登陆注册
4710300000002

第2章

We have the same interest in condition and character. We honor the rich, because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us. So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic, or oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self. All literature writes the character of the wise man. Books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds the lineaments he is forming. The silent and the eloquent praise him and accost him, and he is stimulated wherever he moves as by personal allusions. A true aspirant, therefore, never needs look for allusions personal and laudatory in discourse. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but more sweet, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character, yea, further, in every fact and circumstance, -- in the running river and the rustling corn. Praise is looked, homage tendered, love flows from mute nature, from the mountains and the lights of the firmament.

These hints, dropped as it were from sleep and night, let us use in broad day. The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary.

Thus compelled, the Muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.

The world exists for the education of each man. There is no age or state of society or mode of action in history, to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him. He should see that he can live all history in his own person.

He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is commonly read, from Rome and Athens and London to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, and if England or Egypt have any thing to say to him, he will try the case; if not, let them for ever be silent. He must attain and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield their secret sense, and poetry and annals are alike. The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences, avail to keep a fact a fact.

Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome, are passing already into fiction. The Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way. "What is History," said Napoleon, "but a fable agreed upon?"

This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Colonization, Church, Court, and Commerce, as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain, and the Islands, -- the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras in my own mind.

We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our private experience, and verifying them here. All history becomes subjective; in other words, there is properly no history; only biography. Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself, -- must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know. What the former age has epitomized into a formula or rule for manipular convenience, it will lose all the good of verifying for itself, by means of the wall of that rule.

Somewhere, sometime, it will demand and find compensation for that loss by doing the work itself. Ferguson discovered many things in astronomy which had long been known. The better for him.

History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact, -- see how it could and must be. So stand before every public and private work; before an oration of Burke, before a victory of Napoleon, before a martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, of Sidney, of Marmaduke Robinson, before a French Reign of Terror, and a Salem hanging of witches, before a fanatic Revival, and the Animal Magnetism in Paris, or in Providence. We assume that we under like influence should be alike affected, and should achieve the like; and we aim to master intellectually the steps, and reach the same height or the same degradation, that our fellow, our proxy, has done.

All inquiry into antiquity, -- all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis, -- is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There or Then, and introduce in its place the Here and the Now. Belzoni digs and measures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes, until he can see the end of the difference between the monstrous work and himself. When he has satisfied himself, in general and in detail, that it was made by such a person as he, so armed and so motived, and to ends to which he himself should also have worked, the problem is solved; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs, passes through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to the mind, or are _now_.

同类推荐
  • 瑜伽莲华部念诵法

    瑜伽莲华部念诵法

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大方广佛华严经中卷卷大意略叙

    大方广佛华严经中卷卷大意略叙

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 送叶秀才赴举兼呈吕

    送叶秀才赴举兼呈吕

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 十八契印

    十八契印

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 女论语

    女论语

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 佛度有心人

    佛度有心人

    佛陀说:“人的生命,只在一个呼吸问。”生命短促,我们应该善待自己,思索活着的意义。生命不是用来寻找答案的,也不是用来解决问题的,它是用来愉快地过生活的。人生多一分烦恼,就需要一分禅心来解救。红尘凡夫,人人都需要一颗禅心。
  • 名人传记丛书:阿蒙森

    名人传记丛书:阿蒙森

    名人传记丛书——阿蒙森——人类第一个登上南极点的人:“立足课本,超越课堂”,以提高中小学生的综合素质为目的,让中小学生从课内受益到课外,是一生的良师益友。
  • 舞蹈与传统文化

    舞蹈与传统文化

    中国舞蹈源远流长.它和古老的中华文明同生共存。中华五千年的历史,每走一步,都有舞蹈的足迹。中国的文明因舞蹈而多姿多彩、熠熠生辉,舞蹈又以它独特的文化彰显着中华民族的生命与活力。在舞蹈中看文化,在文化中观舞蹈,作者以生动流畅的笔触,结合流传的历史故事和经典的舞蹈佳作,深入探析中国舞蹈与传统文化之间密切而又微妙的联系,从中我们既能获悉古代的乐舞风尚和舞人传奇,感知中国舞蹈的辉煌与美妙,又能领略华夏礼乐之邦的非凡风采和气象,感受传统文化的博大与精深。
  • 秦相吕不韦

