,illustration ,a ,,persian ,,pearl ,,and ,,other ,,essays ,,by ,,clarence ,s4 ,,darrow ,illustration ,,chicago ,c4 ,l4 ,,ricketts ,,mdccccii ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,copyright #ahii ,clarence ,s4 ,darrow ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,contents #a ,a ,persian ,pearl #i #b ,walt ,whitman #dc #c ,robert ,burns #gg #d ,realism in ,literature and ,art #ajg #e ,the ,skeleton in the ,closet #aci ,a ,,persian ,,pearl ,illustration ,a ,,persian ,,pearl ,the reader and observer is constantly reminded that 8there is nothing new under the sun40 ,we no sooner find some rare gem of thought or expression than we discover that it is only an old diamond1 polished anew1 perhaps1 and offered as an original stone4 ,neither the reader nor the writer is always aware that the gem is antique and the setting alone is new4 ,the rich mine where the treasure was first found was exhausted in a few brief years1 and then became like all the dust of all the worlds2 but the gem polished and worn by time and use1 ever sparkles and shines1 regardless of the fact that the miner's name is forgotten and his work alone remains4 ,thus ,nature1 the great communist1 provides that the treasures of genius1 like her own bountiful gifts of sunlight1 rain and air1 shall remain the common property of all her children while any dwell upon the earth4 ,current literature seems to point to the ascendancy of what is often termed the 8pessimistic school40 ,in one sense this philosophy uncrowns man and places him in his proper relation to the great universe1 of which he is so small a part2 but while it makes less of man1 it expects less from him1 and covers his deeds with that cloak of charity1 which is the legitimate garment of the great ,unknown4 ,but these modern reflections on life and its problems1 its purposes and lessons1 are far from new4 ,without venturing a guess as to their origin or age1 we take up that old ,persian ,pearl1--the 8,rubaiyat10 and find on its musty pages the great thoughts and searching questions1 which have ever returned to man since the intellect was born1 and which will still remain unanswered when the last word shall have been spoken1 and the race have run its course4 ,it is nearly eight hundred years since ,omar ,khayyam1 the ,persian astronomer1 philosopher1 and poet1 mused and wrote upon the uncertainty of life1 the eternity of time and the mutability of human things4 ,since the rose bush was planted above his grave1 the material world has been almost made anew4 ,art and literature have given countless treasures to the earth1 and science has solved its mysteries without end4 ,but the riddles of existence--the problems of life1 the deep heart of the universe1 the cause and purpose and end of all1 are mysteries as dark and inscrutable as they were eight centuries ago4 ,to quote from the ,rubaiyat3 ,there was the ,door to which ,i found no ,key2 ,there was the ,veil thro' which ,i could not see3 ,some little talk awhile of ,me and ,thee ,there was--and then no more of ,thee and ,me4 ,as ,egypt is the newest country visited by the traveler1 so this old book1 burnished by the genius of ,fitz,gerald1 comes to us as the latest and profoundest word upon the infinite mysteries which over-shadow human life4 ,it seems to be the last word1 rather than one of the first1 spoken to the perplexed soul of man1 calling him from the vain pursuit of vanities1 and asking what all of it is about4 ,to an egoistic1 boasting age and nation1 this message1 coming from a far off time and a distant land1 reminds us that all wisdom is garnered neither now nor here4 ,this ,persian ,pearl remained unpolished for more than seven hundred years4 ,it was left for ,edward ,fitz,gerald carefully and patiently to burnish up the gem1 and make it the thing of beauty that we know4 ,it may be that research and study would reveal much of the personal traits and private life of the great ,persian philosopher1 whose fame has so outlived his clay1 but with these we can have no concern4 ,it is not important to know his parents1 or whether he had a wife or children1 or cattle or lands4 ,all of these are gone and only his work remains4 ,true1 we cannot but reflect on the personality of the poet in whose brain these great thoughts were born1 but we can know the man only by knowing his works4 ,some there are who stand at a distance and view the acts of the imperfect beings1 who at the best stumble and grope along the uncertain path between the cradle and the grave4 ,all the footsteps that are straight and true are unnoticed as they pass by1 but the irregular1 uncertain1 shifting tracks stand out alone to mark the character of the pilgrim1 who bore his heavy load the best he could4 ,these forget that every son of man travels an unbeaten path--a road beset with dangers and temptations that no other wanderer met2 that his footsteps can be judged only in the full knowledge of the strength and light he had1 the burden that he carried1 the obstacles and temptations that he met1 and a thorough knowledge of every open and secret motive that impelled him here or there4 ,that ,omar's steps were often winding and devious1 and like those of all other mortal men1 we gather from his words4 ,no doubt his neighbors delighted in gossiping about the great philosopher1 and his reputation was often tarnished by their idle words4 ,these slanderers have been long forgotten--they could not live upon the great name they sullied1 and we should not even know he was their prey except for lines like these3 ,indeed the ,idols ,i have loved so long ,have done my credit in ,men's eyes much wrong2 ,have drown'd my ,glory in a shallow ,cup1 ,and sold my reputation for a ,song4 ,eight hundred years ago1 as to-day1 the love of wine was one of the chief weaknesses of the flesh4 ,doubtless the other frailties of human nature are of substantially the same kind as eight centuries ago1 for while man may change the fashion of his garment or religion1 nature is ever consistent and persistent1 and is the same yesterday1 to-day and forever4 ,but our old human philosopher1 like our modern human men1 saw the folly of his ways1 and made many a brave resolve1 but these good intentions and solemn purposes melted in the sunshine then the same as now4 ,indeed1 indeed1 ,repentance oft before ,i swore--but was ,i sober when ,i swore8 ,and then and then came ,spring1 and ,rose-in-hand ,my thread-bare ,penitence apieces tore4 ,but ,omar was greater than most of the weak and sinning children of to-day4 ,his own frailties taught him the rare lesson1 that of all the virtues1 charity is the chiefest6 ,and as we read the wondrous product of his brain and understand the thoughts that stirred his being1 we can know the man better than his neighbors who judged a great soul by the narrow vision of sordid minds4 ,we know that his purpose was lofty1 and above all the mists and conflicting emotions and desires of his life he rose majestic and supreme1 unsullied by the specks that can only mar the weak4 ,let us turn then to the philosophy and poetry of this great soul to know the man1 and as figs are not gathered of thistles1 we may be sure that broad thoughts1 high aspirations1 and tender charity are born only of great minds and rare men4 ,to ,omar ,khayyam1 the so-called sins of men were not crimes1 but weaknesses inherent in their being and beyond their power to prevent or overcome4 ,he knew that man could not separate himself from all the rest of nature2 and that the rules and conditions of his being were as fixed and absolute as the revolutions of the planets and the changing seasons of the year4 ,above man and his works he saw the heavy hand of destiny1 ever guiding and controlling1 ever moving its creature forward to the inevitable fate that all the centuries had placed in store for the helpless captive1 marching shackled to the block4 ,there have ever been two views of life4 ,both philosophies have been made by man and mostly for him4 ,one places him above all the rest of the universe1 whose infinite mysteries are constantly revolving and changing before his hazy1 wondering gaze4 ,the portion of the world that comes nearest to his eyes he cannot understand1 and his own existence is a riddle that all the ages have not solved4 ,and yet1 amidst it all1 one system teaches that man rules supreme1--and the fate of all the worlds1 or of all that may exist thereon1 has no relation to his own4 ,the other peers into the thick darkness that hangs above1 and can see no light1 it does not understand and will not guess2 the endless mysteries are not for mortal man to solve4 ,its devotees feel themselves part of a mighty whole1 and are powerless to separate their lives from all the rest1 and would not dare to undertake it if they could4 ,they know that in the great1 unlimited universe they are less than the tiniest bubble in the wildest1 angriest sea4 ,that in the words of the ,rubaiyat3 ,we are no other than a moving row ,of magic ,shadow-shapes that come and go ,round with this ,sun-illumined ,lantern held ,in ,midnight by the ,master of the ,show4 ,omar ,khayyam was probably not the first1 certainly not the last1 to feel the impotence of man in the great power which animates the whole4 ,he could have no faith in the cruel religious tenets1 which eight centuries ago in ,persia1 as ever since in the ,christian world1 have taught the responsibility of the helpless victim for the great1 blind work in which he had no part4 ,he seemed to think that back of all the universe1 some intelligent power moved and controlled the world for some purpose unknown to all except himself1 but he could not think that man was in any way accountable for the whole4 ,to him1 the great master sent us here or there to suit his will1 and it was left for us only to obey his mighty power4 ,the individual units of humanity were to him only3 ,impotent ,pieces of the ,game ,he plays ,upon this checker-board of ,nights and ,days2 ,hither and thither moves1 and checks1 and slays1 ,and one by one back in the ,closet lays4 ,even this does not sufficiently express his thought of man's absolute irresponsibility for his acts4 ,we have all met the parallel drawn between man and the pottery fashioned by the moulder from the clay4 ,perhaps there is no better illustration of the helplessness of the human being in the hands of the power that fashioned and shaped him1 even ages before his birth1--the uncontrollable force that determined the length of his body1 the color of his hair1 the size and shape of his brain and the contour of his face4 ,but the comparison made in the beautiful stanza wrought by ,omar1 and retouched and gilded by the magic of ,fitz,gerald1 is wondrously powerful and fine4 ,the poet ranges his poor pieces of pottery in line1 each representing a man2 each imperfect in structure or form1 like all the other creatures ever made4 ,these poor1 imperfect vessels1 fresh from the potter1 each pleads its cause and makes excuses for its faults4 ,after a momentary silence spake ,some vessel of a more ungainly ,make3 8,they sneer at me for leaning all awry3 ,what6 did the ,hand then of the ,potter shake80 ,when will humanity be great enough and good enough to distinguish between the fault of the potter and the fault of the pot6 ,when can it look over the myriads of human beings1 each with his flaws and limitations1 and pity instead of blame6 ,the history of the past is a record of man's cruel inhumanity to man2 of one imperfect vessel accusing and shattering another for the faults of both4 ,in ancient times and amongst savage tribes1 the old1 the infirm1 and the diseased were led out and put to death2 even later1 the maniac and imbecile were fettered1 chained1 beaten1 and imprisoned because they were different from other men4 ,the world has grown a little wiser1 and perhaps humaner1 as the centuries have passed away4 ,we have learned to build asylums1 and treat the afflicted with tenderness and care4 ,we have learned not to blame the dwarf for his stature2 the hunchback for his load2 the deaf because they cannot hear1 and the blind because they cannot see4 ,we do not expect the midget to carry the giant's load1 or the cripple to triumph in a contest of speed4 ,we establish a regulation size for policemen and soldiers1 but we do not put a man to death because his stature is below the standard fixed4 ,we forgive the size of the foot1 the length of the arm1 the shade of the hair1 the color of the eye1 and even the form of the skull4 ,but1 while we do not blame a man because he has an ill-shaped head1 we punish him because the brain within conforms to the bone which molds its form4 ,the world has made guns and swords1 racks and dungeons1 chains and whips1 blocks and gibbets1 and to these have dragged an endless procession thro' all the past4 ,it has penned and maimed1 tortured and killed1 because the potter's work was imperfect and the clay was weak4 ,during all the ages it has punished mental deformity as a crime1 and without pity or regret has crushed the imperfect vessels beneath its feet4 ,every jail1 every scaffold1 every victim--is a monument to its cruelty and blind unreasoning wrath4 ,whether it was a fire kindled to burn a heretic in ,geneva1--a gibbet erected to kill a witch in ,salem1--or a scaffold made to put to death an ordinary 8criminal10 it has ever been the same1--the punishment of the creature for the creator's fault4 ,there might be some excuse if man could turn from the frail1 cracked vessels1 and bring to trial the great potter for the imperfect work of his hand4 ,but we live in the shadows2 we can see only the causes and effects that are the closest to our eyes4 ,if the clouds would rise1 and the sun shine bright1 and our vision reach out into time and space1 we might find that these cracked vessels serve as high a purpose in a great1 broad scheme1 as the finest clay1 wrought in the most beautiful and perfect form4 ,the following stanza was born of this philosophy and would inevitably come from the broad1 charitable brain that had studied the creeds that told of the cruelty of the great ,maker1 but whose brain and conscience had not been stunted and warped by their palsying dogmas3 ,then said a ,second--8,ne'er a peevish ,boy ,would break the ,bowl from which he drank in joy2 ,and he that with his hand the ,vessel made ,will surely not in after ,wrath destroy40 ,the cruel religious dogmas1 which in ,omar's land and ,age1 as in our own1 blackened both man and his ,maker1 had no terrors for a soul like his4 ,he could not believe in eternal punishment4 ,the doctrine was a slander1 alike to ,god and man4 ,he felt something of the greatness of a force that could permeate and move the countless worlds1 which make up the limitless1 unfathomed infinite we call the ,universe4 ,he saw in man one of the smallest and most insignificant toys created by this power to serve some unknown end2 and he could not believe that the ,master-,builder would demand of his imperfect children more than he had furnished them the strength to give4 ,his faith in the justice of man's case before the great ,judge is shown in the following stanza3 ,oh ,thou1 who didst with pitfall and with gin ,beset the ,road ,i was to wander in1 ,thou wilt not with ,predestin'd ,evil round ,enmesh1 and then impute my ,fall to ,sin6 ,but even more strongly he presents the case of ,god against man1 and man against ,god1 for all the crimes and miseries and sufferings of the world4 ,it would doubtless be difficult in all the literature of the earth to find a juster1 bolder statement of the old question of the responsibility for sin4 ,to some minds1 this strong expression may seem like blasphemy1 but it is manly and courageous1 logical and just4 ,oh1 ,thou1 who ,man of baser ,earth didst make ,and ev'n with ,paradise devise the ,snake2 ,for all the ,sin wherewith the face of ,man ,is blacken'd--,man's forgiveness give--and take6 ,this is not the cringing prayer of the coward1 who asks ,god's forgiveness to appease his wrath1 but the utterance of a noble soul1 who asks forgiveness for the shortcomings of his life1 and at the same time pardons his ,maker for creating him as he did4 ,the world has heard much of man's duty to ,god1 of the responsibility which the unconsulted1 fragile children of a day owe to the power that is responsible for all4 ,it is time we heard more of the duty of ,god to man2 the responsibility of the ,creator for making 8conscious something0 out of unthinking1 unfeeling clay4 8,oh1 many a cup of this forbidden ,wine ,must drown the memory of that insolence60 ,the world has talked the same nonsense of the duty of children to parents4 ,it has taught this1 because parents are larger1 and have the brute power to compel obedience to their demands4 ,all the duties are from parents to children1--from those who thoughtlessly1 wantonly1 to satisfy their own desires1 call into conscious being a human life1--send another soul with all its responsibilities out on the great1 wide sea1 to be tossed and buffeted and torn1 until1 mangled and dead1 it is thrown out upon the sands to bleach4 ,but after all1 whether it was wise or unwise1 just or unjust1 we have been placed upon the earth as sentient beings and charged with the responsibilities of life2 and practical philosophy asks the question1 what does it mean1 and how shall we take the journey which a higher power has decreed that we shall make8 ,the poet and the dreamer and the copy book have told us much of the meaning of life4 ,we often repeat these lessons to make ourselves believe them true4 ,when we feel a doubt casting its shadow across our path1 we read them once again to drive the doubt away2 and yet1 in spite of all1 we know absolutely nothing of the scheme1 or whether there is any kind of plan4 ,we are only whistlers passing through a graveyard1 with our ears tied close and our eyes shut fast4 ,it would surely be as well to step boldly up and read the inscription on the marble tomb and then walk round and look at the vacant1 grinning space upon the other side1 calmly waiting to record our name4 ,measured by the philosophy of to-day1 ,omar ,khayyam was a pessimist2 he was not gifted with second sight4 ,he saw no spooks and ghosts1 and he would not look out into the midnight1 and declare that his eyes discerned a glorious rainbow1 bright with fresh colors and unbounded hopes4 ,all the proud promises and brave assumptions and false theories of the world were to him a mockery and a sham4 ,the mysticisms of religion and philosophy alike were hollow and bare4 ,the 8jarring sects0 and quibbling doctors1 with their fine-spun webs1 were worthy the attention only of children and professors4 ,this is the way he put them down3 ,myself when young did eagerly frequent ,doctor and ,saint1 and heard great argument ,about it and about2 but evermore ,came out by the same door wherein ,i went4 ,while it is true that in the common meaning ,omar was a pessimist1 still this word1 like many others1 is rarely well defined4 ,all men understand the uncertainties of life1 the disappointments and troubles of existence1 and the infinitesimal time that is reluctantly parceled out to each mortal from the eternity that had no beginning and will have no end4 ,the pessimist looks at all the hurry and rush1 the torment and strife1 the ambitions and disappointments that are the common lot1 and can see no prizes so tempting as rest and peace4 ,he makes the most of what he has1 and looks contentedly forward to the long sleep that brings relief at last4 ,omar ,khayyam was not deceived by all the glitter and bustle of the world4 ,he saw the stage from behind the curtain1 as well as from the circle before the scenes4 ,he looked on the great surging mass of men1 ever pulling and pushing1 striving and trying1 working and fighting1 as if all eternity was theirs in which to build1 and all unmindful of the silent bookkeeper1 who could be deceived by no false entries1 and ever remembered to demand his dues4 ,of life he said3 #8,tis but a ,tent where takes his one day's rest ,a ,sultan to the ,realm of ,death addrest2 ,the ,sultan rises1 and the dark ,ferrash ,strikes1 and prepares it for another ,guest4 ,in the presence of all that the world had to offer1--while honors and glories fell fast upon his head1 he still could not close his eyes to the facts of existence1 and the mortality of human things4 ,it may be that he mused too much upon the great fact that ever sternly faces life1--the great being before whom all monarchs bow1 and in whose presence all crowns are shattered4 ,to the boasting and forgetful1 these words may not be pleasant1 but they still are true3 ,why1 all the ,saints and ,sages who discuss'd ,of the ,two worlds so learnedly are thrust ,like foolish ,prophets forth2 their words to ,scorn ,are scatter'd and their ,mouths are stopt with ,dust4 ,neither the great nor the good could avoid the common fate2 the unyielding messenger came alike to call the proud ,sultan and the good and kindly friend4 ,for some we loved1 the loveliest and the best ,that from his ,vintage rolling ,time has prest1 ,have drunk their ,cup a ,round or two before1 ,and one by one crept silently to rest4 ,death is so common