead -- good people --
|
||
the leaders of those who are going backward.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE MAN who builds a home erects a temple. The flame upon the
|
||
hearth is the sacred fire.
|
||
|
||
He who loves wife and children is the true worshiper.
|
||
|
||
Forms and ceremonies, kneelings and fastings are born of
|
||
selfish fear,
|
||
|
||
A good deed is the best prayer.
|
||
|
||
A loving life is the best religion.
|
||
|
||
No one knows whether the Unknown is worthy of worship or not.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
24
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
WE TWO, the doubting brain and hoping heart, with somber
|
||
thought and radiant wish, in dusk and dawn, in light and shade
|
||
'neath star and sun, together journeying toward the night. And then
|
||
the end, sighs the doubting brain -- but there is no end, says the
|
||
hoping heart. O Brain! if you knew, you would not doubt. O Heart!
|
||
if you knew, you would not hope.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
RIGHTS AND DUTIES spring from the same source. He who has no
|
||
rights has no duties. Without liberty there can be no
|
||
responsibility and no conscience. Man calls himself to an account
|
||
for the use of his power, and passes judgment upon himself. The
|
||
standard of such judgment we call conscience. In the proportion
|
||
that man uses his liberty, his power, for the good of all, he
|
||
advances, becomes civilized. Civilization does not consist merely
|
||
in invention, discovery, material advancement, but in doing
|
||
justice. By civilization is meant all discoveries, facts, theories,
|
||
agencies, that add to the happiness of man.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
AT BAY. -- Sometimes in the darkness of night I feel as though
|
||
surrounded by the great armies of effacement -- that the horizon is
|
||
growing smaller every moment -- that the final surrender is only
|
||
postponed -- that everything is taking something from me -- that
|
||
Nature robs me with her countless hands -- that my heart grows
|
||
weaker with every beat -- that even kisses wear me away, and that
|
||
every thought takes toll of my brief life.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Written on the first anniversary of his grandchild, Eva
|
||
Ingersoll-Brown, August 27, 1892.
|
||
|
||
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY. -- One year of perfect health -- of
|
||
countless smiles -- of wonder and surprise -- of growing thought
|
||
And love -- was duly celebrated on this day, and all paid tribute
|
||
to the infant queen. There were whirling things that scattered
|
||
music as they turned -- and boxes filled with tunes -- and curious
|
||
animals of whittled wood -- and ivory rings with tinkling bells --
|
||
and little dishes for a fairy-feast -- horses that rocked, and
|
||
bleating sheep and monstrous elephants of painted tin. A baby-
|
||
tender, for a tender babe, garments of silk and cushions wrought
|
||
with flowers, and pictures of her mother when a babe -- and silver
|
||
dishes for another year -- and coach and four and train of cars --
|
||
and bric-a-brac for a baby's house -- and last of all, a pearl, to
|
||
mark her first round year of life and love.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
SHELLEY. -- The light of morn beyond the purple hills -- a
|
||
palm that lifts its coronet of leaves above the desert's sands --
|
||
an isle of green in some far sea -- a spring that waits for lips of
|
||
thirst -- a strain of music heard within some palace wrought of
|
||
dreams -- a cloud of gold above a setting sun -- a fragrance wafted
|
||
from some unseen shore.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
25
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
FATE. -- Never hurried, never delayed, passionless, pitiless,
|
||
patient, keeping the tryst -- neither early nor late -- there, on
|
||
the very stroke and center of the instant fixed.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
QUIET, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. Toward
|
||
evening the mind grows satisfied and still. The flare and flicker
|
||
of youth are gone, and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where
|
||
the air is at rest. Age discards the superfluous, the immaterial,
|
||
the straw and chaff, and hoards the golden grain. The highway is
|
||
known, and the paths no longer mislead. Clouds are not mistaken for
|
||
mountains.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE OLD MAN has been long at the fair. He is acquainted with the
|
||
jugglers at the booths. His curiosity has been satisfied. He no
|
||
longer cares for the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and
|
||
deformed. He looks through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and
|
||
gloss, not only of things, but of conduct, of manners, theories,
|
||
religions and philosophies. He sees clearer. The light no longer
|
||
shines in his eyes.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE TIME will come when even selfishness will be charitable
|
||
for its own sake, because at that time the man will have grown and
|
||
developed to that degree that selfishness demands generosity and
|
||
kindness and justice. The self becomes so noble that selfishness is
|
||
a virtue. The lowest form of selfishness is when one is willing to
|
||
be happy, or wishes to be happy, at the expense or the misery of
|
||
another. The highest form of selfishness is when a man becomes so
|
||
noble that he finds his happiness in making others so. This is the
|
||
nobility of selfishness.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
CUBA fell upon her knees -- stretched her thin hands toward
|
||
the great Republic. We saw her tear-filled eyes -- her withered
|
||
breasts -- her dead babes -- her dying -- her buried and unburied
|
||
dead. We heard her voice, and pity, roused to action by her grief,
|
||
became as stern as justice, and the great Republic cried to Spain:
|
||
"Sheathe the dagger of assassination; take your bloody hand from
|
||
the throat of the helpless; and take your flag from the heaven of
|
||
the stem World."