    秦相吕不韦

    战国末期,巨商商不韦游历列国,目睹战争频仍、百姓惨苦,立志一统天下,求得国富民安。在一次去邯郸的路上,他与赵女邂逅,彼此引为知己。随后,他遇见秦国在邯郸的质公子子,觉得此人闵是他赖以实现抱负之人。经他一番运筹,原本无望嗣位的子楚成了王位继承人。不久,子楚看中赵女。为了不至断送已经开始了的事业,吕不韦忍痛割爱,此时赵女已经有两个月的身孕,想到崇高的理想或在儿子身上实现,二人决定为实现理想做出牺牲。后来吕不韦做了相国,为秦国完成了由霸业向帝业转变战略,赢政继位,吕不韦被罢相,离开咸阳,最后,他以一种独特的方式回到秦宫,在对心上人和儿子的守望中默默死去。
  • 佛说申日经

    佛说申日经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 九爷他又挖坑了

    九爷他又挖坑了

    超甜新书【大佬总对我美色魂牵梦绕】只想领个假结婚证,却误惹真男神,舒小绵不干了,一个字,逃!哪儿知男神竟抓着她强撩不放。999式,花式不重样。小心脏‘砰砰’乱跳,却猛然意识到不对劲:“席沐深,别忘了你是我未婚夫的九叔!”“九叔?小女人,我要做你老公。”他是帝国的王,薄情冷血,无欲无求,遇到她之后,引以为傲的禁欲却跑的鬼影儿不见!她是狗血的落魄千金,人生惨淡,遇到他之后,变成了bilngbilng闪闪发亮~~后来,全帝城的人都知道,席氏夫妇是史上最恩爱的撒狗粮狂魔!!!【1V1,甜!宠!】(读者群495979451
  • 九歌异闻录

    九歌异闻录

    现世车祸,九歌误以为自己死了,本想到地府报到,却被黑色漩涡卷入一个古代世界。这是一个仙、神、妖、魔、鬼、人并存的时空。在现世,九歌只是一个略有本事的神棍,到了这一世,各种光环加身,斩妖除魔成了她的强项。偶尔她会梦回前世,偶尔她会想起现世,偶尔她又会眷恋这一世。直到三世的碎片拼完,才知道,原来有个男人陪她走了三生三世。
  • 《芝加哥规划》与美国城市的再造

    《芝加哥规划》与美国城市的再造

    出版于1909年的《芝加哥规划》是现代城市规划领域的奠基之作。本书讲述了《芝加哥规划》的时代背景、创制经历和推行效果,揭示了《芝加哥规划》如何影响了人们看待城市景观以及城市生活自身的方式,并且指出,《芝加哥规划》在出版一个世纪以后,依然持续引发着人们对于“怎样才能创造出充满生机而又宜居的城市环境”的讨论。
  • 焦金流石:旱灾与高温的防范自救

    焦金流石:旱灾与高温的防范自救

    本系列主要内容包括“自然灾害”、“火场危害”、“交通事故”、“水上安全”、“中毒与突发疾病”、“突发环境污染”等,书中主要针对日常生活中遇到的各种灾害问题作了详细解答,并全面地介绍了防灾减灾的避险以及自救的知识。居安思危,有备无患。我们衷心希望本书能够帮助青少年迅速掌握各种避险自救技能。
  • 长野起风了

    长野起风了

    宫崎骏的《起风了》说到:起风了唯有努力生存!这一路上走走停停,顺着少年漂流的痕迹,从前想象这世间,现在走在这世间,不敢回看,却又万般留恋!纵有疾风起,人生不言弃。随笔杂言,分享与你。