that we sometimes wonder why men make plans1--why they ever toil or spin4 ,but1 of course1 we can see only the leaves that fall from other stalks4 ,rarely do we feel that all this has a personal meaning1 and that our turn soon must come4 ,omar looked at the stricken friends around him1 and thus mused3 ,whether at ,naishapur or ,babylon1 ,whether the ,cup with sweet or bitter run1 ,the ,wine of ,life keeps oozing drop by drop1 ,the leaves of ,life keep falling one by one4 ,it has never required the great or the learned to note the constant falling of the leaves and the ceaseless running of the sands4 ,it is mainly from this that systems of religion have been evolved4 ,man has ever sought to make himself believe that these things are not what they seem2 that1 in reality1 death is only birth1 and the body but a prison for the soul4 ,this may be true1 but the constant cries and pleadings of the ages have brought back no answering sound to prove that death is anything but death4 ,our old philosopher could not accept these pleasing creeds on faith4 ,he preferred to plant his feet upon the shifting doubtful sands1 rather than deceive himself by alluring and delusive hopes4 ,upon the old question of immortality1 he could answer only what he knew1 and this is what he said3 ,strange1 is it not8 that of the myriads who ,before us pass'd the door of ,darkness through ,not one returns to tell us of the ,road ,which to discover we must travel too4 ,this stanza is perhaps gloomy and hopeless1 but it is thoughtful1 and brave1 and beautiful4 ,we may seek to be children if we will1 but whatever our desires1 we cannot strangle the questions that ever rise before our minds and will not be put away4 ,to our own souls we should be just and true4 ,peace and comfort1 when gained at the sacrifice of courage and integrity1 are purchased at too high a price4 ,the truth alone can make us free1 and 8,one flash of it within the tavern caught ,better than in the ,temple lost outright40 ,yes1 one flash of the true light is better than all the creeds and dogmas4 ,it is better1 even though these hold out the fairest prospects and the brightest dreams1 and the flash of true light is only the blackest midnight4 ,not only would ,omar take away the hope of ,heaven1 but he leaves us with little to boast while we live upon the earth4 ,our short1 obscure existence is not felt or noticed in the great sweep of time and the resistless movement of the years4 ,along the pathway of the world we leave scarce a footprint1 and our loudest voice and bravest words are as completely lost as if spoken in the presence of ,niagara's roar4 ,and fear not lest ,existence closing your ,account and mine1 should know the like no more2 ,the ,eternal ,saki from that ,bowl has pour'd ,millions of ,bubbles like us1 and will pour4 ,the weakness and littleness of man has been the subject of endless words before and since1 but never has poet put it more strongly than here4 ,the ,eternal ,saki--the great wine pourer1 tips his pitcher and turns out millions of bubbles1 and still they come forever1 and each of us is one4 ,but however brave and stoical ,omar seems to be1 still he feels sad when witnessing the flight of years and the ravages of time4 ,it is1 of course1 useless to fight the inevitable1 and the strongest will must bend and break before the weakening touch of age4 ,whether it is good or bad1 all cling to existence1 and sadly and reluctantly let go the tendrils that hold to pulsing life4 ,the fading of ,spring and youth1 and the coming of ,autumn with its suggestions of the approaching end1 is most beautiful and touching in this marvelous book3 ,yet1 ,ah1 that ,spring should vanish with the ,rose6 ,that ,youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close6 ,the ,nightingale that in the branches sang1 ,ah whence1 and whither flown again1 who knows6 ,this strain of sadness is sincere and true4 ,to recognize the inevitable and not pretend to deceive one's self is one thing1 but to think that all is just and wise and best may be quite another4 ,omar felt that fate was inexorable1 relentless and hard4 ,the moving ,finger writes2 and having writ1 ,moves on2 nor all your piety nor ,wit ,shall lure it back to cancel half a line1 ,nor all your ,tears wash out a ,word of it4 ,he would have tempered her hardness with a little human love and tender pity1 and bade the great ,recorder leave much untold4 ,he recognized the fact that the scheme could not be changed1 and that even our brief existence depended upon our subservience to the great will that would neither break nor bend2 but he still regretted that it was not better and kinder and more forgiving than it is4 ,there is almost a wail in the strain of sadness in which he laments the rigor of unyielding fate4 ,would that some winged ,angel ere too late ,arrest the yet unfolded ,roll of fate1 ,and make the stern ,recorder otherwise ,enregister1 or quite obliterate6 ,ah ,love6 could you and ,i with him conspire ,to grasp this sorry ,scheme of ,things entire1 ,would we not shatter it to bits--and then ,re-mould it nearer to the ,heart's ,desire8 ,it is impossible to live to a moderate age without forming some idea of the conduct of life2 this may be practical or theoretical1 or both4 ,but either with or without consciousness we construct some plan of life and its purpose1 and our daily conduct conforms more or less closely to the theory that we accept4 ,the religionist teaches that the hope of future rewards and punishments must be kept before the mind1 or man would give himself completely to indulgence1 and the race would die4 ,this theory loses sight of the fact that ,nature herself is constantly wiping out those who defy her laws1 and preserving longest those who conform to the conditions she has imposed4 ,excesses of all kinds destroy and weaken existence1 and bring the natural penalty1 which leaves only the more rational and temperate to perpetuate life upon the earth4 ,of course these observations apply1 not to the fashions and forms and conventions of man1 except so far as these conform to the unbending laws of nature1 which must ever be supreme4 ,from ,omar ,khayyam's views of life1 he could not but think that it was the duty of every pilgrim to get the most he could in his journey through the world4 ,but1 really1 all accept this obvious fact4 ,the ,religionist says merely that man should be less happy here1--that his enjoyment may be the greater in the world to come4 ,it is not in the theory as to life's purpose that men have differed1 but as to the conduct that really brings the greatest happiness when the last balance has been struck1 and the book is forever closed4 ,our poet could not see the days and years go by and life's sands swiftly running out1 and still postpone all enjoyment to some far off1 misty time4 ,he believed in the reality of to-day1 and that beyond the present all was but a vision and a dream4 ,in his day1 as in ours1 the priests held out the hope of heaven and fear of hell1 to keep the wanderer in the narrow path4 ,but ,omar was a philosopher and astronomer4 ,he peered into the infinite depths of endless space1 and could see only moving1 whirling worlds like ours1 and could find no place for heaven or hell4 ,what the mysteries of astronomy could not reveal1 the theories of life left equally in the dark4 ,while he refused to be moved by a literal heaven and hell1 he yet felt a deep meaning attached to these old religious views4 ,the humane1 progressive thinkers of to-day have scarcely gone beyond this old seer1 who lived eight centuries ago and pondered the same problems over which our theologians wrangle now4 ,the following stanza gives an interpretation of these religious dogmas1 which for beauty and breadth and insight seems to be the latest product of ethical1 religious thought1 instead of the musty musings of an old pagan1 who has been dust almost eight hundred years3 ,i sent my ,soul through the ,invisible1 ,some letter of that ,after-,life to spell2 ,and by and by my ,soul returned to me1 ,and answer'd 8,i ,myself am ,heav'n and ,hell40 ,if these places are but states of consciousness1 it of course must follow that we make our own heaven and hell1 and it is1 therefore1 the right and duty of each1 not to wait for some dreamy mirage born of old superstition1 unmanly fear1 and unfounded faith1 but to take the present1 fleeting moment1 and with it do the best we can4 ,this stanza may seem painfully sad and hopeless1 but it contains the true philosophy of life3 ,ah1 make the most of what we yet may spend1 ,before we too into the ,dust descend2 ,dust unto ,dust1 and under ,dust1 to lie1 ,sans ,wine1 sans ,song1 sans ,singer1 and--sans ,end6 ,not only is the present the all important time1 but the realities know nothing except the present4 ,there is no moment but the one that's here1--the past is gone1 the next one has not come1 and he that misses the present loses all there is4 ,some for the ,glories of ,this ,world1 and some ,sigh for the ,prophet's paradise to come2 ,ah1 take the ,cash1 and let the ,credit go1 ,nor heed the rumble of a distant ,drum6 ,as to how the pleasures of life are to be found1 men never have agreed and never can4 ,our view of pleasure1 like our feelings and emotions1 grows from the condition of our being1 and is the result of causes that we did not create and cannot control4 ,some there are who look at all the strife and suffering of the world1 and feel no kinship to the great1 surging mass that moves and feels and thinks4 ,these walk silently along the path alone1 oblivious alike to the pleasures and the sufferings of the world around4 ,others there are whose souls are so sensitive that they feel the joys and sorrows of the world1 and who cannot separate their lives from all the sentient1 moving things that teem and swarm upon the earth4 ,both can and must feel those appetites and desires that are ever incident to being4 ,without these1 nature could neither bring life upon the earth nor sustain it when it came4 ,it is in the balancing of these feelings that nature almost necessarily makes the imperfect man4 ,unless the emotions and desires are sufficiently developed1 the creature is cold1 impassive1 pulseless clay4 ,if too much developed1 it runs the risk of sacrificing the higher emotions and more lasting enjoyments to the fleeting1 sensual pleasures of the hour4 ,almost every person must stand upon one side or the other of this shadowy line1 which no man can see1 and which he would have no power to cross1 even if he knew where it ran4 ,perhaps the ,rubaiyat shows too much leaning toward the sensual2 too great fondness for the vine4 ,some of the allusions were perhaps symbolical1 but still1 ,omar doubtless was very fond of wine and found in its use one of the chief purposes of life4 ,philosophy and theology could not satisfy his mind4 ,these furnished only visionary1 inconsistent theories of existence1 utterly barren and futile1--wholly purposeless and wrong4 ,after studying and wrangling and disputing1 he threw them to the winds and reached out for the realities1--however transitory and unsatisfactory these realities seemed to be4 ,his exchange of theories and mysticisms for wine may be symbolical or not1 but whether literal or figurative1 he could hardly be cheated by the trade4 ,this is the way he relates the story of his change of heart3 ,you know1 ,my ,friends1 with what a brave ,carouse ,i made a ,second ,marriage in my house2 ,divorced old barren ,reason from my ,bed1 ,and took the ,daughter of the ,vine to spouse4 ,after throwing the theoretical philosophy to the winds1 he turned to the vine to learn what life really meant4 ,no doubt1 the vessel here is figuratively used4 ,it might mean a wine cup1 it might mean feeding a beggar1 it might mean a warm room and comfortable dress4 ,it meant something besides the intangible1 barren theories1 which have ever furnished theologians and professors with the pleasing occupation of splitting hairs and quibbling about the meaning of terms4 ,then to the ,lip of this poor earthen ,urn ,i lean'd1 the secret of my ,life to learn2 ,and ,lip to ,lip it murmur'd--8,while you live1 ,drink6--for1 once dead1 you never shall return40 ,neither would it do to postpone the pleasures of the wine1--time is fleeting1 and every hour may be the last4 ,life has no space for resolutions or regrets4 ,these only rob existence of a portion of the poor prizes that she stingily scatters into the ring to be fought and scrambled after by the crowd4 ,come1 fill the ,cup1 and in the fire of ,spring ,your ,winter-garment of ,repentance fling2 ,the ,bird of ,time has but a little way ,to flutter--and the ,bird is on the ,wing4 ,it is not the dainty sipping of the wine that our poet commends for the peace of the soul1 but the giving up of self to the enjoyment of the hour1--the complete abandonment that forgets time and space and eternity1 and knows only the moment that is4 ,perplext no more with ,human or ,divine1 ,to-morrow's tangle to the winds resign1 ,and lose your fingers in the tresses of ,the ,cypress-slender ,minister of ,wine4 ,this stanza may mean wine1--it may mean any strong purpose1 or intense emotion that takes possession of our life1--that makes us its devoted slave1 anxious to dare or suffer for the privilege of enlisting in a cause4 ,that ,omar knew something of life's pleasures and realities1 besides the wine he lauded1 is apparent from his work4 ,his insight was so deep that he could not be deceived by the tinsel and glitter and trappings that make up the vain show with which men deceive others1 and attempt to beguile themselves4 ,in ,persia eight hundred years ago1 there were probably no twenty-story buildings1 no railroads1 nor street cars1 nor telegraph wires2 perhaps no chambers of commerce1 nor banks2 but no doubt these old ,mohammedans had much as useless and vain and artificial as these inventions of a later day4 ,there was then1 as now1 the master with all the false luxury that idleness could create in that land and time2 there was also1 as to-day1 the hopeless slave1 whose only purpose on the earth was to minister to the parasite and knave2 and both of these1 master and man alike1 were helpless prisoners in the schemes and devices1 the machinery and inventions1 the worthless appendages and appliances that bound and enslaved them1 and that have held the world with ever increasing strength to the present day4 ,but ,omar knew that all of this was a delusion and a snare2--that it failed of the purpose that it meant to serve4 ,he turned from these vanities to a simpler1 saner life1 and found the sweetest and most lasting pleasures close to the heart of that great nature1 to which man must return from all his devious wanderings1 like the lost child that comes back to its mother's breast4 ,what simpler and higher happiness has all the artificial civilization of the world been able to create than this3 ,a ,book of ,verses underneath the bough1 ,a ,jug of ,wine1 a ,loaf of ,bread and ,thou ,beside me singing in the ,wilderness-- ,oh1 ,wilderness were ,paradise enow4 ,it is these bright spots in life's desert that make us long to stay4 ,these hours of friendship and close companionship of congenial souls that seem the only pleasures that are real1 and from which no regrets can come4 ,it is away from the bustle and glare of the world1 above its petty strifes1 and its cruel taunts1 in the quiet and trust of true comradeship1 that we forget the evil and fall in love with life4 ,and our old philosopher1 with all his pessimism1 with all his doubts and disappointments1 knew that here was the greatest peace and happiness that weary1 mortal man could know4 ,in the presence of the friends he loved1 and the comradeship of congenial lives1 he could not but regret the march of time and the flight of years1 which heralded the coming of the end4 ,poor ,omar was like all the rest that ever lived--he looked forward into the dark1 unknown sea1 and shuddered as he felt the rising water on his feet4 ,all of us know how small and worthless are our lives when measured by the infinite bubbles poured out by the great creative power4 ,all know that we shall quickly sink into the great dark sea and the waves will close above us as if we had not been4 ,and yet we do not really think of the world as moving on the same when we have spoken our last lines and retired behind the scenes4 ,to the world we are little1--to ourselves we are all4 ,we almost hope that for a time at least we shall be missed1--that some souls shall sorrow and some lives feel pain4 ,we hope that here and there some pilgrim will tell of a burden that we helped him bear1 or a road we tried to smooth4 ,that sometime when the merry feast is on1 a former friend shall feel a momentary shadow rest upon his heart at the thought of the face he used to know and the voice that now is still4 ,thus ,omar and ,fitz,gerald mused and hoped and told in beautiful1 pathetic lines3 ,yon rising ,moon that looks for us again-- ,how oft hereafter will she wax and wane2 ,how oft hereafter rising look for us ,through this same ,garden--and for one in vain6 ,and when like her1 ,o ,saki1 you shall pass ,among the ,guests ,star-scatter'd on the ,grass1 ,and in your blissful errand reach the spot ,where ,i made one--turn down an empty ,glass6 ,,walt ,,whitman ,illustration ,,walt ,,whitman ,the work of ,whitman stands alone in the literature of the world4 ,both in substance and construction he ignored all precedents and dared to be himself4 ,all the rules of form and taste must be unlearned before the world can accept his style as true literary art4 ,still it may be that ,walt ,whitman was a poet1 and that sometime the world will look back and marvel at the mechanical precision and glittering polish that confines and emasculates for the sake of a purely artificial form4 ,measured by the common rules1 ,whitman's work is neither poetry nor prose2 it is remotely allied to the wild chanting of the primitive bards1 who looked about at the fresh new marvels of earth and sky and sea1 and unhampered by forms and rules and customs1 sang of the miracles of the universe and the mysteries of life4 ,whitman seems one of those old bards1 fresh from the hand of nature1 young with the first creation1 the newest handwork of the great ,master1 untaught in any schools1 unfettered by any of the myriad chords1 which time is ever weaving about the brains and hearts and consciences of men as the world grows gray2 a primitive bard of nature1 born by some chance or accident in this old1 tired1 worn-out world1 dropped into this ,nineteenth century with its machines and conventions1 its artificial life1 its unnatural morals and its fettered limbs4 ,he alone in all the ages seems to have been specially given to the world1 still fresh with the imprint of the ,creator's hand1 and standing amid all our false conventions1 natural1 simple1 true1 8naked and not ashamed40 ,to the world with its crowded cities1 its diseased bodies1 its unnatural desires1 its narrow religion1 and its false morals1 he comes like a breeze of the morning1 from the mountains or the sea4 ,aye1 like a breath of that great1 creative life1 which touched the fresh world and brought forth the green grass1 the sparkling waters and the growing1 beauteous1 natural earth4 ,no one ever fell in love with ,whitman's work for its literary art1 but his work must live or die because of his philosophy of life and the material he chose from which to weave his songs4 ,it is in his whole point of view that ,walt ,whitman stands so much alone4 ,no one else has ever looked on the universe and life as this man did4 ,if religion means devotion to that great unseen power that is ever manifest in all of nature's works1 then ,walt ,whitman was the most reverent soul that ever lived4 ,this man alone of all the world dared defend the ,creator in every part and parcel of his work4 ,the high mountains1 the deep valleys1 the broad plains and the wide seas2 the feelings1 the desires1 and the passions of man2 all forms of life and being that exist upon the earth1 were to him but several manifestations of a great creative power that formed them all alike1 made each one needful to the whole1 and every portion sacred through its ,master's stamp4 ,and ,i will show that there is no imperfection in the present and can be none in the future1 ,and ,i will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results1 ,and ,i will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death4 ,and ,i will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact1 ,and that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles1 each as profound as any4 ,i will not make poems with reference to parts4 ,but ,i will make poems1 songs1 thoughts1 with reference to ensemble1 ,and ,i will not sing with reference to a day1 but with reference to all days4 ,whitman's philosophy knew no evil and no wrong4 ,the fact of existence proved the right of existence2 in the great workshop of nature every tool had its special use and its rightful place4 ,the imperfections of the world come from the narrow visions of men4 ,if the perspective is right1 the universe is right4 ,from the narrow valley the house may