846 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
846 lines
38 KiB
Plaintext
13 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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Contents of this file page
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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER. 1
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ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA. 6
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NOMINATION OF BLAINE 10
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THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS. 12
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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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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
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New York, December 27, 1890.
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TOAST.
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Athletics among the Ancients.
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THE first record of public games is found in the twenty-third
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Book of the Iliad. These games were performed at the funeral of
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Patroclus, and there were: First. A chariot race, and the first
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prize was:
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"A woman fair, well skilled in household care."
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Second. There was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize,
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appropriately enough, was a mule.
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It gave me great pleasure to find that Homer did not hold in
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high esteem the victor. I have reached this conclusion, because the
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poet put these words in the month of Eppius, the great boxer:
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In the battle-field I claim no special praise;
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'Tis not for man in all things to excel --"
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winding up with the following refined declaration concerning his
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opponent
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"I mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones."
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After the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. He
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spit forth clotted gore. His head rolled from side to side, until
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he fell unconscious.
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Third, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth,
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throwing the iron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing
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the javelin.
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All of these games were in honor of Patroclus. This is the
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same Patroclus who according to Shakespeare, addressed Achilles in
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these words:
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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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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
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"Rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid
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Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
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And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
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Be shook to air."
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These games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. The
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chariot was used in war. Man should know the use of his hands, to
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the end that he may repel assault. He should know the use of the
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sword, to the end that he may strike down his enemy. He should be
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skillful with the arrow, to the same end. If overpowered, he seeks
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safety in flight -- he should therefore know how to run. So, too,
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he could preserve himself by the skillful throwing of the javelin,
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and in the close encounter a knowledge of wrestling might save his
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life.
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Man has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-
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defence is nearly as important now as ever -- and will be, until
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man rises to that supreme height from which he will be able to see
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that no one can commit a crime against another without injuring
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himself.
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The Greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the
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soul -- that the better the body -- other things being equal -- the
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greater the mind. They also knew that the body could be developed,
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and that such development would give, or add to the health, the
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courage, the endurance, the self-confidence, the independence and
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the morality of the human race. They knew, too, that health was the
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foundation, the corner-stone, of happiness.
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They knew that human beings should know something about
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themselves, something of the capacities of body and mind, to the
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end that they might ascertain the relation between conduct and
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happiness, between temperance and health.
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It is needless to say that the Greeks were the most
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intellectual of all races, and that they were in love with beauty,
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with proportion, with the splendor of the body and of mind; and so
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great was their admiration for the harmoniously developed, that
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Sophocles had the honor of walking naked at the head of a great
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procession.
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The Greeks, through their love of physical and mental
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development, gave us the statues -- the most precious of all
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Inanimate things -- of far more worth than all the diamonds and
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rubies and pearls that ever glittered in crowns and tiaras, on
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altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on woman's billowed
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breast. In these marbles we find the highest types of life, of
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superb endeavor and supreme repose. In looking at them we feel that
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blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. These miracles of
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art are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race.
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The nations in love with life, have games. To them existence
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is exultation. They are fond of nature. They seek the woods and
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streams. They love the winds and waves of the sea. They enjoy the
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poem of the day, the drama of the year.
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Our Puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite
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responsibility. They were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought
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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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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
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of sport, except the flogging of Quakers, than shipwrecked wretches
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huddled on a raft would turn their attention to amateur
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theatricals.
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For many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying casket,
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in which had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer
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rotten the casket the more brilliant the jewel.
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In those blessed days, the diseased were sainted, and insanity
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born of fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked
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upon as evidence of inspiration. Cleanliness was not next to
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godliness -- it was the opposite; and in those days, what was known
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as "the odor of sanctity" had a substantial foundation. Diseased
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bodies produced all kinds of mental maladies. There is a direct
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relation between sickness and superstition. Everybody knows that
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Calvinism was the child of indigestion.
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Spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased,
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as vultures sail above the dead.
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Our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual,
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and that good health was inconsistent with the highest forms of
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piety. This heresy crept into the minds even of secular writers,
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and the novelists described their heroines as weak and languishing,
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pale as lilies, and in the place of health's brave flag they put
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the hectic flush.