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
PERHAPS I have reached the years of discretion. But it may be
|
||
that discretion is the enemy of happiness. If the buds had
|
||
discretion there might be no fruit. So it may be that the follies
|
||
committed in the spring give autumn the harvest. --
|
||
|
||
August 11, 1892.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
26
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
DICKENS wrote for homes -- Thackdray for clubs. Byron did not
|
||
care for the fireside -- for the prattle of babes -- for the smiles
|
||
and tears of humble life. He was touched by grandeur rather than
|
||
goodness, -- loved storm and crag and the wild sea. But Burns lived
|
||
in the valley, touched by the joys and griefs of lowly lives.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
IMAGINE amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals
|
||
mingled as liquids -- then imagine these marvelous glories of light
|
||
and color changed to a tone, and you have the wondrous, the
|
||
incomparable voice of Scalchi.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE ORGAN. -- The beginnings -- the timidities -- the half
|
||
thoughts -- blushes -- suggestions -- a phrase of grace and feeling
|
||
-- a sustained note -- the wing on the wind -- confidence -- the
|
||
flight -- rising with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous
|
||
swell -- in the passionate tremor -- rising still higher --
|
||
flooding the great dome with the soul of enraptured sound.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
NEW MEXICO is a most wonderful country. It is a ragged miser
|
||
with billions of buried treasure. It looks as if Nature had guarded
|
||
her silver and gold with enough desolation to deter all but the
|
||
brave.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
WHY should the Indian summer of a life be lost -- the long,
|
||
serene, and tender days when earth and sky are friends? The falling
|
||
leaves disclose the ripened fruit -- and so the flight of youth
|
||
with dreams and fancies should show the wealth of bending bough.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
[From a letter thanking a friend for a Christmas present of a
|
||
chest of tea.]
|
||
|
||
GIVE milk to babes, and wine to youth. But for old age, when
|
||
ghosts of more than two-score years are wandering on the traveled
|
||
road, the fragrant tea, that loosens gossip's tongue, is best. --
|
||
|
||
December 25, 1892.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ON Memorial Day our hearts blossom in gratitude as we lovingly
|
||
remember the brave men upon whose brows Death, with fleshless
|
||
hands, placed the laurel wreath of fame.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
27
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
THE soul is an architect -- it builds a habitation for itself
|
||
-- and as the soul is, is the habitation. Some live in dens and
|
||
caves, and some in lowly homes made rich with love, and overrun
|
||
with vine and flower.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
SCIENCE at last holds with honest hand the scales wherein are
|
||
weighed the facts and fictions of the world. She neither kneels nor
|
||
prays, she stands erect and thinks. Her tongue is not a traitor to
|
||
her brain. Her thought and speech agree.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE NEGRO who can pass me in the race of life will receive my
|
||
admiration, and he can count on my friendship. No man ever lived
|
||
who proved his superiority by trampling on the weak.
|
||
|
||
RELIGION is like a palm tree -- it grows at the top. The dead
|
||
leaves are all orthodox, while the new ones and the buds are all
|
||
heretics.
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
MEMORY is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the
|
||
spendthrift.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
HOPE is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE FIRES of the next world sustain the same relation to
|
||
churches that those in this world sustain to insurance companies.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
NOW and then there arises a man who on peril's edge draws from
|
||
the scabbard of despair the sword of victory.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE FALLING leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler
|
||
sense, a prophecy of spring.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
VICE lives either before Love is born, or after Love is dead.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
INTELLECTUAL freedom is only the right to be honest.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
I BELIEVE that finally man will go through the phase of
|
||
religion before birth.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
28
|
||
|
||
FRAGMENTS.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
WHEN shrill chanticleer pierces the dull ear of mom.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ORTHODOXY IS the refuge of mediocrity.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE ocean is the womb of all that will be, the tomb of all
|
||
that has been.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
JEALOUSY never knows the value of a fact.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
ENVY cannot reason. malice cannot prophesy.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
LOVE has a kind of second sight.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
I HAVE never given to any one a sketch of my life. According
|
||
to my idea a life should not be written until it has been lived. --
|
||
|
||
July, 1, 1888.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom Inc. is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
29
|
||
|