look old and worn1 the fences decayed1 the fields barren1 the woods scraggy and the cliff ragged and bare2 but climb to the only place where either life or landscape can be rightly seen1 the mountain top1 and look once more4 ,the hills1 the valley1 the stream1 the woods1 and the farms have melted and blended into one harmonious whole1 and every imperfection has been swept away4 ,the universe is filled with myriad worlds as important as our own1 each one a tiny floating speck in an endless sea of space--each whirling1 turning1 moving on and on and on1 through the countless ages1 past and yet to come4 ,no one can tell the purpose of their tireless1 endless flight through space2 but still we know that each has an orbit of its own1 and every world is related to the rest1 and every grain of sand and the weakest1 feeblest spark of power has its needful place in the balance of the whole4 ,so all of good1 and all of bad1 and all of life1 and all of death1 and all of all1 has the right to be and must needs be4 ,walt ,whitman did not even know how to divide the evil from the good1 but he sang them both alike4 ,i am not the poet of goodness only1 ,i do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also4 ,what blurt is this about virtue and about vice8 ,evil propels me and reform of evil propels me1 ,i stand indifferent4 ,the universe can make no mistakes1 every particle of energy that has permeated the world since time began1 has been working toward a completer system and a more harmonious whole4 ,there is a soul of truth in error2 there is a soul of good in evil4 ,from the trials and sorrows and disappointments of life1 even from its bitterness and doubt and sin1 are often born the holiest desires1 the sincerest endeavors and the most righteous deeds4 ,sometimes with one ,i love ,i fill myself with rage for fear ,i effuse unreturn'd love1 ,but now ,i think there is no unreturn'd love1 the pay is certain one way or another1 7,i loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd1 ,yet out of that ,i have written these songs47 ,this is the old1 old philosophy1 ever forgotten1 yet ever present4 ,it is sure in the world of mechanics1 it is equally true in the world of morals and of life4 ,nothing is lost2 the force that once was heat is transformed to light2 the flood that destroyed the grain1 comes at last to turn the miller's wheel4 ,what we call sin and evil make the experiences of life and go to the upbuilding of character and the development of man4 ,we can know only what we have felt1 and however much we try to deceive others1 we can tell only of the experiences we ourselves have had4 ,the poorest life is the one that has no tale to tell4 ,in the doubts and darkness of life1 in the turbulence of mind and the anguish of the soul1 it is most consoling to feel that resignation and confidence which comes from a realization that all is right and that you are master of yourself and at peace with ,god and man4 ,this calm1 optimistic1 self-reliant philosophy is ever present with its consoling power in all ,walt ,whitman's work4 ,i have said that the soul is not more than the body1 ,and ,i have said that the body is not more than the soul1 ,and nothing1 not ,god1 is greater to one than one's self is1 ,and whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud1 ,and ,i or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth1 ,and to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times1 ,and there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe1 ,and ,i say to any man or woman1 ,let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes4 ,and ,i say to mankind1 ,be not curious about ,god1 ,for ,i who am curious about each1 am not curious about ,god1 7,no array of terms can say how much ,i am at peace about ,god and about death74 ,i hear and behold ,god in every object1 yet understand ,god not in the least1 ,nor do ,i understand who there can be more wonderful than myself4 ,why should ,i wish to see ,god better than this day8 ,i see something of ,god each hour of the twenty-four and each moment then1 ,in the faces of men and women ,i see ,god1 and in my own face in the glass1 ,i find letters from ,god dropt in the street1 and every one is sign'd by ,god's name1 ,and ,i leave them where they are1 for ,i know that wheresoe'er ,i go1 ,others will punctually come for ever and ever4 ,this is not the boasting of the ignorant egotist who vaunts himself above his fellow man1 but the calm1 conscious serenity of a great soul1 who has learned the patient philosophy of life4 ,there is an egotism that is cheap and vulgar and born of ignorance alone4 ,there is an egotism that comes from the knowledge that after all what we are depends not upon the estimate of the world1 but upon the integrity and character of ourselves4 ,this consciousness of individual worth brings that peace of soul1 8which the world can neither give nor take away40 ,i know ,i am august1 ,i do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood1 ,i see that the elementary laws never apologize1 7,i reckon ,i behave no prouder than the level ,i plant my house by1 after all71 ,i exist as ,i am1 that is enough1 ,if no other in the world be aware ,i sit content4 ,one world is aware and by far the largest to me1 and that is myself2 ,and whether ,i come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years1 ,i can cheerfully take it now1 or with equal cheerfulness ,i can wait4 ,my foothold is tennon'd and mortis'd in granite1 ,i laugh at what you call dissolution1 ,and ,i know the amplitude of time4 ,happy is the man that has climbed to the height on which ,walt ,whitman stood4 ,happy is he that has mastered the haste and impatience of youth1 and is content to bide his time4 ,happy is he that has so far solved the problem of life as to know that reward is not received from others and cannot be withheld by others1 but can be given only by ourselves4 ,such a man has struck the subtle harmony which unites his soul with the universal life and he knows that no one but himself can cut the cord4 ,to a great mass of men and women1 ,walt ,whitman is known almost alone by that portion of his work called 8,children of ,adam40 ,these poems have called forth the fiercest opposition and the bitterest denunciation1 and if the common judgment is correct1 they are obscene and vile4 ,while this portion of his book is by far the smallest part1 still1 before the court of public opinion1 he must stand or fall upon these lines4 ,in one sense public opinion is right1 for unless these stanzas can be defended1 his point of view is wrong1 and ,walt ,whitman's work will die4 ,we need not accept all he did1 or give unstinted praise to all his work1 but his scheme is consistent in every portion of his thought1 and his point of view will determine the place he shall fill in art and life4 ,it is in this work that the courage and personality of ,whitman towers so high above every other man that ever wrote4 ,it is easy for the essayist to speak in general terms and glittering phrases in defense of ,whitman's work4 ,his defenders have been many1 but he alone has had the courage to speak4 ,it is not difficult to insist that his 8,a ,woman ,waits for ,me0 is a tremendous work1 and as pure as nature's generating power4 ,still perhaps few would dare to read it aloud in an assembly of men and women4 ,if ,whitman is right1 the world is wrong4 ,this poem1 and others of its like1 in plain words deals of the deepest1 strongest1 most persistent feelings that move the sentient world4 ,in proportion as they are deeper and stronger than any other1 they should the more be the subject of thought and art4 ,and still ages of established convention have made the world pretend ignorance until no one dares defend his right to life but this brave and simple man4 ,in both ,england and ,america1 narrow interpretations of morality have almost stifled art4 ,as remarked by a leading novelist--8,all our literature is addressed to the young school girl40 ,if it will not pass muster before her eyes1 it has no right to live1 and almost no ,english or ,american author has been great enough to rise above these narrow conventions and write the natural and true4 ,the artists of continental ,europe have been less fettered and have taken us over a broader range and a wider field4 ,still while these authors have told more of life1 they have treated these tremendous subjects by drawing the curtain only a little way aside1 and giving us a curious1 perverted1 half stolen look1 as if they knew that the picture was unholy and therefore tempting to the gaze4 ,but ,walt ,whitman approached the human body and the mysteries of life from an entirely different view4 ,if anything is sacred1 the human body is sacred1 ,and the glory and sweet of man is the token of manhood untainted1 ,and in man or woman a clean1 strong1 firm-fibred body1 is more beautiful than the most beautiful face4 ,if ,walt ,whitman could have drawn the veil from the universe and shown us the living ,god in all his majesty and power1 he would have approached his throne with no greater reverence than when he stripped the human body and pointed to its every part fresh and sacred from its ,maker's hand4 ,no true system of life and morals will exist until the holiest feelings and most potent and eternal power is openly recognized and discussed with neither jest nor shame4 ,walt ,whitman was the great bard of democracy and equality2 not simply the vulgar democracy of political rights and promiscuous familiarity1 but the deep1 broad1 fundamental democracy that looks at all of nature and feels the unity and kinship that makes the universe a whole4 ,to ,walt ,whitman there could be no thought of class or caste4 ,each one held his certificate of birth from the same infinite power that1 through all the ages and all the false and criminal distinctions of man1 has yet decreed that all shall enter helpless and naked through the same gateway of birth1 and each alike must go back to the fundamental mother1 shorn of every distinction that man in his vain-glorious pride has sought to make4 ,whitman placed the works of nature above the works of man4 ,he had no faith in those laws and institutions which the world has ever made to defraud1 and enslave1 and deny the common brotherhood of all4 ,he believed that every child that came upon the earth was legitimate1 and had an equal right to land1 and sea1 and air1 and all that nature made1 and all that nature gave4 ,each of us is inevitable1 ,each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth1 ,each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth1 ,each of us here as divinely as any is here4 ,let this stanza speak to our conscience face to face--is it true or false8 ,can any but a blasphemer deny the divine right of every man upon the earth8 ,and yet if this simple stanza is true1 every law book should be burned and every court abolished and natural justice1 unfettered and undenied1 should be enthroned above the forms and conventions and laws1 which1 each and all1 deny the integrity of the soul and the equal rights of man4 ,through all the injustice and inequality of the world1 the vision of democracy has still prevailed and ever must prevail as long as nature brings forth and takes back the master and the slave alike4 ,but the aspiration for democracy is not always high and noble4 ,it is easy to demand for ourselves the same rights enjoyed by our fellow men1 but ,whitman's democracy was on a higher plane4 ,i speak the pass-word primeval1 ,i give the sign of democracys ,by ,god6 ,i will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms4 ,these lines breathe the spirit of true humanity1 the spirit that will one day remove all barriers and restrictions1 and liberate the high and low alike4 ,for nothing is truer in life or more inevitable in the economy of nature than this sage thought3 ,whatever degrades another degrades me1 ,and whatever is done or said returns at last to me4 ,it is a sad mistake to believe that injustice and wrong can injure only the poor and the weak4 ,every mean word and narrow thought and selfish act degrades the aggressor1 leaves its mark upon his soul and its penalty in his life4 ,so1 too1 no good effort is really lost1 however it may seem to be4 ,the kind word may be spoken to the deaf1 the righteous effort be wrongly directed1 the alms unworthily bestowed1 but the heart that feels and the soul that tries has grown greater by the act4 ,the song is to the singer1 and comes back most to him1 ,the teaching is to the teacher1 and comes back most to him1 ,the murder is to the murderer1 and comes back most to him1 ,the theft is to the thief1 and comes back most to him1 ,the love is to the lover1 and comes back most to him1 ,the gift is to the giver1 and comes back most to him1--it cannot fail1 ,the oration is to the orator1 the acting is to the actor and actress1 not to the audience1 ,and no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own1 or the indication of his own4 ,not alone in his theory of personal equality was ,walt ,whitman a democrat in the highest meaning of the term1 but he distrusted the ease and effeminacy of modern life2 he doubted and feared the polish and super-sensitiveness that precedes decay2 he had no faith in hot-house plants1 in pampered life1 in luxury and repose4 ,he believed in rugged1 primeval nature1 in the rocks and hills1 the rivers and the pines2 he loved the dumb and patient brute1 and believed in stalwart men and strong women2 in sunlight1 rain and air4 ,i am enamour'd of growing out of doors1 ,of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods1 ,of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and mauls1 and the drivers of horses1 ,i can eat and sleep with them week in and week out4 ,i think ,i could turn and live with animals1 they are so placid and self-contain'd1 ,i stand and look at them and long and long4 ,they do not sweat and whine about their condition1 ,they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins1 ,they do not make me sick discussing their duty to ,god1 ,not one is dissatisfied1 not one is demented with the mania of owning things1 ,not one kneels to another1 nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago1 ,not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth4 ,walt ,whitman's work is not of the old1 time-worn sort4 ,when he speaks of love it is the love of life1 the love of reality1 the strong love of men1 the intense love of women1 the honest love that nature made1 the love that is2 not the unhealthy1 immoral1 false1 impossible love told in erotic prose and more erotic verse1 and given to young girls and boys as the truth1 to poison and corrupt with its false and vicious views of life4 ,but he sings of the common things1 the democracy of every day2 for it is the small affairs that make up life1 and its true philosophy is to see the beauty and greatness and relation of these little things and not to pine for the seemingly momentous events1 which can rarely come4 ,the ,alexanders1 the ,csars and the ,napoleons are scattered only here and there in the great sea of human existence1 and yet every life measured by just standards may be as great as these2 and the soul that is conscious of its own integrity knows its own worth regardless of the world4 ,i do not call one greater and one smaller1 ,that which fills its period and place is equal to any4 ,walt ,whitman felt the music of the hammer and the axe as he felt the harmony of the symphonies of ,beethoven1 and he understood the art of the plough-boy in the field as well as the glorious creations of ,millet4 ,the young mechanic is closest to me1 he knows me well1 ,the woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day1 ,the farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice1 ,in vessels that sail my words sail1 ,i go with fishermen and seamen and love them4 ,the soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine1 ,on the night ere the pending battle may seek me1 and ,i do not fail them1 ,on that solemn night 7it may be their last7 those that know me seek me1 ,my face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his blanket1 ,the driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon1 ,the young mother and old mother comprehend me1 ,the girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are1 ,they and all would resume what ,i have told them4 ,walt ,whitman's democracy did not end with sex4 ,man is not always a logical animal4 ,most of the practical democracy of the world has stopped with men1 and generally with white men at that4 ,the political equality of woman has only barely been considered2 the still more important question1 her economic independence1 is yet a far-off dream4 ,but ,walt ,whitman knew no limit to equality4 ,with him equality meant equality4 ,it could mean nothing else4 ,i am the poet of the woman the same as the man1 ,and ,i say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man1 ,and ,i say there is nothing greater than the mother of men4 ,probably ,walt ,whitman would not have raised his hat to a woman on the street1 nor given her his seat in the car1 simply because she was a woman4 ,both these may be well enough1 but they grow from false ideas of women and of course through these false ideas women lose the most4 ,injustice and oppression can never be made up by chivalry and pretended courtesy4 ,and the evil always is and must be the false relation which these create4 ,men expect to pay women for their political and economic freedom in theater tickets and by taking off their hats in public1 and in the end women become willing to receive this paltry and debasing bribe4 8,the ,open ,road10 one of ,whitman's masterpieces1 is full of wholesome inclusive democracy4 ,afoot and light-hearted ,i take to the open road1 ,healthy1 free1 the world before me1 ,the long brown path before me leading wherever ,i choose4 ,henceforth ,i ask not good fortune1 ,i myself am good fortune1 ,henceforth ,i whimper no more1 postpone no more1 need nothing ,done with indoor complaints1 libraries1 querulous criticisms1 ,strong and content ,i travel the open road4 ,the earth1 that is sufficient1 ,i do not want the constellations any nearer1 ,i know they are very well where they are1 ,i know they suffice for those who belong to them4 ,here the profound lessons of reception1 nor preference nor denial1 ,the black with his woolly head1 the felon1 the diseas'd1 the illiterate person1 are not denied2 ,the birth1 the hasting after the physician1 the beggar's tramp1 the drunkard's stagger1 the laughing party of mechanics1 ,the escaped youth1 the rich person's carriage1 the fop1 the eloping couple1 ,the early market men1 the hearse1 the moving of furniture into the town1 the return back from the town1 ,they pass1 ,i also pass1 anything passes1 none can be interdicted1 ,none but are accepted1 none but shall be dear to me4 ,but ,walt ,whitman's democracy was more inclusive still4 ,it is almost becoming the fad to forgive the evil in others and to insist that1 after all1 their good qualities give them the right to kinship with ourselves1 but this is only one side of true democracy4 ,the felon is my brother1 not alone because he has every element of good that ,i so well recognize in myself1 but because ,i have every element of evil that ,i see in him4 ,walt ,whitman was wise enough to see the feelings and passions that make others sin1 and he was just enough and great enough to recognize all these feelings in himself4 ,you felons on trial in courts1 ,you convicts in prison-cells1 you sentenced assassins chain'd and handcuff'd with iron1 ,who am ,i too that ,i am not on trial or in prison8 ,me1 ruthless and devilish as any1 that my wrists are not chain'd with iron1 or my ankles with iron8 ,you prostitutes flaunting over the pavements or obscene in your rooms1 ,who am ,i that ,i should call you more obscene than myself8 ,o culpable6 ,i acknowledge--,i expose6 7,o admirers1 praise not me--compliment not me--you make me wince1 ,i see what you do not--,i know what you do not47 ,inside these breast-bones ,i lie smutch'd and choked1 ,beneath this face that appears so impassive hell's tides continually run1 ,lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me1 ,i walk with delinquents with passionate love1 ,i feel ,i am of them--,i belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself1 ,and henceforth ,i will not deny them--for how can ,i deny myself8 ,these lines are not a burst of poetic feeling1 they are the sincere utterances of a brave philosopher and poet1 who tells the truth about himself and about you and me4 ,let us be honest about sin4 ,how do you and ,i differ from the murderer on the gallows1 the prostitute in the street or the burglar in the jail8 ,how wide a breach is there between coveting the house or home or seal skin coat of your neighbor and taking it if you can8 ,how great a difference between making a sharp trade with your neighbor1 getting more from him than you give to him1 and taking outright what he has8 ,yet one is business1 the other larceny4 ,what is the distance between hating your neighbor1 and wishing him dead3 how great a chasm between feeling relief at his