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Weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of
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all. Nothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store
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attachment.
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People became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the
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evidences of labor. They avoided "sun-burnt mirth " - were proud of
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pallor, and regarded small, white hands as proof that they had
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noble blood within their veins. It was a joy to be too weak to
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work, too languishing to labor.
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The tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to
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desire health, to admire physical development, symmetry of form,
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and we now know that a race with little feet and hands has passed
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the climax and is traveling toward the eternal night.
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When the central force is strong, men and women are full of
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life to the finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to
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shrivel at the extremities -- the hands and feet grow small, and
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the mental flame wavers and wanes.
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To be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.
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Nobility is a question of character, not of birth.
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Honor cannot be received as alms it must be earned.
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It is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.
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All exercise should be for the sake of development -- that is
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to say, for the sake of health, and for the sake of the mind -- all
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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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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
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to the end that the person may become better, greater, more useful.
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The gymnast or the athlete should seek for health as the student
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should seek for truth; but when athletics degenerate into mere
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personal contests, they become dangerous, because the contestants
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lose sight of health, as in the excitement of debate the students
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prefer personal victory to the ascertainment of truth.
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There is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs,
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and that is, anything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the
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finer feelings. Nothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than
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pugilism -- nothing more demoralizing than an exhibition of
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strength united with ferocity, and where the very body developed by
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exercise is mutilated and disfigured.
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Sports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the
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unfeeling, the hardened and the really brainless, should be
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avoided. No gentleman should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting
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of dogs, the shooting of pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill.
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All these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize
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not only the actors, but the lookers on. Such sports are savage,
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fit only to be participated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of
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Central Africa or the anthropoid apes.
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Find what a man enjoys -- what he laughs at -- what he calls
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diversion -- and you know what he is. Think of a man calling
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himself civilized, who is in raptures at a bull fight -- who smiles
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when he sees the hounds pursue and catch and tear in pieces the
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timid hare, and who roars with laughter when he watches the
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pugilists pound each other's faces, closing each other's eyes,
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breaking jaws and smashing noses. Such men are beneath the animals
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they torture -- on a level with the pugilists they applaud.
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Gentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable contempt. No man
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finds pleasure in inflicting pain.
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In every public school there should be a gymnasium. It is
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useless to cram minds and deform bodies. Hands should be educated
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as well as heads. All should be taught the sports and games that
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require mind, muscle, nerve and judgment.
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Even those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the
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whole body may be developed. Those who work at one employment
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become deformed. Proportion is lost. But where harmony is preserved
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by the proper exercise, even old age is beautiful.
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To the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich,
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obstacles small, and success easy. They laugh at cold and storm.
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Whatever the season may be their hearts are filled with summer.
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Millions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what
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it is to live. They simply succeed in postponing death. Without
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appetites, without passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in
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a waveless pool. They never know the glory of success, the rapture
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of the fight.
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To become effeminate is to invite misery. In the most delicate
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bodies may be found the most degraded souls. It was the Duchess
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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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MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
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Josiane whose pampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought
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of hell as a place where people were compelled to sleep between
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coarse sheets.
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We need the open air -- we need the experience of heat and
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cold. We need not only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline
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of our mother Nature. Life is not all sunshine, neither is it all
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storm, but man should be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand
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the other.
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I believe in the religion of the body -- of physical
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development -- in devotional exercise -- in the beatitudes of
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cheerfulness, good health, good food, good clothes, comradeship,
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generosity, and above all, in happiness. I believe in salvation
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here and now. Salvation from deformity and disease -- from weakness
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and pain -- from ennui and insanity. I believe in heaven here and
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now -- the heaven of health and good digestion -- of strength and
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long life -- of usefulness and joy. I believe in the builders and
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defenders of homes.
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The gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work.
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To their energy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the
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grandest athletic clubhouse in the world. Let these clubs multiply.
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Let the example be followed, until our country is filled with
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physical and intellectual athletes -- superb fathers, perfect
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mothers, and every child an heir to health and joy.
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**** ****
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ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
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New York, June 5, 1888.