death1 and killing him yourself8 ,so far as the man is concerned1 it is not the act that is evil1 but the heart that is evil4 ,there is no difference between the committed and the uncommitted crime4 ,every feeling that makes every sort of crime is in the heart of each and every one4 ,nature has made the blood of some of us a little cooler1 and has developed caution a little more1 or fate has made the temptation a trifle less1 and thus we have escaped1--that is1 managed to conceal the real passion that boils and surges in our hearts4 ,until this is dead1 evil is in our souls4 ,away with all this talk of superiority and differences4 ,it is cant--pure1 simple cant4 ,i will play a part no longer1 why should ,i exile myself from my companions8 ,o you shunn'd persons1 ,i at least do not shun you1 ,i come forthwith in your midst1 ,i will be your poet1 ,i will be more to you than to any of the rest4 ,has man the right to be less kind than nature is8 ,have we the right by word or deed to pass judgment on our fellow man8 ,can we not learn of love and charity and hope from the sun1 the rain1 the generous earth1 and the pulsing1 growing spring8 ,hear ,walt ,whitman's word to a common prostitute3 ,be composed--be at ease with me--,i am ,walt ,whitman1 liberal and lusty as ,nature1 ,not till the sun excludes you do ,i exclude you1 ,not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you4 ,neither was it the magnanimous soul of ,whitman that was charitable and kind1 but it was the truthful1 honest man who saw his own goodness in the woman2 and her sin1 which after all was only an excess of kindness1 in himself4 ,the regenerated world will be built upon the democracy ,walt ,whitman taught4 ,it will know neither rich nor poor2 neither high nor low2 neither good nor bad2 neither right nor wrong2 but ,i will establish 999999 in every city of these states inland and seaboard1 ,in the fields and woods1 and above every keel1 little or large1 that dents the water1 ,without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument1 ,the institution of the dear love of comrades4 ,walt ,whitman was always and at all times an optimist4 ,he never struck a despairing note or voiced a doubting strain4 ,his hope was not anchored in blind faith or narrow creed4 ,his optimism was not that of the cowardly fanatic who stubbornly shuts his eyes to avoid an unpleasant view4 ,he looked abroad at all the world and called it good4 ,optimism and pessimism in their last analysis are questions of temperament4 ,they depend upon the eye that looks out1 not upon the object that it sees4 ,the pessimist points to the sunset1 casting its lengthening shadows on the earth1 and tells of the night that is coming on2 the optimist shows us the rosy dawn1 the golden promise of a glorious day4 ,the pessimist tells of winter1 whose icy breath chills and deadens all the world2 the optimist points to springtime with its ever recurring miracle of light and life4 ,is the pessimist right or is the optimist right--does the night precede the day1 or the day precede the night8 ,after all1 are our calendars wrong--does the winter with its white shroud and cold face mark the ending of the year1 or does the springtime with its budding life and its resurrecting power awaken the dead earth to joyous1 pulsing life again8 ,above the view of the optimist1 who sees the morning and the spring1 and the pessimist1 who sees the evening and the closing year1 stand a few serene souls1 who look on both with clear eye and tranquil mind1 and declare that all is good4 ,the morning is right and the evening is right4 ,it is beautiful to pass through the joyous gates of birth2 it is good to be clasped in the peaceful arms of death4 ,rare ,walt ,whitman at thirty-seven1 full of health and vigor and strength1 with the world before him1 and conscious of his genius and his power1 sings in a burst of optimism3 ,i celebrate myself1 and sing myself1 ,and what ,i assume you shall assume1 ,for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you4 ,i loafe and invite my soul1 ,i lean and loafe at my ease1 observing a spear of summer grass4 ,my tongue1 every atom of my blood1 form'd from this soil1 this air1 ,born of parents born here from parents the same1 and their parents the same1 ,i1 now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin1 ,hoping to cease not till death4 ,again at seventy1 looking back on a life well spent1 conscious that the last few sands are running out1 a confirmed invalid with palsied limbs and failing strength1 looking death squarely in the face and just before him2 with the same sweet smile1 the same lovely nature1 the same all-embracing philosophy1 sings once again his optimistic song3 ,not from successful love alone1 ,nor wealth1 nor honor'd middle age1 nor victories of politics or war2 ,but as life wanes1 and all the turbulent passions calm1 ,as gorgeous1 vapory1 silent hues cover the evening sky1 ,as softness1 fulness1 rest1 suffuse the frame1 like fresher1 balmier air1 ,as the days take on a mellower light1 and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree1 ,then for the teeming1 quietest1 happiest days of all6 ,the brooding1 blissful halcyon days6 ,it must be that somewhere is a serene height where life triumphs over death4 ,it must be that nature does not jar1 and that the close of a lovely life is really as peaceful and as beautiful as the decline of a perfect day2 that each day rightly lived and every year well spent1 must bring the pilgrim more in harmony with his journey drawing to a close4 ,the world has ever shuddered at death--has stubbornly closed its eyes and refused to look at the great fact that nature places all about our path2 has never tried to look in its face1 to take its hand1 to think of its peaceful1 forgiving1 soothing touch2 has ever called it enemy and never thought to caress it as a friend4 ,walt ,whitman was wiser than the rest4 ,his philosophy made him know that death was equally good1 whether the opening gateway to a freer1 fuller life1 or a restful couch for a weary soul4 ,whitman had solved the eternal riddle2 he had conquered death2 he looked at her pale form and saluted her as he would welcome a new birth4 ,no bard ever sang a more glorious hymn than ,walt ,whitman sang to death4 ,come1 lovely and soothing ,death1 ,undulate round the world1 serenely arriving1 arriving1 ,in the day1 in the night1 to all1 to each1 ,sooner or later1 delicate ,death1 ,praised be the fathomless universe ,for life and joy1 and for objects and knowledge curious1 ,and for love1 sweet love--but praise6 praise6 praise ,for the sure enwinding arms of cool1 enfolding ,death4 ,dark ,mother1 always gliding near with soft feet1 ,have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome8 ,then ,i chant for thee1 ,i glorify thee above all1 ,i bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come1 come unfalteringly1 ,approach1 strong deliveress1 ,when it is so1 when thou hast taken them ,i joyously sing the dead1 ,lost in the loving1 floating ocean of thee1 ,laved in the flood of thy bliss1 ,o ,death4 ,from me to thee glad serenades1 ,dances for thee ,i propose1 saluting thee1 adornments and feastings for thee1 ,and the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting1 ,and life and the fields1 and the huge and thoughtful night1 ,the night in silence under many a star1 ,the ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice ,i know1 ,and the soul turning to thee1 ,o vast and well veil'd ,death1 ,and the body gratefully nestling close to thee1 ,over the tree tops ,i float thee a song1 ,over the rising and sinking waves1 over the myriad fields and the prairies wide1 ,over the dense-packed cities all1 and the teeming wharves1 and ways1 ,i float this carol with joy1 with joy to thee1 ,o ,death4 ,whitman in his wheel chair1 physically shattered and broken1 but with a mind strong and serene1 and at peace with all the world1 waiting for the sun to set1 is a lesson in optimism better than all the sermons ever preached4 ,without faith in any form of religion that the world has ever known1 he had brought his life so in harmony with nature that he felt every beat of the great1 universal heart1 and with the confidence of certain knowledge he looked upon the fading earth and caroled a song as he sailed forth on that great unknown sea1 which is hidden in perpetual night1 from all but the few great souls1 whose wisdom and insight have given them the confidence and trust of a little child4 ,joy1 shipmates1 joy6 7,pleas'd to my soul at death ,i cry17 ,our life is closed1 our life begins1 ,the long1 long anchorage we leave1 ,the ship is clear at last1 she leaps6 ,she swiftly courses from the shore1 ,joy1 shipmates1 joy4 ,conscious of the integrity of his purpose1 and the inherent righteousness of his life1 moved and upheld by his broad philosophy and his patient1 trustful soul1 with no false modesty and with the same manly egoism that made him what he was--the kindest1 gentlest1 justest1 broadest1 manliest man--,walt ,whitman asked the reward his life had earned4 ,give me the pay ,i have served for1 ,give me to sing the song of the great ,idea1 take all the rest1 ,i have loved the earth1 sun1 animals1 ,i have despised riches1 ,i have given alms to every one that ask'd1 stood up for the stupid and crazy1 devoted my income and labor to others1 ,hated tyrants1 argued not concerning ,god1 had patience and indulgence toward people1 taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown1 ,gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young1 and with the mothers of families1 ,read these leaves to myself in the open air1 tried them by trees1 stars1 rivers1 ,dismiss'd whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body1 ,claim'd nothing to myself which ,i have not carefully claim'd for others on the same terms1 ,sped to the camps1 and comrades found and accepted from every ,state1 7,upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean'd to breathe his last1 ,this arm1 this hand1 this voice1 have nourish'd1 rais'd1 restor'd1 ,to life recalling many a prostrate form27 ,i am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself1 ,rejecting none1 permitting all4 ,when man has grown simpler and saner and truer--when the fever of civilization has been subdued and the pestilence been cured2 when man shall no longer deny and revile the universal mother who gave him birth1 then ,walt ,whitman's day will come4 ,in the clear light of that regenerated time1 when the world looks back to the doubt and mist and confusion of to-day1 ,walt ,whitman will stand alone1 the greatest1 truest1 noblest prophet of the age1 a man untainted by artificial life and unmoved by the false standards of his time4 ,in a sodden1 commercial1 money-getting age1 he enjoyed all the beauty of the earth without the vulgar lust to own4 ,in a world of privilege and caste1 he felt and taught the brotherhood of man and the kinship of all living things4 ,in an age of false modesty and perverted thought1 he sang the sanctity of the body with the divinity of the soul4 ,against the agnostic and the ,christian too1 he defended every part and portion of the faultless work of the creative power4 ,above the doleful1 doubting voice of men1 through the dreariest day and darkest night1 in the raging of the storm and the madness of the waves1 his strong1 optimistic1 reassuring note was ever heard above the rest1 proclaiming to the universe that all is well4 ,he saw that in a wise economy and a great broad way1 that the false was true1 the evil good1 the wrong was right1 and that over all the universe1 pervading all its teeming life1 a power omnipotent1 beneficent and wise1 was working to uplift1 conserve and purify the whole4 ,the poor1 the weak1 the suffering1 the outcast1 the felon1 all knew him for their comrade and their friend4 ,his great1 inclusive1 universal heart left no soul outside1 but all alike he knew1 the life of all he felt1 and one and all he loved4 ,in his vocabulary were no words of bitterness and hate1 and in his philosophy no right to censure or to blame4 ,in his every deed and thought he seemed to say3 8,so ,i be written in the book of love1 ,i have no care about that book above1 ,erase my name1 or write it as you please1 ,so ,i be written in the book of love40 ,as the shadows lengthen and the daylight wanes--as the hair whitens and the passions cool1 more and more do we learn that love is the true philosophy of life2 more and more do we revise the sterner judgments of our earlier years2 more and more do we see that pity should take the place of blame1 forgiveness of punishment1 charity of justice1 and hatred be replaced by love4 ,when old familiar faces awake the memories of bygone days1 often and often again do we fear that our judgments were cruel and unjust1 but every deed of mercy and every act of charity and every thought of pity is like the balm of ,gilead to our souls4 ,we may none of us be wise or great1 fortune may elude us and fame may never come2 but however poor or weak or humble1 we yet may inscribe our names in the fairest1 brightest book1--the book of love1 and on its sacred pages1 earned by the glorious truths he taught1 by his infinite1 ever present love of all1 upon the foremost line will be inscribed ,walt ,whitman's name4 ,,robert ,,burns ,illustration ,,robert ,,burns4 ,it is difficult to account for a genius like ,robert ,burns4 ,his life and work seem to defy the laws of heredity and environment alike4 ,the beasts of the field were scarcely bound closer to the soil than were the ancestors from which he sprang2 and from his early infancy he was forced to follow the stony path his father trod before4 ,as a mere child1 he learned how hard it is to sustain life in the face of an unfriendly nature and a cruel1 bitter world4 ,he was early bred to toil2 not the work that gives strength and health1 but the hard1 constant1 manual labor that degrades and embitters1 deforms and twists and stunts the body and the soul alike4 ,burns was denied even the brief years of childhood--those few1 short years upon which most of us look back from our disappointments and cares as the one bright spot in a gray and level plain4 ,it is not alone by the works he has left us that ,robert ,burns is to be truly judged4 ,fortune endowed him with a wondrous brain and a still rarer and greater gift--a tender1 loving1 universal heart2 but as if she grudged him these and sought to destroy or stunt their power1 she cast his lot in a social and religious environment as hard and forbidding as the cold and sterile soil of his native land2 and from these surroundings alone he was obliged to draw the warmth and color and sunshine that should have come from loving hearts1 generous bounties1 and bright1 blue southern skies4 ,in measuring the power and character of ,robert ,burns1 we must remember the hard and cruel conditions of his life1 and judge of his great achievements in the light of these4 ,the ways of destiny have ever been beyond the ken of man2 now and then1 at rare1 long intervals1 she descends upon the earth1 and in her arms she bears disguised a precious gift1 which she lavished upon a blind1 unwilling world4 ,she passes by the gorgeous palaces and beautiful abodes of men1 and drops the treasure in a manger or a hut2 she comes again to take it back from a world that knew it not and cast it out2 and again1 she seeks it not among the strong and great1 but in the hovel of the poor1 the prison pen1 or perhaps upon the scaffold or the block4 ,measured by the standards of our day and generation1 the life of ,robert ,burns was a failure and mistake4 ,he went back to the great common ,mother as naked of all the gilded trappings and baubles1 which men call wealth1 as when she first placed the struggling infant on its mother's breast4 ,robert ,burns was not a 8business man02 he was not one of ,dumfries' 8first citizens0--in the measure of that day and this2 he was one of its last if not its worst4 ,he had no stock in a corporation and no interest in a syndicate or trust4 ,he had neither a bank nor bank account4 ,he never endowed a library1 a museum1 or a university4 ,he was a singer of songs1--a dreamer of dreams4 ,he was poor1 improvident1 intemperate1 and according to the ,scottish creed1 immoral and irreligious4 ,in spite of his great intellect he was doubted1 neglected and despised4 ,he died in destitution and despair2 but the great light of his genius1 which his neighbors could not see or comprehend1 has grown brighter and clearer as the years have rolled away4 ,a beautiful mausoleum now holds his once neglected ashes2 monuments have been reared to his memory wherever worth is known and fame preserved2 while millions of men and women1 the greatest and the humblest of the world alike1 have felt their own heartstrings moved and stirred in unison with the music of this immortal bard1 whose song was the breath of ,nature1--the sweetest1 tenderest melody that ever came from that rarest instrument--the devoted poet's soul4 ,the great masterpieces of his genius were not created in the pleasant study of a home of refinement1 luxury1 and ease1 but were born in the fields1 the farm yard1 the stable2 while the 8monarch peasant0 was bending above the humblest tasks that men pursue for bread4 ,only the most ordinary education was within the reach of this child of toil1 and the world's great storehouses of learning1 literature1 and art were sealed forever from his sight2 and yet1 with only the rude peasants1 with whom his life was spent1 the narrow setting of bleak fields and grey hills1 which was the small stage on which he moved1 and the sterile ,scotch dialect with which to paint1 he stirred the hearts of men with the sweetest1 highest1 purest melody that has ever moved the human soul4 ,olive ,schreiner tells of an artist whose pictures shone with the richest1 brightest glow4 ,his admirers gazed upon the canvas and wondered where he found the colors--so much rarer than any they had ever seen before4 ,other artists searched the earth1 but could find no tints like his2 he died with the secret in his breast4 ,and when they undressed him to put his grave-clothes on1 they found an old wound1 hard and jagged above his heart2 and still they wondered where he found the coloring for his work4 ,robert ,burns1 perhaps more than any other man who ever lived1 taught the great truth that poets are not made but born2 that the richest literature1 the brightest gems of art1 even the most pleasing earthly prospects are less than one spark of the divine fire1 which alone can kindle the true light4 ,robert ,burns like all great artists1 taught the world that the beauty of the landscape1 and the grandeur and pathos of life depend1 not upon the external objects that nature has chanced to place before our view1 but upon the soul of the artist1 which alone can really see and interpret the manifold works of the great author1 beside which all human effort is so poor and weak4 ,millet looked at the ,french peasants standing in their wooden shoes1 digging potatoes from the earth and pausing to bow reverently at the sounding of the ,angelus1 and saw in this simple life1 so close to ,nature's heart1 more beauty and pathos and poetry than all the glittering courts of ,europe could produce4 ,and ,robert ,burns1 whose broad mind and sympathetic soul made him kin to all living things1 had no need to see the splendor and gaiety of wealth and power1 to visit foreign shores and unknown lands2 but the flowers1 the heather1 the daisies1 the bleak fields1 the pelting rains1 the singing birds1 the lowing cattle1 and above all1 the simple country folk seen through his eyes1 and felt by his soul1 and held in his all-embracing heart1 were covered with a beauty and a glory that all the artificial world could not create1 and that his genius has endowed with immortal life4 ,robert ,burns did not borrow his philosophy from the books1 his humanity from the church1 or his poetry from the schools4 ,luckily for us he escaped all these1 and unfettered and untaught1 went straight to the soul of ,nature to learn from the great source1 the harmony and beauty and unity that pervades the whole2 and he painted these with colors drawn from his great human heart4 ,his universal sympathy gave him an insight into life that students of science and philosophy can never reach4 ,contemplating ,nature1 and seeing her generous bounties lavished alike on all her children1 he could not but contrast this with the selfishness and inhumanity of man1 which crushes out the weak and helpless and builds up the great and strong4 ,burns was a natural leveler1 and while men still believed in the 8divine right of kings10 he preached that 8man was the divine ,king of rights40 ,none knew better than he the injustice of the social life in which he lived1 and in which we live to-day4 ,burns knew1 as all men of intelligence understand1 that worldly goods are not1 and never have been given as a reward of either brains or merit4 ,it's hardly in a body's power ,to keep at times1 frae being sour1 ,to see how things are shared2 ,how best o'chiels are whiles in want ,while coofs on countless thousands rant ,and ken na how to wair't4 ,the immortal singer of songs1 and all his descendants1 received infinitely less for all the works of his genius than an ordinary gambler often gets for one sale of something that he never owned1 or one purchase of something that he never bought2 and it is doubtful if all the masterpieces of the world in art1 in literature1 and in science1 ever brought as much cash to those whose great1 patient brains have carefully and honestly wrought that the earth might be richer and better and brighter1 as has been often 8made0 by one inferior speculator upon a single issue of watered stock4 ,living in the midst of aristocracy and privilege and caste1 ,burns was a democrat that believed in the equality of man4 ,it required no books or professors1 or theories to teach him the injustice of the social conditions under which the world has ever lived4 ,here1 as elsewhere1 he looked to the heart--a teacher infinitely more honest and reliable than the brain4 ,if ,i'm design'd yon lordling's slave1 ,by ,nature's law design'd2 ,why was an independent wish ,e'er planted in my mind8 ,if not1 why am ,i subject to ,his cruelty1 or scorn8 ,or why has man the will and pow'r ,to make his fellow mourn8 ,preachers and authors and teachers1 judges and professors and lawyers1 have been employed for ages to teach the justice of slavery and the folly and crime of equal rights2 but through all quibbles and evasions1 this question of ,burns1 straight from the heart1 as well as the head1 shows that all these excuses are but snares and cheats4 ,the voice of the ,french ,revolution could not fail to move a soul like that of ,robert ,burns4 ,this great struggle for human liberty came upon the world with almost the suddenness of an earthquake1 and with much of its terrors1 too4 ,here the poor and the oppressed felt the first substantial hope for freedom that had pierced the long1 dark centuries since history told the acts of men4 ,to the oppressors and the powerful1 who hated liberty then as they ever have1 before and since1 it was a wild1 dread threat of destruction and ruin to their precious 8rights40 ,when the struggle commenced1 ,burns was enjoying the munificent salary of ,fifty pounds a year as a whisky gauger in the village of ,dumfries4 ,he had already spent a winter in ,edinburgh1 and had been feted and dined by the aristocracy and culture of ,scotland's capital without losing his head1 although at no small risk4 ,an acquaintance and entertainer of the nobility and an incumbent of a lucrative office1 there was but one thing for ,burns to do2 this was to condemn the ,revolution and lend his trenchant pen to the oppressor's cause2 but this course he flatly refused to take4 ,he openly espoused the side of the people1 and wrote the 8,tree of ,liberty10 one of his most stirring songs1 in its defense4 ,upon this tree there grows sic fruit1 ,its virtues a'can tell man2 ,it raises man aboon the brute1 ,it mak's him ken himsel' man4 ,gif ance the peasant taste a bit1 ,he's greater than a lord man4 ,king ,louis thought to cut it down ,when it was unco sma' man2 ,for this the watchman cracked his crown1 ,cut aff his head an' a' man4 ,even these words are not strong enough to express his love for natural liberty and his distrust of those forms and institutions which over and over again have crushed the priceless gem they pretend to protect4 ,a fig for those by law protected6 ,liberty's a glorious feast6 ,courts for cowards were erected1 ,churches built to please the priest4 ,even higher and broader was ,burns' view of equality and right4 ,he stood on a serene height1 where he looked upon all the strife and contention of individuals and states1 and dreamed of a perfect harmony and universal order1 where men and ,nations alike should be at peace1 and the world united in one grand common brotherhood1 where the fondest wish of each should be the highest good of all4 ,these beautiful1 prophetic lines seem to speak of a day as distant now as when ,burns wrote them down a hundred years ago4 ,but still1 all men that love the human race will ever hope1 and work1 and say with him3 ,then let us pray that come it may1 ,as come it will for a' that1 ,that sense and worth1 o'er a' the earth ,may bear the gree1 and a' that2 ,for a' that1 and a' that1 ,it's coming yet1 for a' that1 ,that man to man1 the warld o'er1 ,shall brothers be for a' that4 ,it is perhaps as a singer of songs that the literary fame of ,burns will longest be preserved4 ,no other poet has ever breathed such music from his soul4 ,his melodies are as sweet and pure as the bubbling spring2 and as natural and spontaneous as ever came from the throat of the nightingale or lark4 ,these songs could not be made4 ,the feeling and passion that left his soul bore this music as naturally as the zephyr that has fanned the strings of the olian harp4 ,the meter of these songs was not learned by scanning ,latin verse1 or studying the dry rules that govern literary art1 but it was born of the regular pulse beats1 which in the heart of ,nature's poets are as smooth and unstudied as the rippling laughter of her purling brooks4 ,john ,anderson1 my jo1 ,john1 ,when we were first acquent1 ,your locks were like the raven1 ,your bonnie brow was brent2 ,but now your brow is beld1 ,john1 ,your locks are like the snow2 ,but blessing on your frosty pow1 ,john ,anderson1 my jo4 ,john ,anderson1 my jo1 ,john1 ,we clamb the hill tegither1 ,and mony a canty day1 ,john1 ,we've had wi' ane anither2 ,now we maun totter down1 ,john1 ,but hand in hand we'll go1 ,and sleep tegither at the foot1 ,john ,anderson1 my jo4 ,although a plough boy and surrounded by the grime and dirt that come from contact with the soil1 still even here ,burns found material for music and poetry that will live as long as human hearts endure2 for1 though the sky may be warmer and bluer on the ,mediterranean shore than where it domes the ,scottish hills and crags1 still the same heaven bends above them both1 and the same infinite mysteries are hidden in their unfathomed depths4 ,the tragedy of death is alike1 whether defying the power of a ,prince1 or entering the home of the humblest peasant to bring the first moments of relief and rest4 ,the miracle of life1 whether wrought by ,nature on the rich couch of the ,queen or the unwatched pallet of the peasant1 is the same mystery1 ever new1 ever old1 appealing ever to the heart of man4 ,the affections and passions1--those profound feelings that ,nature planted deep in the being of all sentient things1 and on whose strength all life depends1--these are the deepest and purest as we leave the conventions and trappings of the artificial world1 and draw nearer to the heart of the great ,universal power4 ,with the sky above1 the fields around1 and all ,nature throbbing and teeming with pulsing life1 but one thing more was needed to make harmony and music1 and that was ,robert ,burns4 ,the old story of human love was sung by him a thousand times and in a thousand varying moods1 as never love was sung before4 ,it mattered not that his melodies breathed of rustic scenes1 of country maids1 and of plain untutored hearts that beat as ,nature made them feel1 unfettered by the restraints and cords of an artificial life4 ,transport his ,mary to a gorgeous palace1 and deck her fair form with the richest treasures of the earth and bring to her side the proudest noble that ever paid homage to a princess1 and no singer1--not even ,burns himself1--could make a melody like the matchless music that he sung to ,highland ,mary4 ,how sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk1 ,how rich the hawthorn's blossom2 ,as underneath their fragrant shade1 ,i clasp'd her to my bosom6 ,the golden hours1 on angel wings1 ,flew o'er me and my dearie2 ,for dear to me as light and life ,was my sweet ,highland ,mary4 ,all the conventions and baubles and spangles which fashion and custom use to adorn the fair could only have cheapened and made vulgar the rustic maiden that moved ,burns' soul to song4 ,these sweet lines could never have been written of any but a simple country lass1 whose natural charms had moved a susceptible human heart3 ,i see her in the dewy flowers1 ,i see her sweet and fair2 ,i hear her in the tunefu' birds1 ,i hear her charm the air2 ,there's not a bonnie flower that springs ,by fountain1 shaw1 or green1 ,there's not a bonnie bird that sings1 ,but minds me o' my ,jean4 ,who was this ,burns that sang these sweet songs and whose musical soul was stirred by every breeze and moved to poetry by every lovely face and form that came within his view8 ,biographers and critics and admirers have praised the genius and begged excuses for the man4 ,without asking charity for this illustrious singer1 let us view him in the light of justice1 exactly as he was4 ,it is not difficult to understand the character of ,robert ,burns4 ,his heart was generous and warm and kind2 his mind was open as the day1 and his soul was sensitive to every breath that stirred the air4 ,these qualities have made the poet loved in every land on earth1 and brought more pilgrims to his grave than were ever drawn to the tomb of any other poet or author that has ever lived and died4 ,and yet the short-sighted1 carping1 moralizing world1 with solemn voice and wisdom ill-assumed1 has ever told how much better and holier he could have been and should have been4 ,poor1 silly1 idle world1 can you never learn that the qualities that make us strong must also make us weak2 that the heart that melts at suffering and pain is made of clay so sensitive and fine as to be moved and swayed by all the emotions of the soul8 ,would you serve the weak1 the suffering and the poor--would you calm their fears and dry their eyes and feel with them the cruel woes of life--you must wear your heart upon your sleeve1 and then of course the daws will peck it into bits4 ,would you keep it safely hidden from the daws1 you must hide it in a breast of stone or ice and keep it only for yourself4 ,perhaps we may admire the man that walks with steady step along a straight and narrow path1 unmoved by all the world outside4 ,he never feels and never errs4 ,but we cannot ask of either man the virtues that belong to both1 and when our choice is made we must take the strength and weakness too4 ,we look at the mountain top1 lifting its snow-crowned head high into the everlasting blue1 and are moved with wonder and with awe4 ,above is the endless sky2 below1 the world with all its bickering and strife1 the clouds1 the lightning and the storm1 but the mountain1 cold1 impassive1 changeless1 unmoved by all the world1 looks ever upward to the eternal heavens above4 ,again we gaze on the peaceful1 fertile lowlands1 rich with their generous harvests yet unborn--beautiful with their winding streams and grassy fields1 ever ready to bestow bounteously on all that ask1 demanding little and lavishly returning all2 and we love the quiet1 rustic1 generous beauty of the scene4 ,the mountain is majestic and sublime1 and the yielding1 generous lowlands are beautiful and pleasing too4 ,we love them both1 but we cannot have them both at once and both in one4 ,robert ,burns1 and all men like him that ever lived1 were always giving from their generous souls4 ,in the cold judgment of the world1 ,burns wasted many a gem upon the thoughtless1 worthless crowd1 who consumed a life he should have spent for nobler things4 ,but the flower that never wastes its fragrance has no perfume to give out4 ,if it is truly sweet1 its strength is borne away on every idle wind that blows4 ,robert ,burns with lavish bounty shed his life and fragrance on every soul he met4 ,he loved them all and loved them well3 his sensitive1 harmonious soul vibrated to every touch1 and moved in perfect harmony with every heart that came within his reach4 ,the lives of men like him are one long harmony2 but as they pass along the stage of life1 they leave a trail of disappointed hopes1 and broken hearts1 and vain regrets4 ,but of all the tragedies great and small that mark their path1 the greatest far and most pathetic is the sad and hopeless wreck that ever surely falls upon the exhausted artist's life4 ,the life of ,burns was filled with wrecks--with promises made and broken1 with hopes aroused1 and then dashed to earth again4 ,it was filled with these because one man cannot give himself personally to all the world4 ,the vices of ,robert ,burns perhaps like those of all the rest that ever lived1 were virtues carried to excess4 ,of course1 the world could not understand it then1 and cannot understand it now1 and perhaps it never will1 for slander and malice and envy1 like death1 always love a shinning mark4 ,the life of ,burns and the life of each is the old ,greek fable told again4 ,achilles' mother would make him invulnerable by dipping him in the river ,styx4 ,she held him by the heel1 which remained unwashed and vulnerable1 and finally brought him to his death4 ,to whatever dizzy height we climb1 and however invulnerable we seek to be1 there still remains with all the untouched heel that binds us to the earth4 ,and after all1 this weak and human spot1 is the truest bond of kinship that unites the world4 ,i look back at ,robert ,burns1 at the poor human life that went out a hundred years ago1 and study its works to know the man4 ,i care not what his neighbors thought2 ,i care not for the idle gossip of an idle hour4 ,i know that his immortal songs were not born of his wondrous brain alone1 but of the gentlest1 trust1 tenderest heart that ever felt another's pain4 ,i know full well that the love songs of ,robert ,burns could have come from no one else than ,robert ,burns4 ,i know that even the ,infinite could not have changed the man and left the songs4 ,burns1 like all true poets1 told us what he felt and saw1 and it is not for me to ask excuses for this or that2 but rather reverently to bow my head in the presence of this great memory1 and thank the infinite source of life for blessing us with ,robert ,burns exactly as he was4 ,it is difficult to understand our own being2 it is impossible to know our fellow man's1 but ,i have faith to think that all life is but a portion of one great inclusive power1 and that all is good and none is bad4 ,the true standard for judging ,burns and all other men is given by ,carlyle1 and ,i cannot refrain from borrowing and adopting what he says3 8,the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men2 unjust on many grounds1 of which this one may be stated as the substance3 ,it decides1 like a court of law1 by dead statutes2 and not positively but negatively1 less on what is done right than on what is or is not done wrong4 ,not the few inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit1 which are so easily measured1 but the ratio of these to the whole diameter1 constitutes the real aberration4 ,this orbit may be a planet's1 its diameter the breadth of the solar system2 or it may be a city hippodrome2 nay1 the circle of a ginhorse1 its diameter a score of feet or paces4 ,but the inches of deflection only are measured2 and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse and that of the planet will yield the same ratio when compared with them6 ,here lies the root of many a blind1 cruel condemnation of ,burns1 ,swift1 ,rousseau1 which one never listens to with approval4 ,granted1 the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged2 the pilot is blameworthy2 he has not been all-wise and all-powerful2 but to know how blameworthy2 tell us first whether his voyage has been around the ,globe1 or only to ,ramsgate and the ,isle of ,dogs40 ,robert ,burns has been dust for a hundred years1 and yet the world knows him better now than the neighbors that lived beside his door4 ,i look back upon the little village of ,dumfries1--not the first or the last town that entertained angels unawares4 ,i see poor ,robert ,burns passing down the street1 and the pharisees and self-righteous walking on the other side4 ,the bill of indictment brought against him by the ,dumfries community was long and black2 he was intemperate1 immoral1 irreligious1 and disloyal to the things that were4 ,the first two would doubtless have been forgiven1 but the others could not be condoned4 ,and so this illustrious man walked an outcast through the town that to-day makes its proudest boast that it holds the ashes of the mighty dead1 who in life was surrounded by such a halo of glory that his neighbors could not see his face4 ,a hundred years ago ,scotland was held tightly in the grasp of the ,presbyterian faith4 ,calvinism is not very attractive even now1 especially to us that live and expect to die outside its fold1 but even ,calvinism has softened and changed in a hundred years4 ,burns was too religious to believe in the ,presbyterian faith1 and to the ,scotch ,covenanter there was no religion outside the ,calvinistic creed4 ,how any man can read the poetry of ,robert ,burns and not feel the deep religious spirit that animates its lines is more than ,i can see4 ,true1 he ridicules the dogmas and the creeds that held the humanity and intellect of ,scotland in its paralyzing grasp2 but creeds and dogmas are the work of man2 they come and go2 are born and die2 serve their time and pass away2 but the love of humanity1 the instincts of charity and tenderness1 the deep reverence felt in the presence of the infinite mystery and power that pervade the universe1 these1 the basis of all the religions of the earth1 remain forever1 while creeds and dogmas crumble to the dust4 ,scotland of a hundred years ago measured ,burns' religion by 8,holy ,willie's ,prayer10 8,the ,holy ,fair10 and kindred songs4 ,the world a hundred years from now will not make these the only test4 ,dumfries and all the ,unco' ,guid of ,scotland could not forgive ,burns for writing3 ,o ,thou wha in the heavens dost dwell1 ,wha1 as it pleases best thysel'1 ,sends ane to heaven and ten to hell1 ,a' for thy glory1 ,and no for ony guid or ill ,they've done afore thee6 ,i bless and praise thy matchless might1 ,when thousands thou hast left in night1 ,that ,i am here afore thy sight1 ,for gifts an1 grace1 ,a burnin1 an a shinin' light1 ,to a' this place4 ,lord1 hear my earnest cry an' pray'r1 ,against that presbt'ry o' ,ayr2 ,thy strong right hand1 ,lord make it bare ,upo' their heads6 ,lord1 weigh it down1 an' dinna spare1 ,for their misdeeds4 ,but1 ,lord1 remember me and mine ,wi' mercies temp'ral and divine1 ,that ,i for gear and grace may shine1 ,excell'd by name2 ,and a the glory shall be thine1 ,amen1 ,amen4 ,it was not enough that ,robert ,burns taught a religion as pure and gentle and loving as that proclaimed by the ,nazarene himself4 ,its meaning and beauty and charity were lost on those who would not see4 ,long ago it was written down that1 8,inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren1 ye have done it unto me40 ,if this is any test of a religious life1 then few men will stand as high in the great beyond as ,robert ,burns4 ,this poor poet has melted more hearts to pity and moved more souls to mercy1 and inclined more lives to charity than any other poet that ever dreamed and sung4 ,not men and women and children alone were the objects of his bounteous love and tender heart1 but he felt the pain of the bird1 the hare1 the mouse1 and even the daisy whose roots were upturned to the biting blast4 ,hear him sing of the poor bird for whom he shudders at the winter's cold3 ,ilka hopping bird1 we helpless thing ,that in the merry month o' spring ,delighted me to hear thee sing1 ,what comes o' thee6 ,where wilt thou cow'r thy chilling wing ,and close thy ee8 ,few men that ever lived would stop and lament with ,burns1 as he shattered the poor clay home of the field mouse with his plough4 ,no matter what he did2 no matter what he said2 no matter what his creed2 the man that wrote these lines deserves a place with the best and purest of this world or any other that the ,universe may hold4 ,wee1 sleekit1 cow'rin1 tim'rous beastie6 ,o1 what a panic's in thy breastie6 ,thou need na start awa sae hasty1 ,wi' bickerin' brattle2 ,i wad be laith to rin an' chase thee1 ,wi' murd'ring prattle8 ,in a world which still enjoys the brutal chase1 where even clergymen find pleasure in inflicting pain with the inhuman gun and rod1 these lines written a hundred years ago1 on seeing a wounded hare limp by1 should place ,burns amongst the blessed of the earth3 ,inhuman man6 curse on thy barb'rous art1 ,and blasted be thy murder-aiming eye2 ,may never pity sooth thee with a sight1 ,nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart6 99 99 99 99 99 99 ,oft1 as by winding ,nith ,i musing wait4 ,the sober eve1 or hail the cheerful dawn1 ,i'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn1 ,and curse the ruffian's aim1 and mourn thy hapless fate4 ,this was ,robert ,burns1--and yet ,dumfries1 which held this gentle soul within its walls1 and the ,protestant world of a hundred years ago1 looked at ,john ,calvin piling the faggots around ,servetus' form1 and knelt before him as a patron1 religious saint1 while they cast into outer darkness poor ,robert ,burns with his heart bowed down at the suffering of a wounded hare4 ,will the world ever learn what true