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MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have addressed, or
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annoyed, a great many audiences in my life and I have not the
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slightest doubt that I stand now before more ability, a greater
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variety of talent, and more real genius than I ever addressed in my
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life.
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I know all about respectable stupidity, and I am perfectly
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acquainted with the brainless wealth and success of this life, and
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I know, after all, how poor the world would be without that divine
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thing that we call genius -- what a worthless habitation, if you
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take from it all that genius has given.
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I know also that all joy springs from a love of nature. I know
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that all joy is what I call Pagan. The natural man takes delight in
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everything that grows, in everything that shines, in everything
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that enjoys -- he has an immense sympathy with the whole human
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race.
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Of that feeling, of that spirit, the drama is born. People
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must first be in love with life before they can think it worth
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representing. They must have sympathy with their fellows before
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they can enter into their feelings and know what their heart throbs
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about. So, I say, back of the drama is this love of life, this love
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of nature. And whenever a country becomes prosperous -- and this
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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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ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
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has been pointed out many times -- when a wave of wealth runs over
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a land, -- behind it you will see all the sons and daughters of
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genius. When a man becomes of some account he is worth painting.
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When by success and prosperity he gets the pose of a victor, the
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sculptor is inspired; and when love is really in his heart, words
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burst into blossom and the poet is born. When great virtues appear,
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when magnificent things are done by heroines and heroes, then the
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stage is built, and the life of a nation is compressed into a few
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hours, or -- to use the language of the greatest -- "turning the
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accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass"; the stage is
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born, and we love it because we love life -- and he who loves the
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stage has a kind of double life.
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The drama is a crystallization of history, an epitome of the
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human heart. The past is lived again and again, and we see upon the
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stage, love, sacrifice, fidelity, courage -- all the virtues
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mingled with all the follies.
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And what is the great thing that the stage does? It cultivates
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the imagination. And let me say now, that the imagination
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constitutes the great difference between human beings.
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The imagination is the mother of pity, the mother of
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generosity, the mother of every possible virtue. It is by the
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imagination that you are enabled to put yourself in the place of
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another. Every dollar that has been paid into your treasury came
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from an imagination vivid enough to imagine himself or herself
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lying upon the lonely bed of pain, or as having fallen by the
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wayside of life, dying alone. It is this imagination that makes the
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difference in men.
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Do you believe that a man would plunge the dagger into the
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heart of another if he had imagination enough to see him dead --
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imagination enough to see his widow throw her arms about the corpse
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and cover his face with sacred tears -- imagination enough to see
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them digging his grave, and to see the funeral and to hear the
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clods fall upon the coffin and the sobs of those who stood about --
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do you believe he would commit the crime? Would any man be false
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who had imagination enough to see the woman that he once loved, in
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the darkness of night, when the black clouds were floating through
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the sky hurried by the blast as thoughts and memories were hurrying
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through her poor brain -- if he could see the white flutter of her
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garment as she leaped to the eternal, blessed sleep of death -- do
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you believe that he would be false to her? I tell you that he would
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be true.
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So that, in my judgment, the great mission of the stage is to
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cultivate the human imagination. That is the reason fiction has
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done so much good. Compared with the stupid lies called history,
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how beautiful are the imagined things with painted wings. Everybody
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detests a thing that pretends to be true and is not; but when it
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says, "I am about to create," then it is beautiful in the
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proportion that it is artistic, in the proportion that it is a
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success.
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Imagination is the mother of enthusiasm. Imagination fans the
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little spark into a flame great enough to warm the human race; and
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enthusiasm is to the mind what spring is to the world.
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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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ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
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Now I am going to say a few words because I want to, and
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because I have the chance.
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What is known as "orthodox religion" has always been the enemy
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of the theater. It has been the enemy of every possible comfort, of
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every rational joy -- that is to say, of amusement. And there is a
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reason for this. Because, if that religion be true, there should be
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no amusement. If you believe that in every moment is the peril of
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eternal pain -- do not amuse yourself. Stop the orchestra, ring
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down the curtain, and be as miserable as you can. That idea puts an
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infinite responsibility upon the soul -- an infinite responsibility
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-- and how can there be any art, how can there be any joy, after
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that? You might as well pile all the Alps on one unfortunate ant,
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and then say, "Why don't you play? Enjoy yourself."