religion is8 ,will it ever learn that mercy and pity and charity are more in the sight of the ,infinite than all the creeds and dogmas of the earth8 ,will it ever learn to believe this beautiful verse of ,robert ,burns3 ,but deep this truth impressed my mind1 ,through all his works abroad2 ,the heart benevolent and kind1 ,the most resembles ,god4 ,will the world ever learn when it prays to pray with ,robert ,burns1 as man has seldom spoken to the ,infinite1 in whose unknown hands1 we are as bubbles on the sea2 to the great power1 which sends us forth into the darkness to stagger through a tangled maze for a little time and then calls us back to sleep within its all-embracing heart4 ,o thou1 unknown1 ,almighty ,cause ,of all my hope and fear6 ,in whose dread presence1 ere an hour1 ,perhaps ,i must appear6 ,if ,i have wandered in those paths ,of life ,i ought to shun2-- ,as something loudly in my breast ,remonstrates ,i have done2-- ,thou know'st that ,thou hast formed me ,with passion wild and strong2 ,and list'ning to their witching voice ,has often led me wrong4 ,where human weakness has come short1 ,or frailty step aside1 ,do thou1 ,all ,good8--for such thou art ,in shades of darkness hide4 ,where with intention ,i have err'd1 ,no other plea ,i have ,but1 ,thou art good6 and goodness still ,delighteth to forgive6 ,dear ,robert ,burns1 to place one flower upon your grave1 or add one garland to your fame is a privilege indeed4 ,a noble man you were1 knighted not by ,king or ,queen1 but titled by the ,infinite ,maker of us all4 ,you loved the world2 you loved all life2 you were gentle1 kind and true4 ,your works1 your words1 your deeds1 will live and shine to teach the brotherhood of man1 the kinship of all breathing things1 and make the world a brighter1 gentler1 kindlier place because you lived and loved and sung4 ,illustration ,,realism ,,in ,,literature ,,and ,,art ,illustration ,,realism ,,in ,,literature ,,and ,,art ,man is nature's last and most perfect work1 but1 however high his development or great his achievements1 he is yet a child of the earth and the rude forces that have formed all the life that exists thereon4 ,he cannot separate himself from the environment that gave him birth1 and a thousand ties of nature bind him back to the long forgotten past and prove his kinship to all the lower forms of life that have sprung from that great universal mother1 ,earth4 ,as there is a common law of being1 which controls all living things1 from the aimless motions of the mollusk in the sea to the most perfect conduct of the best developed man1 so all the activities of human life1 from the movements of the savage digging roots1 to the work of the greatest artist with his brush1 are controlled by universal law1 and are good or bad1 perfect or imperfect1 as they conform to the highest condition nature has imposed4 ,the early savage dwelt in caves and cliffs and spent his life in seeking food and providing a rude shelter from the cold4 ,he looked upon the earth1 the sun1 the sea1 the sky1 the mountain peak1 the forest and the plain1 and all he saw and heard formed an impression on his brain and aided in his growth4 ,like a child he marveled at the storm and flood2 he stood in awe as he looked upon disease and death2 and to explain the things he could not understand1 he peopled earth and air and sea with gods and demons1 and a thousand other weird creations of his brain4 ,all these mysterious creatures were made in the image of the natural objects that came within his view4 ,the gods were men grown large and endowed with marvelous powers1 while tree and bird and beast alike were used as models for a being greater far than any nature ever formed4 ,an angry god it was that made the rivers overrun their banks and leave destruction in their path2 an offended god it was that hurled his thunderbolts upon a wicked world1 or sent disease and famine to the sinning children of the earth3 and to coax these rulers to be merciful to man1 the weak and trembling children of the ancient world turned their minds to sacrifice and prayer4 ,and the first clouded thoughts of these rude men that were transcribed on monument and stone1 or carved in wood1 or painted with the colors borrowed from the sun and earth and sky2 in short1 the first rude art was born to sing the praise1 and tell the fame1 and paint the greatness of the gods4 ,but all of this was natural to the time and place2 the graven images1 the chiseled hieroglyphics1 and all this rude beginning of literature and art were formed upon what men saw and heard and felt1 enlarged and magnified to fit the stature of the gods4 ,as the world grew older art was used to celebrate the greatness and achievements of kings and rulers as well as gods1 and their tombs were ornamented with such decorations as these early ages could create2 and yet all literature and art were only for the gods and the rulers of the world4 ,then1 even more than now1 wealth and power brought intellect to do its will1 and all its force was spent to sing the praises of the rulers of the earth and air4 ,the basis of all this art of pen and brush was the reality of the world1 but this was so magnified and distorted for the base use of kings and priests that realism1 in the true sense1 could not exist4 ,it would not do to paint a picture of a king resembling a man of flesh and blood1 and of course a god must be far greater than a king4 ,it would not do to write a tale in which kings and princes1 lords and ladies1 should act like men and women1 else what difference between the ruler and the ruled8 ,the marvelous powers that romance and myth had given to gods and angels were transferred to those of royal blood4 ,the wonderful achievements of these kings and princes could be equaled only by the gods1 and the poor dependents of the world1 who lived for the glory of the great1 were fed with legends and with tales that sung the praises of the strong4 ,literature1 sculpture1 painting1 music1 and architecture1 indeed all forms of art1 were the exclusive property of the great1 and the artist then1 like most of those to-day1 was retained to serve the strong and maintain the status of the weak4 ,no one dreamed that there was any beauty in a common human life or any romance in a fact4 ,the greatest of the earth had not yet learned to know that every life is a mystery and every death a tragedy2 that the spark of the infinite1 which alone transforms clay to life1 animates alike the breast of the peasant and the soul of the prince4 ,the world had not yet learned that the ant-hill is as great as ,mont ,blanc1 and the blade of grass as mysterious as the oak4 ,it is only now that the world is growing so delicate and refined that it can see the beauty of a fact2 that it is developing a taste so rare as to distinguish between the false and true2 that it can be moved by the gentle breeze as well as by the winter's gale2 that it can see greater beauty in a statement true to life1 than in the inflated tales1 which children read4 ,most of the art and literature the world has known has been untrue4 ,the pictures of the past have been painted from the distorted minds of visionists1 and the pliant brains of tools4 ,they have represented impossible gods and unthinkable saints2 angels and cherubs and demons2 everything but men and women4 ,saints may be all right in their place1 but a saint with a halo around his head was born of myth and not of art4 ,angels may be well enough1 but all rational men prefer an angel with arms to an angel with wings4 ,when these artists were not drawing saints and madonnas1 they were spending their time in painting kings and royal knaves2 and the pictures of the rulers were as unlike the men and women that they were said to represent as the servile spirit of the painter was unlike that of the true artist of to-day4 ,of course an artist would not paint the poor2 they had no clothes that would adorn a work of art1 and no money nor favors that could remunerate the toil4 ,an ancient artist could no more afford to serve the poor than a modern lawyer could defend the weak4 ,after literature had so far advanced as to concern other beings than gods and kings1 the authors of these ancient days told of wondrous characters endowed with marvelous powers2 knights with giant strength and magic swords2 princes with wondrous palaces and heaps of gold2 travelers that met marvelous beasts and slew them in extraordinary ways2 giants with forms like mountains1 and strength like oxen1 who could vanquish all but little dwarfs4 ,railroads were not invented in those early days1 but travel was facilitated by the use of seven league boots4 ,balloons and telescopes were not yet known1 but this did not keep favored heroes from peering at the stars or looking down from on high upon the earth2 they had but to plant a magic bean before they went to bed at night1 and in the morning it had grown so tall that it reached up to the sky2 and the hero1 although not skilled in climbing1 needed simply to grasp the stalk and say1 8,hitchety1 hatchety1 up ,i go4 ,hitchety1 hatchety1 up ,i go10 and by this means soon vanish in the clouds4 ,tales of this sort used once to delight the world1 and the readers half believed them true4 ,we give them to children now1 and the best of these view them with a half contempt4 ,the modern man does not enjoy these myths4 ,he relishes a lie1 but it must not be too big2 it must be so small that1 although he knows in his inmost soul that it is not true1 he can yet half make himself believe it is not false4 ,most of us have cherished a pleasing1 waking dream1 and have fondly clung to the sweet delusion while we really knew it was not life4 ,the modern literary stomach is becoming so healthy that it wants a story at least half true2 should the falsehood be too strong1 it acts as an emetic instead of food4 ,these old fairy tales have lost their power to charm1 as the stories of the gods and kings went down before4 ,they have lost their charm1 for as we read them now1 they wake no answering chord born of the experiences that make up what we know of human life4 ,when the beauty of realism shall be truly known1 we shall read the book1 or look upon the work of art1 and in the light of all we know of life1 shall ask our beings whether the picture that the author or the painter creates for us is like the image that is born of the consciousness that moves our soul1 and the experiences that have made us know4 ,realism worships at the shrine of nature2 it does not say that there may not be a sphere in which beings higher than man can live1 or that some time an eye may not rest upon a fairer sunset than was ever born behind the clouds and sea1 but it knows that through countless ages nature has slowly fitted the brain and eye of man to the earth on which we live and the objects that we see3 and the perfect earthly eye must harmonize with the perfect earthly scene4 ,to say that realism is coarse and vulgar is to declare against nature and her works1 and to assert that the man she made may dream of things higher and grander than nature could unfold4 ,the eye of the great sculptor reveals to him the lines that make the most perfect human form1 and he chisels out the marble block until it resembles this image so completely that it almost seems to live4 ,nature1 through ages of experiment and development1 has made this almost faultless form4 ,it is perfect because every part is best fitted for the separate work it has to do4 ,the artist knows that he could not improve a single organ if he would1 for all the rest of nature must be adjusted to the change4 ,he has the skill to reproduce this shape in lasting stone1 and the human brain could not conceive a form more beautiful and fair4 ,here is a perfect image of the highest work that countless centuries of nature's toil has made1 and yet some would seek to beautify and sanctify this work by dressing it in the garb that shifting fashion and changing fancy makes for man4 ,only the vulgar superstition of the past ever suggested that the reproduction of human forms in stone was an unholy work4 ,through long dark centuries religion taught that the flesh was vile and bad1 and that the soul of man was imprisoned in a charnel house1 unfit for human sight4 ,the early ,christians wounded1 bruised1 and maimed their house of clay2 they covered it with skins1 which under no circumstances could be removed1 and many ancient saints lived and died without ever having looked upon the bodies nature gave4 ,the images of saints and martyrs1 which in the name of religion were scattered through ,europe1 were covered with paint and clothes1 and were nearly as hideous as the monks that placed them there4 ,when the condition of ,europe and its religious thought are clearly understood1 it is not difficult to imagine the reception that greeted the first dawn of modern realistic art4 ,sculpture and painting deified the material4 ,they told of beauty in the human form which hundreds of years of religious fanaticism had taught was bad and vile4 ,if the flesh was beautiful1 what of the monks and priests1 who had hidden it from sight1 who had kept it covered night and day through all their foolish lives1 who maimed and bruised1 cut and lacerated1 for the glory of the spirit1 which they thought was chained within4 ,the church had taught that the death of the flesh was the birth of the soul1 and they therefore believed that the artist's resurrection of the flesh was the death of the soul4 ,this old religious prejudice1 born of a misty1 superstitious past1 has slowly faded from the minds of men1 but we find its traces even yet4 ,the origin of the feeling against realistic art has well nigh been forgot1 but much of the feeling still remains4 ,no one would now pretend to say that all the body was unholy or unfit for sight1 and yet years of custom and inherited belief have made us think that a part is good and the rest is bad3 that nature1 in her work of building up the human form1 has made one part sacred and another vile4 ,it is easy to mistake custom for nature1 and inherited prejudice for morality4 ,there is scarcely a single portion of the human body but that some people have thought it holy1 and scarcely a single portion but that some have believed it vile4 ,it was not shame that made clothing1 but clothing that made shame4 ,if we would eradicate from our beliefs all that inheritance and environment have given1 it would be hard for us to guess how much should still remain4 ,custom has made most things good and most things bad1 according to the whim of time and place4 ,to find solid ground we must turn to nature and ask her what it is that conduces to the highest happiness and the longest life4 ,the realistic artist cannot accept the popular belief1 whatever that may be1 as to just where the dead line on the human body should be drawn that separates the sacred and profane4 ,there are realists that look at all the beauty and loveliness of the world1 and all its maladjustments too1 and do not seek to answer the old1 old question whether back of this is any all-controlling and designing power2 they do not answer1 for they cannot know2 but they strive to touch the subtle chord that makes their individual lives vibrate in harmony with the great heart of that nature1 which they love2 and they cannot think but that all parts of life are good1 and that while men may differ1 nature must know best4 ,other realists there are that believe they see in nature the work of a divine maker1 who created man in his own image as the last and highest triumph of his skill2 that the minutest portion of the universe exists because he wished it thus4 ,to the realist that accepts this all-controlling power1 any imputation against a portion of his master's work must reach back to the author that designed it all4 ,we need not say that the human body might not be better than it is2 we need only know that it is the best that man can have1 and that its wondrous mechanism has been constructed with infinitely more than human skill2 that every portion is adapted for its work1 and through the harmony of every part the highest good is reached2 and that all is beautiful1 for it makes the being best adapted to the earth4 ,those who denounce realistic art deny that knowledge is power and that wisdom only can make harmony1 and they insist instead that there are some things vital to life and happiness that we should not know1 but that if we must know these things1 we should at all events pretend that we do not4 ,one day the world will learn that all things are good or bad according to the service they perform4 ,one day it ought to learn that the power to create immortality1 through infinite succeeding links of human life1 is the finest and most terrible that nature ever gave to man1 and that to ignore this power or call it bad1 or fail to realize the great responsibility of this tremendous fact1 is to cry out against the power that gave us life1 and commit the greatest human sin1 for it may be one that never dies4 ,the true artist does not find all beauty in the human face or form4 ,he looks upon the sunset1 painting all the clouds with rosy hue1 and his highest wish is to create another scene like this4 ,he never dreams that he could paint a sunset fairer than the one which lights the fading world4 ,a fairer sunset would be something else4 ,he sees beauty in the quiet lake1 the grassy field1 and running brook2 he sees majesty in the cataract and mountain peak4 ,he knows that he can paint no streams and mountain peaks more perfect than the ones that nature made4 ,the growth of letters has been like the growth of art from the marvelous and mythical to the natural and true4 ,the tales and legends of the ancient past were not of common men and common scenes4 ,these could not impress the undeveloped intellect of long ago4 ,a man of letters could not deify a serf1 or tell the simple story of the poor4 ,he must write to maintain the status of the world1 and please the prince that gave him food2 so he told of kings and queens1 of knights and ladies1 of strife and conquest2 and the coloring he used was human blood4 ,the world has grown accustomed to those ancient tales1 to scenes of blood and war1 and novels that would thrill the soul and cause the hair to stand on end4 ,it has read these tales so long that the true seems commonplace1 and unfit to fill the pages of a book4 ,but all the time we forget the fact that the story could not charm unless we half believed it true4 ,the men and women in the tale we learn to love and hate2 we take an interest in their lives2 we hope they may succeed or fail2 we must not be told at every page that the people of the book are men of straw1 that no such beings ever lived upon the earth4 ,we could take no interest in men and women that are myths conjured up to play their parts1 and remind us in every word they speak that1 regardless of the happiness or anguish the author makes them feel1 they are but myths and can know neither joy nor pain4 ,it may be that the realistic tale is commonplace1 but so is life1 and the realistic tale is true4 ,among the countless millions of the earth it is only here and there1 and now and then1 that some soul is born from out the mighty deep that does not soon return to the great sea and leave no ripple on the waves4 ,in the play of life each actor seems important to himself2 the world he knows revolves around him as the central figure of the scene2 his friends rejoice in all the fortune he attains and weep with him in all his grief4 ,to him the world is bounded by the faces that he knows1 and the scenes in which he lives4 ,he forgets the great surging world outside1 and cannot think how small a space he fills in that infinity which bounds his life4 ,he dies1 and a few sorrowing friends mourn him for a day1 and the world does not know he ever lived or ever died4 ,in the ordinary life nearly all events are commonplace2 but a few important days are thinly sprinkled in amongst all of those that intervene between the cradle and the grave4 ,we eat and drink1 we work and sleep1 and here and there a great joy or sorrow creeps in upon our lives1 and leaves a day that stands out against the monotony of all the rest1 like the pyramids upon the level plains2 but these events are very few and are important only to ourselves1 and for the rest we walk with steady pace and slow along the short and narrow path of life1 and rely upon the common things alone to occupy our minds and hide from view the marble stone that here and there gleams through the over-hanging trees just where the road leaves off4 ,the old novel which we used to read and to which the world so fondly clings1 had no idea of relation or perspective4 ,it had a hero and a heroine1 and sometimes more than one4 ,the revolutions of the planets were less important than their love4 ,war1 shipwreck1 and conflagration1 all conspired to produce the climax of the scene1 and the whole world stood still until the lovers' hearts and hands were joined4 ,wide oceans1 burning deserts1 arctic seas1 impassable jungles1 irate fathers1 and even designing mothers1 were helpless against the decree that fate had made1 and when all the barriers were