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If that doctrine be true, every one should regard time as a
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kind of dock, a pier running out into the ocean of eternity, on
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which you sit on your trunk and wait for the ship of death --
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solemn, lugubrious, melancholy to the last degree.
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And that is why I have said joy is Pagan. It comes from a love
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of nature, from a love of this world, from a love of this life.
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According to the idea of some good people, life is a kind of green-
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room, where you are getting ready for a "play" in some other
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country.
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You all remember the story of "Great Expectations," and I
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presume you have all had them. That is another thing about this
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profession of acting that I like -- you do not know how it is
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coming out -- and there is this delightful uncertainty.
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You have all read the book called "Great Expectations,"
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written, in my judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote
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the English language -- the man who created a vast realm of joy. I
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love the joy-makers -- not the solemn, mournful wretches. And when
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I think of the church asking something of the theater, I remember
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that story of "Great Expectations." You remember Miss Haversham --
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she was to have been married some fifty or sixty years before that
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time -- sitting there in the dankness, in all of her wedding
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finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old wedding
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cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial
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residence -- you remember that she sent for that poor little boy
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Pip, and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she
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looked at him and said, "Pip, play! And if their doctrine be true,
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every actor is in that situation.
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I have always loved the theater -- loved the stage, simply
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because it has added to the happiness of this life. "Oh but," they
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say, "is it moral?" A superstitious man suspects everything that is
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pleasant. It seems inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most
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people. You let such a man pull up a little weed and taste it, and
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if it is sweet and good, he says, "I'll bet it is poison." But if
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it tastes awful, so that his face becomes a mask of disgust, he
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says, "I'll bet you that it is good medicine."
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||
Now, I believe that everything in the world that tends to make
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man happy, is moral. That is my definition of morality. Anything
|
||
that bursts into bud and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is
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||
moral.
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
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|
||
ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
|
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Some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire
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-- by a kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want
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anything, you will not want anything bad. In other words, you will
|
||
be good and moral if you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn
|
||
all your energies in the direction of repression, and if from the
|
||
tree of life you pull every leaf, and then every bud -- and if an
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apple happens to get ripe in spite of you, don't touch it --
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||
snakes!
|
||
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||
I insist that happiness is the end -- virtue the means -- and
|
||
anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything
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||
that gives laughter to the world -- laughter springing from good
|
||
nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the
|
||
ears of man. And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than
|
||
to waste your own life, and sour that of others.
|
||
|
||
Is the theater moral? I suppose you have had an election
|
||
to-day. They had an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for
|
||
bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was
|
||
over, I suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn
|
||
tone: "Is the theater moral?"
|
||
|
||
At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the
|
||
theater is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the
|
||
well-being of man. But only a few years ago our fathers were poor
|
||
barbarians. They only wanted the essentials of life, and through
|
||
nearly all the centuries Genius was a vagabond -- Art was a
|
||
servant. He was the companion of the clown. Writers, poets, actors,
|
||
either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit,"
|
||
and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs,
|
||
and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter had to
|
||
have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the
|
||
patron's wife for Venus -- and the man, he was the Apollo! So the
|
||
writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him
|
||
in a preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The
|
||
painter, the sculptor -- poor wretches -- had "patrons." Some of
|
||
the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they
|
||
were the real kings of the human race.
|
||
|
||
Now the public is the patron, The public has the intelligence
|
||
to see what it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man.
|
||
The actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or
|
||
lord. He has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he
|
||
stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any
|
||
other walk of life.
|
||
|
||
And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy
|
||
vagrants" of the old law -- and let me say one thing right here: I
|
||
do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a
|
||
little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere -- just a little
|
||
touch of chaos -- that is to say, he must have generosity enough
|
||
now and then absolutely to forget himself -- he must be generous to
|
||
that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and
|
||
without caring for the sea -- and that is that touch of chaos. And
|
||
yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread.