passed and love had triumphed over impossibilities1 the tale was done2 through the rest of life nothing of interest could occur4 ,sometimes in the progress of the story1 if the complications were too great1 a thunderbolt or an earthquake was introduced to destroy the villain and help on the match4 ,earthquakes sometimes happen1 and the realistic novelist might write a tale of a scene like this1 but then the love affair would be an incident of the earthquake1 and not the earthquake an incident of the love affair4 ,in real life the affections have played an important part and sometimes great things have been done and suffered in the name of love1 but most of the affairs of the human heart have been as natural as the other events of life4 ,the true love story is generally a simple thing4 8,beside a country road1 on a sloping hill1 lives a farmer1 in the house his father owned before4 ,he has a daughter1 who skims the milk1 and makes the beds1 and goes to singing school at night4 ,there are other members of the household1 but our tale is no concern of theirs4 ,in the meadow back of the house a woodchuck has dug its hole1 and reared a family in its humble home4 ,across the valley only a mile away1 another farmer lives4 ,he has a son1 who plows the fields and does the chores and goes to singing school at night4 ,he cannot sing1 but attends the school as regularly as if he could4 ,of course he does not let the girl go home alone1 and in the spring1 when singing school is out1 he visits her on ,sunday eve without excuse4 ,if the girl had not lived so near1 the boy would have fancied another girl about the same age1 who also went to singing school4 ,back of the second farmer's house is another woodchuck hole and woodchuck home4 ,after a year or two of courtship the boy and girl are married as their parents were before1 and they choose a pretty spot beside the road1 and build another house near by1 and settle down to common life3 and so the world moves on4 ,and a woodchuck on one farm meets a woodchuck on the other1 and they choose a quiet place beside a stump1 in no one's way1 where they think they have a right to be1 and dig another hole and make another home40 ,for after all1 men and animals are much alike1 and nature loves them both and loves them all1 and sends them forth to drive the loneliness from off the earth1 and then takes them back into her loving breast to sleep4 ,it may be that there are few great incidents in the realistic take1 but each event appeals to life and cannot fail to wake our memories and make us live the past again4 ,the great authors of the natural school--,tolstoi1 ,hardy1 ,howells1 ,daudet1 ,ibsen1 ,flaubert1 ,zola and their kind1 have made us think and live4 ,their words have burnished up our minds and revealed a thousand pictures that hang upon the walls of memory1 covered with the dust of years1 and hidden from our sight4 ,sometimes of course we cry with pain at the picture that is thrown before our view1 but life consists of emotions1 and we cannot truly live unless the depths are stirred4 ,these great masters1 it is true1 may sometimes shock the over-sensitive with the tales they tell of life1 but if the tale is true1 why hide it from our sight8 ,there is nothing more common than the protest against the wicked stories of the realistic school1 filled with tales of passion and of sin2 but he that denies passion denies all the life that exists upon the earth1 and cries out against the mother that gave him birth4 ,and he that ignores this truth passes with contempt the greatest fact that nature has impressed upon the world4 ,those who condemn as sensual the tales of ,tolstoi and ,daudet still defend the love stories of which our literature is full4 ,those weak and silly tales that make women fit only to be the playthings of the world1 and deny to them a single thought or right except to serve their master1 man4 ,these objectors do not contend that tales dealing with the feelings and affections shall not be told1 they approve these tales2 they simply insist that they shall be false instead of true4 ,the old novel filled the mind of the school girl with a thousand thoughts that had no place in life--with ten thousand pictures she could never see4 ,it taught that some time she should meet a prince in disguise to whom she would freely give her hand and heart4 ,so she went out upon the road to find this prince1 and the more disguised he was1 the more certain did she feel that he was the prince for whom she sought4 ,the realist paints the passions and affections as they are4 ,both man and woman can see their beauty and their terror1 their true position1 and the relation that they bear to all the rest of life4 ,he would not beguile the girl into the belief that her identity should be destroyed and merged for the sake of this feeling1 which not once in ten thousand times could realize the promises the novel made2 but he would leave her as an individual to make the most she can1 and all she can1 of life1 with all the hope and chance of conquest1 which men have taken for themselves4 ,neither would the realist cry out blindly against these deep passions1 which have moved men and women in the past1 and which must continue fierce and strong as long as life exists4 ,he is taught by the scientist that the fiercest heat may be transformed to light1 and is taught by life that from the strongest passions are sometimes born the sweetest and the purest souls4 ,in these days of creeds and theories1 of preachers in the pulpit and of preachers out1 we are told that all novels should have a moral and be written to serve some end4 ,so we have novels on religion1 war1 marriage1 divorce1 socialism1 theosophy1 woman's rights1 and other topics without end4 ,it is not enough that the preachers and lecturers shall tell us how to think and act2 the novelist must try his hand at preaching too4 ,he starts out with a theory1 and every scene and incident must be bent to make it plain that the author believes certain things4 ,the doings of the men and women in the book are secondary to the views the author holds4 ,the theories may be true1 but the poor characters that must adjust their lives to these ideal states are sadly warped and twisted out of shape4 ,the realist would teach a lesson1 too1 but he would not violate a single fact for all the theories in the world--for a theory could not be true if it did violence to life4 ,he paints his picture so true and perfect that all men who look upon it know it is a likeness of the world that they have seen2 they know that these are men and women and little children that they meet upon the streets2 they see the conditions of their lives1 and the moral of the picture sinks deep into their minds4 ,there are so-called scientists that make a theory and then gather facts to prove their theory true2 the real scientist patiently and impartially gathers facts1 and then forms a theory to explain and harmonize these facts4 ,all life bears a moral1 and the true artist must teach a lesson with his every fact4 ,some contend that the moral teacher must not tell the truth2 the realist holds that there can be no moral teaching like the truth4 ,the world has grown tired of preachers and sermons2 to-day it asks for facts4 ,it has grown tired of fairies and angels1 and asks for flesh and blood4 ,it looks on life as it exists1 both its beauty and its horror1 its joy and its sorrow2 it wishes to see it all2 not the prince and the millionaire alone1 but the laborer and the beggar1 the master and the slave4 ,we see the beautiful and the ugly1 and with it know what the world is and what it ought to be2 and the true picture1 which the author saw and painted1 stirs the heart to holier feelings and to grander thoughts4 ,it is from the realities of life that the highest idealities are born4 ,the philosopher may reason with unerring logic1 and show us where the world is wrong4 ,the economist may tell us of the progress and poverty that go hand in hand2 but these are theories1 and the abstract cannot suffer pain4 ,dickens went out into the streets of the great city and found poor little ,jo sweeping the crossing with his broom4 ,all around was the luxury and the elegance1 which the rich have ever appropriated to themselves2 great mansions1 fine carriages1 beautiful dresses1 but in all the great city of houses and homes1 poor little ,jo could find no place to lay his head4 ,his home was in the street1 and every time he halted for a moment in the throng1 the policeman touched him with his club and bade him 8move on40 ,at last1 ragged1 wretched1 almost dead with 8moving on10 he sank down upon the cold stone steps of a magnificent building erected for 8,the ,propagation of the ,gospel in ,foreign ,parts40 ,as we think of wretched1 ragged ,jo in the midst of all this luxury and wealth1 we see the tens of thousands of other waifs in the great cities of the world1 and we condemn the so-called civilization of the earth that builds the mansions of the rich and great upon the rags and miseries of the poor4 ,the true realist cannot worship at the shrine of power1 nor prostitute his gifts for gold4 ,with an artist's eye he sees the world exactly as it is1 and tells the story faithful unto life4 ,he feels for every heart that beats1 else he could not paint them as he does4 ,it takes the soul to warm a statue into life and make living flesh and coursing blood1 and each true picture that he paints or draws makes the world a better place in which to live4 ,the artists of the realistic school have a sense so fine that they cannot help but catch the inspiration that is filling all the world's best minds with the hope of greater justice and more equal social life4 ,with the vision of the seer they feel the coming dawn when true equality shall reign upon the earth2 the time when democracy shall no more be confined to constitutions and to laws1 but will be a part of human life4 ,the greatest artists of the world to-day are telling facts and painting scenes that cause humanity to stop1 and think1 and ask why one should be a master and another be a serf2 why a portion of the world should toil and spin1 should wear away its strength and life1 that the rest should live in idleness and ease4 ,the old-time artists thought they served humanity by painting saints and madonnas and angels from the myths they conjured in their brains4 ,they painted war with long lines of soldiers dressed in uniforms1 and looking plump and gay2 and a battle scene was always drawn from the side of the victorious camp1 with the ensign proudly planting his bright colors on the rampart of the foe4 ,one or two were dying1 but always in their comrades' arms1 and listening to shouts of victory that filled the air1 and thinking of the righteous cause for which they fought and died4 ,in the last moments they dreamed of pleasant burial yards at home1 and of graves kept green by loving1 grateful friends2 and a smile of joy shone on their wasted faces that was so sweet1 that it seemed a hardship not to die in war4 ,they painted peace as a white winged dove settling down upon a cold and fading earth4 ,between the two it was plain which choice a boy would make1 and thus art served the state and king4 ,but ,verestchagin painted war2 he painted war so true to life that as we look upon the scene1 we long for peace4 ,he painted war as war has ever been1 and as war will ever be--a horrible and ghastly scene1 where men1 drunk with blind frenzy which rulers say is patriotic pride1 and made mad by drums and fifes and smoke and shot and shell and flowing blood1 seek to maim and wound and kill1 because a ruler gives the word4 ,he paints a battle field1 a field of life and death2 a field of carnage and of blood2 and who are these that fight like fiends and devils driven to despair8 ,what cause is this that makes these men forget that they are men1 and vie with beasts to show their cruel thirst for blood8 ,they shout of home and native land1 but they have no homes1 and the owners of their native land exist upon their toil and blood4 ,the nobles and princes1 for whom this fight is waged1 are far away upon a hill1 beyond the reach of shot and shell1 and from this spot they watch their slaves pour out their blood to satisfy their rulers' pride and lust of power4 ,what is the enemy they fight8 ,men like themselves2 who blindly go to death at another king's command1 slaves1 who have no land1 who freely give their toil or blood1 whichever one their rulers may demand4 ,these fighting soldiers have no cause for strife1 but their rulers live by kindling in their hearts a love of native land1 a love that makes them hate their brother laborers of other lands1 and dumbly march to death to satisfy a king's caprice4 ,but let us look once more after the battle has been fought4 ,here we see the wreck and ruin of the strife2 the field is silent now1 given to the dead1 the beast of prey and night4 ,a young soldier lies upon the ground2 the snow is falling fast around his form2 the lonely mountain peaks rise up on every side2 the wreck of war is all about4 ,his uniform is soiled and stained1 a spot of red is seen upon his breast4 ,it is not the color that his country wove upon his coat to catch his eye and bait him to his death2 it is hard and jagged and cold4 ,it is his life's blood1 which leaked out through a hole that followed the point of a sabre to his heart4 ,his form is stiff and cold1 for he is dead4 ,the cruel wound and icy air have done their work4 ,the government that took his life taught this poor boy to love his native land2 as a child he dreamed of scenes of glory and of power1 and the great wide world just waiting to fall captive to his magic strength4 ,he dreamed of war and strife1 of victory and fame2 if he should die1 kind hands would smooth his brow1 and loving friends would keep his grave and memory green1 because he died in war4 ,but no human eye is there at last1 as the mist of night and mist of death shut out the lonely mountains from his sight4 ,the snow is all around1 and the air above is grey with falling flakes1 which soon will hide him from the world2 and when the summer time shall come again1 no one can tell his bleaching bones from all the rest4 ,the only life upon the scene is the buzzard slowly circling in the air above his head1 waiting to make sure that death has come4 ,the bird looks down upon the boy1 into the eyes through which he first looked out upon the great1 wide world1 and which his mother fondly kissed2 upon these eyes the buzzard will commence his meal4 ,not all the world is beautiful1 and not all of life is good4 ,the true artist has no right to choose the lovely spots alone and make us think that this is life4 ,he must bring the world before our eyes and make us read and learn4 ,as he loves the true and noble1 he must show the false and bad4 ,as he yearns for true equality1 he must paint the master and the slave4 ,he must tell the truth1 and tell it all1 must tell it o'er and o'er again1 till the deafest ear will listen and the dullest mind will think4 ,he must not swerve to please the world by painting only pleasant sights and telling only lovely tales4 ,he must think1 and paint1 and write1 and work1 until the world shall learn so much and grow so good1 that the true will all be beautiful and all the real be ideal4 ,illustration ,,the ,,skeleton ,,in ,,the ,,closet ,illustration ,,the ,,skeleton ,,in ,,the ,,closet ,the closet has so long been allotted to the skeleton that we have come to regard this room as its fit and natural home2 it has been given over to this guest because it is the darkest1 the closest and least conspicuous in the house4 ,the door can be securely fastened and only now and then can the grating bones be heard by the world outside4 ,still1 however secluded and unused this guest chamber seems to be1 and however carefully we bolt the door and darken every chink and crevice in the walls1 we are ever conscious that the occupant is there1 and will remain until the house is closed1 and the last tenant has departed1 never to return4 ,the very fact that we try so hard to keep the skeleton in its proper room1 makes it the more impossible to forget that it is there4 ,now and then we awake with a start at the thought of what might happen should it break the door and wander through the house1 and then stray out into the wide world1 and tell all the peaceful1 trusting neighbors from what house it stole away2 and yet we are somehow conscious that the rumor of its dread presence has already traveled as far as we are known4 ,man is a wonderfully adaptable animal2 he fits himself easily into the environment where he is placed4 ,he passes from infancy to childhood and from childhood to boyhood as smoothly as the placid river flows to the waiting sea4 ,every circumstance and surrounding of his life seems to have been made for him4 ,suddenly a new desire takes possession of his soul2 he turns his back on the home of his childhood days and goes out alone4 ,in a little time a new family is reared about him1 and he forgets the group that clustered round his father's hearth4 ,he may lose a leg or a fortune1 and he soon conforms to his changed condition and life goes on as naturally and as easily as before4 ,a child is born beneath his roof2 it takes a place within his heart and home1 and in a little while he can scarcely think of the day it was not there4 ,death comes1 and a member of his little band is carried out1 but time drops its healing balm upon the wounds and life goes on almost unconscious that the dead has ever lived4 ,but while we adjust ourselves naturally to all things living and to ever varying scenes1 the skeleton in the closet is always an intruder1 no matter how long it may have dwelt beneath the roof4 ,even though we may forget its actual presence for a little time1 still no scene is so perfect and no enjoyment so great but we feel a cloud casting its shadow across our happiness or the weight of some burden on our soul2 and when we stop to ask the cause1 the grinning skeleton reminds us that it is with us even here4 ,this specter stands quite apart from the other sorrows of our life2 age seems powerless to forget1 and time will not bring its ever-fresh1 recurring scenes to erase the memory of the past4 ,this is not because the skeleton is really such a dreadful guest4 ,the kind and loving ivy creeps tenderly around each yawning scar and crumbling stone1 until the whole ruin is covered with a lovely green4 ,the decaying pile stands free and open to the sun and rain and air4 ,it does not hide its head or apologize for the blemishes and seams that mark its face1 and a kind1 forgiving nature takes the ruin1 scars and all1 and blends these with her softening years and lovely face into a beautiful harmonious whole2 but unlike the ruin1 the skeleton in the closet is a neglected1 outcast child4 ,with every breath we insist that there is nothing in the room4 ,we refuse to take it to our hearts and homes and acknowledge it as our own4 ,we seek to strangle it to death1 and each fresh attempt not only shows our murderous design1 but proves that the skeleton is not a pulseless thing but is endowed with immortal life4 ,the brighter the fire-light that glows around our hearth1 the more desolate and drear sounds the wail of the wind outside1 for through its cold blasts wanders the outcast1 whose rightful place is in the brightest corner of the room4 ,our constant annoyance and sorrow at this dread presence is not caused by the way the skeleton behaves to us1 but from the way we treat our guest4 ,if we looked it squarely in its grinning skull1 it might not seem so very loathsome to the sight4 ,it has the right to grin4 ,it may be but a grim smile over the consciousness that it has sounded the last sorrow and that henceforth no greater evils are in store2 it may be a mocking1 sardonic grin at the thought of our discomfiture over its unwelcome presence and the knowledge that we cannot drive it out4 ,there is no truer index to real character than the way we treat the skeletons with which we live4 ,some run to the closet door1 and try to lock it fast when a neighbor comes their way4 ,if perchance any fear of discovery is felt1 they stand guard outside and solemnly protest that there is nothing in the room4 ,their anxiety and haste plainly show fear lest their hated guest shall reveal its face2 and of course there rises in the neighbor's mind a vision of a skeleton more horrible by far than the one inside the door or than anyone can be4 ,if the luckless jailer really fears that the rattle of the prisoner's bones has been heard outside1 he feels it his duty to carefully explain or tediously cover up every detail and circumstance that caused the presence of the specter in the house4 ,all this can only show that the guest is terrible to behold or that the jailer is so poor and weak that he himself is a helpless prisoner to his foolish pride and unmanly fear4 ,it can only serve to emphasize the presence he tries so vainly to deny4 ,there are also those who know that their skeleton has been seen1 or who having lost all else but this persistent1 grinning guest1 drag it out and parade it in the world to gain the sympathy or the