|
||
Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The
|
||
men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
|
||
|
||
Now, just think what would happen, what we would be, if you
|
||
could blot from this world what these men have done. If you could
|
||
take from the walls the pictures; from the niches the statues; from
|
||
the memory of man the songs that have been sung by "The Plowman" --
|
||
take from the memory of the world what has been done by the actors
|
||
and play-writers, and this great globe would be like a vast skull
|
||
emptied of all thought.
|
||
|
||
And let me say one word more, and that is as to the dignity of
|
||
your profession.
|
||
|
||
The greatest genius of this world has produced your
|
||
literature. I am not now alluding simply to one -- but there has
|
||
been more genius lavished upon the stage -- more real genius, more
|
||
creative talent, than upon any other department of human effort.
|
||
And when men and women belong to a profession that can count
|
||
Shakespeare in its number, they should feel nothing but pride.
|
||
|
||
Nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of Shakespeare --
|
||
Shakespeare, in whose brain were the fruits of all thoughts past,
|
||
the seeds of all to be -- Shakespeare, an intellectual ocean toward
|
||
which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents
|
||
of thought receive their dew and rain.
|
||
|
||
A profession that can boast that Shakespeare was one of its
|
||
members, and that from his brain poured out that mighty
|
||
intellectual cataract -- that Mississippi that will enrich all
|
||
coming generations -- the man that belongs to that profession --
|
||
should feel that no other man by reason of belonging to some other,
|
||
can be his superior.
|
||
|
||
And such a man, when he dies -- or the friend of such a man,
|
||
when that man dies -- should not imagine that it is a very generous
|
||
and liberal thing for some minister to say a few words above the
|
||
corpse -- and I do not want to see this profession cringe before
|
||
any other.
|
||
|
||
One word more. I hope that you will sustain this splendid
|
||
charity. I do not believe that more generous people exist than
|
||
actors. I hope you will sustain this charity, And yet, there was
|
||
one little thing I saw in your report of last year, that I want to
|
||
call attention to. You had "benefits" all over this country, and of
|
||
the amount raised, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars
|
||
were given to religious societies and twelve thousand dollars to
|
||
the Actors' Fund -- and yet they say actors are not Christians! Do
|
||
you not love your enemies? After this, I hope that you will also
|
||
love your friends.
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
SPEECH AT CINCINNATI
|
||
|
||
NOTE:
|
||
The nomination of Blaine was the passionately dermatic scene
|
||
of the day. Robert G. Ingersoll had been fixed upon to present
|
||
blaine's name to the Convention, and, as the result proved, a more
|
||
effective champion could not have been selected in the whole party
|
||
conclave.
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
NOMINATION OF BLAINE
|
||
|
||
As the clerk, running down the list, reached Maine, an
|
||
extraordinary event happened. The applause and cheers which had
|
||
heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the galleries and
|
||
platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous outburst from every,
|
||
part of the house.
|
||
|
||
Ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to
|
||
the central stage. As he walked forward the thundering cheers,
|
||
sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached the platform
|
||
they took on an increased volume of sound, and for ten minutes the
|
||
surging fury of acclamation, the wild waving of fans, hats, and
|
||
handkerchiefs transformed the scene from one of deliberation to
|
||
that of a bedlam of rapturous delirium Ingersoll waited with
|
||
unimpaired serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard. * *
|
||
* And then began an appeal, Impassioned, artful, brilliant, and
|
||
persuasive. * * * Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning,
|
||
cordial frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he
|
||
spoke a word. It is the attestation of every man that heard him,
|
||
that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered before a
|
||
political Convention. Its effect was indescribable. The
|
||
coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest expression.
|
||
The adversaries of Blaine, as well as his friends, listened with
|
||
unswerving, absorbed attention. Curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes
|
||
and mouth wide open, his figure moving in unison to the tremendous
|
||
periods that fell in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from
|
||
the Illinoisan's smiling lips. The matchless method and manner of
|
||
the man can never be imagined from the report in type. To realize
|
||
the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the irrestrainable
|
||
fervor of the audience requires actual sight.
|
||
|
||
Words can do but meager justice to the wizard power of this
|
||
extraordinary man. He swayed and moved and impelled and restrained
|
||
and worked in all ways with the mass before him as if he possessed
|
||
some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the human heart, and
|
||
when he finished, his fine, frank face as calm as when he began,
|
||
the overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable
|
||
wonder and delight. --
|
||
|
||
Chicago Times, June 16, 1876.
|
||
|
||
NOMINATION OF BLAINE
|
||
|
||
June 15, 1876.
|
||
|
||
MASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H.
|
||
Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by, this convention can
|
||
not carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the
|
||
loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot
|
||
carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five
|
||
thousand majority, I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as
|
||
a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker
|
||
Hill that old monument of glory.
|
||
|
||
The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in
|
||
the great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of
|
||
integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions.
|
||
They demand a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
NOMINATION OF BLAINE
|
||
|
||
before the election. They demand a politician in the highest,
|
||
broadest and best sense -- a man of superb moral courage. They
|
||
demand a man acquainted with public affairs -- with the wants of
|
||
the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with
|
||
the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to
|
||
comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of
|
||
the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and
|
||
prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They
|
||
demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the
|
||
United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt
|
||
must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows
|
||
enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot
|
||
redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the
|
||
money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough
|
||
to know that the people of the United States have the industry to
|
||
make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they
|
||
make it.
|
||
|
||
The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows
|
||
that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together;
|
||
that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden
|
||
harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the
|
||
turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in
|
||
hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled
|
||
with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons
|
||
of toil.
|
||
|
||
This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it
|
||
by passing resolutions in a political convention.
|
||
|
||
The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that
|
||
this Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad;
|
||
who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders,
|
||
and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the
|
||
world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and
|
||
divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose political
|
||
reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their
|
||
candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a
|
||
Confederate congress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded
|
||
measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand
|
||
and gallant leader of the Republican party -- James G. Blaine.
|
||
|
||
Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements
|
||
of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and
|
||
prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of
|
||
genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart,
|
||
conscience and brain beneath her flag -- such a man is James G.
|
||
Blaine.
|
||
|
||
For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can
|
||
be no defeat.
|
||
|
||
This is a grand year -- a year filled with recollections of
|
||
the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past;.
|
||
with the sacred legends of liberty -- a year in which the sons of
|
||
freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in
|
||
which the people call for the man who has preserved in Congress
|
||
what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
NOMINATION OF BLAINE
|
||
|
||
for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of
|
||
slander -- for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from
|
||
the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an
|
||
intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
|
||
challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.
|
||
|
||
Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine
|
||
marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his
|
||
shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the
|
||
defamers of his country and the malingers of his honor. For the
|
||
Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an
|
||
army should desert their general upon the field of battle.
|
||
|
||
James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of
|
||
the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred,
|
||
because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming
|
||
and without remaining free.
|
||
|
||
Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great
|
||
Republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in
|
||
the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the
|
||
name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers
|
||
dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who
|
||
perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and
|
||
Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois --
|
||
Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that
|
||
prince of parliamentarians -- that leader of leaders -- James G.
|
||
Blaine.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.
|
||
|
||
1892
|
||
|
||
AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the
|
||
God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over
|
||
Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the
|
||
embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling
|
||
Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with
|
||
his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow.
|
||
This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again
|
||
Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster
|
||
foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna
|
||
eludes the tyrant.
|
||
|
||
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its
|
||
observance be universal.
|
||
|
||
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all
|
||
religions -- the worship of the sun.
|
||
|
||
Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and
|
||
most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most
|
||
reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.
|
||
|
||
The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth,
|
||
of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying,
|
||
the all-loving.
|
||
|
||
This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for
|
||
revenge.
|
||
|
||
All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness,
|
||
of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of
|
||
Light. This is the anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the
|
||
hosts of Darkness.
|
||
|
||
Let us all hope for the triumph of Light -- of Right and
|
||
Reason -- for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over
|
||
Superstition.
|
||
|
||
And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the
|
||
Sun. --
|
||
|
||
The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
Reproducible 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
|
||
13
|
||
|