money of their neighbors and their friends1 like the crippled beggar standing on the corner holding out his hat to every passer-by4 ,the true man neither guiltily conceals nor anxiously explains nor vulgarly parades4 ,he lives his life the best he can1 and lets it stand for what it is4 ,a thousand idle tales may be true or false4 ,one may have seen but certain things1 and placed him with the saints4 ,another little soul1 who never felt the breadth and depth of human life1 may have seen his scars alone1 and cast him out4 ,but standing by his side1 or clasping his strong1 sympathetic hand1 no one thinks of halos or scars or asks an explanation of this or that1 for in his whole being is felt the divine presence of a great soul1 who has lived and loved1 sinned and suffered1 and been strengthened and purified by all4 ,the skeleton is really kind that it only grins as we look it in the face4 ,of all our household it has received the hardest treatment at our hands4 ,it has helped us more than any of the rest1 and been locked in the closet for its pains4 ,it may perchance have come at our own invitation1 bringing us the keenest1 wildest joy our life had ever known4 ,we gladly drained the pleasure to the dregs1 and then coolly locked the memory close in the darkest hole that we could find4 ,the day it came1 has well nigh faded from our minds1 and the mad1 wild joy we knew can never more be wakened from the burned-out passions of the past1 but the skeleton1 which rose up grim and ghastly from the dying flame1 remains to mock and jeer and make us sad4 ,and now when the day is spent and the cup is drained1 we charge the poor specter with our lasting pain1 and forget the joy it brought4 ,we look with dread at these mocking1 grinning bones1 which we cannot drive away1 and we forget the time1 long1 long ago1 when those dry sticks were covered up with beautiful and tempting flesh4 ,it may be that we shall always shudder as we hear the rattle of the bones when we pass the closet door1 but in justice to the inmate1 we should give him credit for the joys of long ago4 ,and this brings us back to the old question of the balancing of pain and pleasure1 good and evil1 right and wrong4 ,it may be that in the mysterious adjustment of nature's balances1 a moment of supreme bliss will outweigh an eternity of pain4 ,in the infinite economy1 which life counted for the more1--that of ,napoleon1 or the poor ,french peasant that passed through an obscure existence to an unknown grave8 ,the brief glory of ,austerlitz was followed by the bitterness of ,waterloo1 and the long silence of an exile's life1 while the peasant trod his short path without ambition1 and filled a nameless grave without regret4 ,which is the greater and finer1 the blameless life of the patient brute1 or the winding1 devious path of a human soul8 ,it is only the dull level that brings no sorrow or regret4 ,it is a sterile soil where no weeds will grow1 and a bare closet where no skeleton will dwell4 ,neither should we remember the skeleton only for the joy it brought2 from the day it came1 it has been the greatest benefactor that our life has known4 ,when the mad delirium had passed away1 and the last lingering fragrance was almost spent1 this despised skeleton remained as the sole companion1 whose presence should forever bind us back to those feelings that were fresh and true and straight from nature's heart1 and that world which once was green and young and filled with pulsing life4 ,as the shadows gather round our head1 and our once-straying feet fall mechanically into the narrow path so straight and even at the farther end1 we may shudder now and then at the thought of the grim skeleton whose life is so far removed from our sober later selves2 but with the shudder comes a spark1 a flash of that great1 natural light and heat that once possessed this tottering frame1 and gave a glow of feeling and a strength of purpose so deep and all-controlling that the artificial life of an artificial world seems no more than a dim candle shining by the glorious sun4 ,it is the exhausted emotions of age1 which men call prudence1 that are ever warning youth of the follies of its sins4 ,it is the grinning skeleton1 speaking truly from the memory of other days1 that insists that life's morning held the halcyon hours4 ,does old age outlive the follies of childhood or does the man outgrow the wisdom of youth8 ,the most vociferous preachers are often those whose natural spirits have led them to drink the deepest of life4 ,they are so foolish as to think that others can be taught by their experiences1 and mumbling grey-beards endorse the excellence and wisdom of the sermons that they preach4 ,they are not wise enough to know that their prattle is more vain and foolish than the babblings of their childhood days4 ,it was the growing1 vital sap of life that made them children years ago2 it is the icy1 palsying touch of age that makes them babbling1 preaching children once again4 ,as well might the calm and placid lake teach the beauty of repose to the boiling1 seething cataract1 that thunders down ,niagara's gulf4 ,when the troubled waters shall have reached the lake they shall be placid too4 ,nature is wiser far than man4 ,she makes the first childhood precede the second4 ,if the age of prudence came with youth1 it would be a dull and prosy world for a little time2 then life would be extinct upon the earth and death triumphant over all4 ,but these are the smallest reasons why we should venerate the neglected skeleton1 which we have ruthlessly cast into the closet as if it were a hideous thing4 ,this uncanny skeleton1 ever thrusting its unwelcome bones into our presence and our lives1 has been the most patient1 persistent1 constant teacher that all our years have known4 ,we look backward through the long dim vista of the past1 back to the little trusting child that once nestled on its mother's breast and from whose loving lips and gentle soul it first was told of life1 its temptations and its sins2 backward to her1 whose whole thought was a benediction to the life that was once a portion of herself4 ,we remember still this mother's words teaching us the way to live and telling us the way to die4 ,we always knew that no selfish thought inspired a single word she said and yet time and time again we strayed and wandered from the path she pointed out4 ,we could not keep the road and after while we did not try4 ,again our teacher told us of the path4 ,he1 too1 was good and kind and knew the way we ought to go1 and showed us all the bad results of sin1 and still we stumbled on4 ,the preacher came and told us of the beauteous heaven1 straight at the other end of the narrow path1 and the yawning gulf of hell to which our shifting footsteps led2 but we heeded not his solemn tones1 though they seemed to come with the authority of ,god himself4 ,as the years went on1 our mother's voice was stilled1 the teacher's words were hushed1 the preacher's threats became an empty1 hollow sound2 and in their place came the grinning skeleton1 born of our own desires and deeds2 less loving than the gentle mother1 more real and life-like than the teacher1 saner and truer than the preacher's idle words4 ,it was ever present and persistent2 it was a portion of our very selves4 ,we detested and feared the hated thing2 we locked it in the closet1 and denied that it was there2 but through the brightness of the day and the long and silent watches of the night1 we heard its rattling bones1 and felt its presence at our side4 ,no teacher of our youth was like that grim and ghastly skeleton1 which we tried to hide away4 ,the schoolmaster of our early life took our fresh1 young1 plastic minds and sought to crowd them full of useless1 unrelated facts that served no purpose through the years that were to come4 ,these lessons that our teacher made us learn by rote filled so small a portion of our daily lives that most of them were forgotten when the school-house door was closed4 ,when now and then we found some use for a trifling thing that we had learned through years at school1 we were surprised to know that the pedagogue had taught us even this4 ,in those early days it seemed to us that life would consist of one long examination in which we should be asked the names of states1 the rule of three1 and the words the ,romans used for this and that4 ,all that we were taught of the great world outside and the problem that would one day try our souls1 was learned from the copy books where we wrote the same old maxim until all the paper was used up4 ,in after years1 we learned that1 while the copy book might have taught us how to write in a stilted1 unused hand1 still all its maxims were untrue4 ,we left the school as ignorant of life as we commenced1 nay1 we might more easily have learned its lesson without the false1 misleading theories we were taught were true4 ,when the doors were opened and the wide world met us face to face1 we tested what we learned1 and found it false1 and then we blundered on alone4 ,we were taught by life that the fire and vigor of our younger years could not be governed by the platitudes of age4 ,nature was ever present with her strong and earthly grasp1 her keen desires1 her white hot flame4 ,we learned the precepts of the books1 but we lived the life that nature taught4 ,our pathetic blunders and mistakes1 and the skeleton that followed in their wake1 remained to teach us what was false and point to what was true4 ,this grim1 persistent teacher made but little of the unimportant facts that the schoolmaster sought to make us learn1 and it laughed to scorn the preacher's doctrine1 that in some way we could avoid the results of our mistakes and sins4 ,it did not preach1 it took its place beside us as another self and by its presence sought to make us know that we could not be at peace until we clasped it to our breast and freely accepted the unwelcome thing as a portion of our lives4 ,only the smallest fraction that we learned in youth was assimilated and made a portion of ourselves2 the rest faded so completely that it seemed never to have been4 ,the teacher soon became a dim1 uncertain memory of the past1 whose voice had long since died away2 but the skeleton in the closet never wearied nor grew old4 ,it ever made us learn again the lesson we would fain forget2 opened at each succeeding period of our lives the pages we would gladly put away1 until1 at last1 the ripening touch of time and the specter's constant presence made us know4 ,from the day it came beneath our roof1 it remained the liveliest1 wisest1 most persistent member of the family group1 the tireless1 watchful teacher1 who would neither sleep nor allow its pupil to forget4 ,it may be that there are lives so barren and uneventful that this guest passes ever by their door1 but unfortunate indeed is that abode where it will not dwell4 ,the wide vistas can be seen only from the mountain top1 and the infinite depths of life can be sounded only by the soul that has been softened and hallowed by the sanctifying touch of misery and sin4 ,life is a never-ending school1 and the really important lessons all tend to teach man his proper relation to the environment where he must live4 ,with wild ambitions and desires untamed1 we are spawned out into a shoreless sea of moving molecules of life1 each separate atom journeying on an unknown course1 regardless of the countless other lives it meets as it blindly rushes on2 no lights nor headlands stand to point the proper way the voyager should take1 he is left to sail an untried bark across an angry sea4 ,if no disaster should befall1 it does not show that the traveler is wise or good1 but that his ambitions and desires are few or he has kept close inside the harbor line4 ,at first we seek to swim the flood1 to scale the rocky heights1 to clutch the twinkling stars4 ,of course we fail and fall1 and the scars our passions and ambitions leave1 remain1 though all our particles are made anew year after year4 ,we learn at last to leave the stars to shine where they belong1 to take all things as they are and adjust our lives to what must be4 ,the philosophy of life can come only from those experiences that leave lasting scars and results that will not die4 ,rather than seek to cover up these gaping wounds1 we should accept with grace the tales they tell1 and show them as trophies of the strife we have passed through4 ,those scars are honorable that have brought our lives into greater harmony with the universal power4 ,for resist it as we will1 this infinite1 loving presence will ever claim us as a portion of its self until our smallest fragments return once more to earth1 and are united with the elements from which we came4 ,no life can be rounded and complete without the education that the skeleton alone can give4 ,until it came we never knew the capacities of the human soul4 ,we had learned by rote to be forgiving1 kind and true4 ,but the anguish of the human soul cannot be told--it must be felt or never known4 ,that charity born of true comradeship1 which is the highest and holiest sentiment of life1 can be taught by the skeleton alone4 ,the self-righteous1 who prate of forgiveness to their fellow men and who look down upon their sinning brothers from above1 are hypocrites or fools4 ,they either have not lived or else desire to pass for something they are not4 ,no one can understand the devious1 miry paths trodden by another soul unless he himself has wandered through the night4 ,those placid1 human lives that have moved along a narrow1 even path2 that learned by rote the lessons that the churches and the schools have ever taught2 whose perfection consists in refraining from doing certain things in certain ways2 who never had a noble thought or felt a great desire to help their fellow men--those blameless1 aimless1 worthless souls1 are neither good nor bad4 ,they neither feel nor think2 no skeleton would deem it worth its while to come inside their door4 ,the world judges the conduct of youth by the standards of age4 ,even when due allowance is made for the inexperience and haste of the young1 it is assumed that youth and age are measured by the calendar alone4 ,few have ever been wise enough to know that every passion and circumstance must be fully weighed1 before an honest verdict can be written down2 and that therefore only the infinite can judge a human soul4 ,though accursed1 doubted1 and despised1 ,nature ever persists in her relentless plan4 ,she would make us learn the lessons that youth so easily forgets4 ,she finds us headstrong1 unreasoning1 and moved by the same feelings that sway the brute4 ,she decrees that every act1 however blind or wilful1 must leave its consequences on our lives1 and these immortal consequences we treat as skeletons and lock them up4 ,but these uncanny specters wrap us closely in their bony arms2 they ever peer with sightless eyes into our soul2 they are with us if we sleep or wake1 and their persistent presence will not let us sleep4 ,it is the hated1 imprisoned skeleton that we vainly sought to hide away1 that takes an untamed1 fiery soul within its cruel1 loving clasp1 and holds it closely in its unforgiving grasp until the vain longings and wild desires of youth are subdued1 and cooled1 and the deeper harmonies of life are learned4 ,it is the hated skeleton that finds within our breast a heart of flint and takes this hard and pulseless thing and scars and twists and melts it in a thousand tortuous ways until the stony mass is purged and softened and is sensitive to every touch4 ,it is this same despised skeleton that finds us vain and boastful and critical of others' sins1 that watches every word we speak and even each unuttered thought2 it is with us when we tightly draw our robes and pass our fellow on the other side2 it hears us when we seek to show how good we are by boasting of our neighbor's sins2 for every spot of black or red that we see upon another's robes1 it points its bony fingers to a scar upon our heart1 to remind us that we are like the rest2 and the same finger ever points us to our wounds until we feel and understand that the clay the ,master used for us was as weak and poor as that from which he made the rest4 ,however blind and stubborn we may be1 however long we deny the lesson that the skeleton would teach1 still it will not let us go until with perfect peace and harmony we look at all the present and the past1 at all that was1 and all that is1 and feel no regrets for what is gone1 and no fears for what must come4 ,it may be that our stubborn1 stiffnecked soul will still persist until the hair is white and the heavy shadows hang about our heads1 but the skeleton with his soothing1 softening ally1 time1 sits with the last watchers at our suffering bed1 and goes if need be1 to the silent grave1 where alike the darkest crimson spot and the softest1 purest clay are reunited once again with the loving1 universal mother who has forgiven all and conquered all4 ,it matters not how high we seem to climb1 or what the careless world may think for good or ill4 ,it matters not how many small ambitions we may seem to have achieved4 ,even the unworthy cannot be forever soothed by the hollow voice of fame4 ,all triumphs are futile without the victory over self2 and when the triumph over self is won1 there are no more battles to be fought1 for all the world is then at peace4 ,it is the skeleton in the closet pointing ever to the mistakes and maladjustments of our past1 the skeleton standing there before our gaze that makes us still remember where our lives fell short2 that teaches us so slowly but so surely to turn from the unworthy victories and the dire defeats of life to the mastery of ourselves4 ,it is the skeleton from whom we learn that we can live without the world1 but not without ourselves4 ,without the skeleton we could never feel another's sorrow1 or know another's pain4 ,philosophy and theology cannot tell us how another's life became a hopeless wreck4 ,it is ourselves alone that reveals the precipice along which every footpath leads4 ,it is from life we learn that it is but an accident when we fall1 and equally an accident when we keep the path4 ,the pupil of the schools may look down with pitying glance upon the unfortunate victim of what seems to be his sin4 ,he may point to a love that will forgive and kindly plead with him to take another path1 but the wayfarer that the skeleton has taught will clasp this fellow mortal to his heart1 for in his face he sees but the reflection of himself4 ,the wise and good may forgive the evil and the wrong1 but only the sinner knows that there is no sin4 ,the charity that is born of life and sin is not fine because of its effect on some one else1 but for what it does for us4 ,true charity is only the sense of the kinship of all living things4 ,this is the charity that neither humiliates nor offends4 ,it is the sense that brings a new meaning to life and a new purpose to the soul4 ,let us do simple justice to this neglected1 outcast guest1 the useful1 faithful teacher of our lives4 ,let us open the closet door1 and let the skeleton come out1 and lock the schoolmaster in its place4 ,let us leave this faithful friend to roam freely at its will4 ,let us look it squarely in the face with neither fear or shame1 but with gratitude for the lessons it has taught4 ,it may be that the jeering crowd will point in scorn as they see us with the grewsome figure at our side1 but when we fully learn the lesson that it came to teach1 we shall need to look no more without for the approval or disapproval of our acts1 but seek to satisfy ourselves alone4 ,let us place a new chair beside the hearth1 in the cosiest nook1 and bid the skeleton take its place as the worthiest guest4 ,let us neither parade nor hide our new-found friend1 but treat it as a fact of life--a fact that is1 a fact that had the right to be1 and a fact that taught us how to find ourselves4 ,let us not forget the parents1 who watch us in our youth1 and the friends that were ever good and true4 ,but above all1 let us remember this grim and silent teacher1 who never neglected or forgot1 who showed us life as only it could show1 who opened up new vistas to our soul1 who touched our human hearts1 who made us know and love our fellowman1 who softened and mellowed and purified our souls until we felt the kinship that we bore to all living things4 ,until it came we knew only the surface of the world4 ,before it came1 we had tasted of the shallow cup of joy and the bitter cup of pain1 but we needed this to teach us from the anguish of the soul that there is a depth profound and great1 where pain and pleasure both are one4 ,that there is a life so deep and true that earth's rewards and penalties alike are but a hollow show2 that there is a conquest of ourselves1 which brings perfect peace and perfect rest4 ,illustration ,illustration ,,printed ,,for ,c4 ,l4 ,,ricketts ,,by ,r4 ,r4 ,,donnelley ,,sons ,,company1 ,,at ,,the ,,lakeside ,,press1 ,,chicago1 ,,ill4 ,,mcmii ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,transcriber',s ,,notes #a4 ,silently corrected typographical errors4 #b4 ,retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed4