Sacred Almanac Traces Of Greed Torrent Download [Patch]

[Angeles Bartholomew]

It lies deep in our habits, confirmed by all manner ofeducational and other arrangements for several centuries back, toconsider human talent as best of all evincing itself by thefaculty of eloquent speech. Our earliest schoolmasters teach us,as the one gift of culture they have, the art of spelling andpronouncing, the rules of correct speech; rhetorics, logicsfollow, sublime mysteries of grammar, whereby we may not onlyspeak but write. And onward to the last of our schoolmasters inthe highest university, it is still intrinsically grammar, undervarious figures grammar. To speak in various languages, onvarious things, but on all of them to speak, and appropriatelydeliver ourselves by tongue or pen,--this is the sublime goaltowards which all manner of beneficent preceptors and learnedprofessors, from the lowest hornbook upwards, are continuallyurging and guiding us. Preceptor or professor, looking over hismiraculous seedplot, seminary as he well calls it, or crop ofyoung human souls, watches with attentive view one organ of hisdelightful little seedlings growing to be men,--the tongue. Hehopes we shall all get to speak yet, if it please Heaven. "Someof you shall be book-writers, eloquent review-writers, andastonish mankind, my young friends: others in white neckclothsshall do sermons by Blair and Lindley Murray, nay by JeremyTaylor and judicious Hooker, and be priests to guide menheavenward by skilfully brandished handkerchief and the torch ofrhetoric. For others there is Parliament and the electionbeer-barrel, and a course that leads men very high indeed; theseshall shake the senate-house, the Morning Newspapers, shake thevery spheres, and by dexterous wagging of the tongue disenthrallmankind, and lead our afflicted country and us on the way we areto go. The way if not where noble deeds are done, yet wherenoble words are spoken,--leading us if not to the real Home ofthe Gods, at least to something which shall more or lessdeceptively resemble it!"So fares it with the son of Adam, in these bewildered epochs; so,from the first opening of his eyes in this world, to his lastclosing of them, and departure hence. Speak, speak, ohspeak;--if thou have any faculty, speak it, or thou diest and itis no faculty! So in universities, and all manner of dames' andother schools, of the very highest class as of the very lowest;and Society at large, when we enter there, confirms with all itsbrilliant review-articles, successful publications, intellectualtea-circles, literary gazettes, parliamentary eloquences, thegrand lesson we had. Other lesson in fact we have none, in thesetimes. If there be a human talent, let it get into the tongue,and make melody with that organ. The talent that can say nothingfor itself, what is it? Nothing; or a thing that can do meredrudgeries, and at best make money by railways.All this is deep-rooted in our habits, in our social, educationaland other arrangements; and all this, when we look at itimpartially, is astonishing. Directly in the teeth of all this itmay be asserted that speaking is by no means the chief faculty ahuman being can attain to; that his excellence therein is by nomeans the best test of his general human excellence, oravailability in this world; nay that, unless we look well, it isliable to become the very worst test ever devised for saidavailability. The matter extends very far, down to the veryroots of the world, whither the British reader cannotconveniently follow me just now; but I will venture to assert thethree following things, and invite him to consider well whattruth he can gradually find in them:--First, that excellent speech, even speech really excellent, isnot, and never was, the chief test of human faculty, or themeasure of a man's ability, for any true function whatsoever; onthe contrary, that excellent silence needed always to accompanyexcellent speech, and was and is a much rarer and more difficultgift.Secondly, that really excellent speech--which I, beingpossessed of the Hebrew Bible or Book, as well as of other booksin my own and foreign languages, and having occasionally heard awise man's word among the crowd of unwise, do almost unspeakablyesteem, as a human gift--is terribly apt to get confounded withits counterfeit, sham-excellent speech! And furthermore, that ifreally excellent human speech is among the best of human things,then sham-excellent ditto deserves to be ranked with the veryworst. False speech,--capable of becoming, as some one has said,the falsest and basest of all human things:--put the case, onewere listening to that as to the truest and noblest! Which,little as we are conscious of it, I take to be the sad lot ofmany excellent souls among us just now. So many as admireparliamentary eloquence, divine popular literature, and suchlike, are dreadfully liable to it just now: and whole nationsand generations seem as if getting themselves asphyxiaed,constitutionally into their last sleep, by means of it justnow!For alas, much as we worship speech on all hands, here is a third assertion which a man may venture to make, and inviteconsiderate men to reflect upon: That in these times, and forseveral generations back, there has been, strictly considered, noreally excellent speech at all, but sham-excellent merely; thatis to say, false or quasi-false speech getting itself admired andworshipped, instead of detested and suppressed. A trulyalarming predicament; and not the less so if we find it a quitepleasant one for the time being, and welcome the advent ofasphyxia, as we would that of comfortable natural sleep;--as, inso many senses, we are doing! Surly judges there have been whodid not much admire the "Bible of Modern Literature," or anythingyou could distil from it, in contrast with the ancient Bibles;and found that in the matter of speaking, our far bestexcellence, where that could be obtained, was excellent silence,which means endurance and exertion, and good work with lipsclosed; and that our tolerablest speech was of the nature ofhonest commonplace introduced where indispensable, which only setup for being brief and true, and could not be mistaken forexcellent.These are hard sayings for many a British reader, unconscious ofany damage, nay joyfully conscious to himself of much profit,from that side of his possessions. Surely on this side, if on noother, matters stood not ill with him? The ingenuous arts hadsoftened his manners; the parliamentary eloquences supplied himwith a succedaneum for government, the popular literatures withthe finer sensibilities of the heart: surely on this windwardside of things the British reader was not ill off?--UnhappyBritish reader!In fact, the spiritual detriment we unconsciously suffer, inevery province of our affairs, from this our prostrate respect topower of speech is incalculable. For indeed it is the naturalconsummation of an epoch such as ours. Given a generalinsincerity of mind for several generations, you will certainlyfind the Talker established in the place of honor; and the Doer,hidden in the obscure crowd, with activity lamed, or workingsorrowfully forward on paths unworthy of him. All men aredevoutly prostrate, worshipping the eloquent talker; and no manknows what a scandalous idol he is. Out of whom in the mildestmanner, like comfortable natural rest, comes mere asphyxia anddeath everlasting! Probably there is not in Nature a moredistracted phantasm than your commonplace eloquent speaker, as heis found on platforms, in parliaments, on Kentucky stumps, attavern-dinners, in windy, empty, insincere times like ours. The"excellent Stump-orator," as our admiring Yankee friends definehim, he who in any occurrent set of circumstances can startforth, mount upon his "stump," his rostrum, tribune, place inparliament, or other ready elevation, and pour forth from him hisappropriate "excellent speech," his interpretation of the saidcircumstances, in such manner as poor windy mortals round himshall cry bravo to,--he is not an artist I can much admire, asmatters go! Alas, he is in general merely the windiest mortalof them all; and is admired for being so, into the bargain. Nota windy blockhead there who kept silent but is better off thanthis excellent stump-orator. Better off, for a great manyreasons; for this reason, were there no other: the silent one isnot admired; the silent suspects, perhaps partly admits, that heis a kind of blockhead, from which salutary self-knowledge theexcellent stump-orator is debarred. A mouthpiece of Chaos topoor benighted mortals that lend ear to him as to a voice fromCosmos, this excellent stump-orator fills me with amazement. Notempty these musical wind-utterances of his; they are big withprophecy; they announce, too audibly to me, that the end of manythings is drawing nigh!Let the British reader consider it a little; he too is not alittle interested in it. Nay he, and the European reader ingeneral, but he chiefly in these days, will require to considerit a great deal,--and to take important steps in consequence byand by, if I mistake not. And in the mean while, sunk as hehimself is in that bad element, and like a jaundiced manstruggling to discriminate yellow colors,--he will have tomeditate long before he in any measure get the immense meaningsof the thing brought home to him; and discern, withastonishment, alarm, and almost terror and despair, towards whatfatal issues, in our Collective Wisdom and elsewhere, this notionof talent meaning eloquent speech, so obstinately entertainedthis long while, has been leading us! Whosoever shall look wellinto origins and issues, will find this of eloquence and the partit now plays in our affairs, to be one of the gravest phenomena;and the excellent stump-orator of these days to be not only aridiculous but still more a highly tragical personage. While themany listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with somegust of scornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction;but he deserves from this latter class a much more seriousattention.In the old Ages, when Universities and Schools were firstinstituted, this function of the schoolmaster, to teach merespeaking, was the natural one. In those healthy times, guided bysilent instincts and the monition of Nature, men had from of oldbeen used to teach themselves what it was essential to learn, bythe one sure method of learning anything, practicalapprenticeship to it. This was the rule for all classes; as itnow is the rule, unluckily, for only one class. The Working Manas yet sought only to know his craft; and educated himselfsufficiently by ploughing and hammering, under the conditionsgiven, and in fit relation to the persons given: a course ofeducation, then as now and ever, really opulent in manful cultureand instruction to him; teaching him many solid virtues, andmost indubitably useful knowledges; developing in him valuablefaculties not a few both to do and to endure,--among which thefaculty of elaborate grammatical utterance, seeing he had solittle of extraordinary to utter, or to learn from spoken orwritten utterances, was not bargained for; the grammar of Nature,which he learned from his mother, being still amply sufficientfor him. This was, as it still is, the grand education of theWorking Man.As for the Priest, though his trade was clearly of a reading andspeaking nature, he knew also in those veracious times thatgrammar, if needful, was by no means the one thing needful, orthe chief thing. By far the chief thing needful, and indeed theone thing then as now, was, That there should be in him thefeeling and the practice of reverence to God and to men; that inhis life's core there should dwell, spoken or silent, a ray ofpious wisdom fit for illuminating dark human destinies;--not somuch that he should possess the art of speech, as that he shouldhave something to speak! And for that latter requisite thePriest also trained himself by apprenticeship, by actual attemptto practise, by manifold long-continued trial, of a devout andpainful nature, such as his superiors prescribed to him. This,when once judged satisfactory, procured him ordination; and hisgrammar-learning, in the good times of priesthood, was very muchof a parergon with him, as indeed in all times it isintrinsically quite insignificant in comparison.The young Noble again, for whom grammar schoolmasters were firsthired and high seminaries founded, he too without these, or aboveand over these, had from immemorial time been used to learn hisbusiness by apprenticeship. The young Noble, before theschoolmaster as after him, went apprentice to some elder noble;entered himself as page with some distinguished earl or duke; andhere, serving upwards from step to step, under wise monition,learned his chivalries, his practice of arms and of courtesies,his baronial duties and manners, and what it would beseem him todo and to be in the world,--by practical attempt of his own, andexample of one whose life was a daily concrete pattern for him. To such a one, already filled with intellectual substance, andpossessing what we may call the practical gold-bullion of humanculture, it was an obvious improvement that he should be taughtto speak it out of him on occasion; that he should carry aspiritual banknote producible on demand for what of"gold-bullion" he had, not so negotiable otherwise, stored inthe cellars of his mind. A man, with wisdom, insight and heroicworth already acquired for him, naturally demanded of theschoolmaster this one new faculty, the faculty of uttering in fitwords what he had. A valuable superaddition of faculty:--and yetwe are to remember it was scarcely a new faculty; it was but thetangible sign of what other faculties the man had in the silentstate: and many a rugged inarticulate chief of men, I canbelieve, was most enviably "educated," who had not a Book on hispremises; whose signature, a true sign-manual, was the stamp ofhis iron hand duly inked and clapt upon the parchment; and whosespeech in Parliament, like the growl of lions, did indeed conveyhis meaning, but would have torn Lindley Murray's nerves topieces! To such a one the schoolmaster adjusted himself verynaturally in that manner; as a man wanted for teachinggrammatical utterance; the thing to utter being already there. The thing to utter, here was the grand point! And perhaps thisis the reason why among earnest nations, as among the Romans forexample, the craft of the schoolmaster was held in little regard;for indeed as mere teacher of grammar, of ciphering on the abacusand such like, how did he differ much from the dancing-master orfencing-master, or deserve much regard?--Such was the rule in theancient healthy times.Can it be doubtful that this is still the rule of humaneducation; that the human creature needs first of all to beeducated not that he may speak, but that he may have somethingweighty and valuable to say! If speech is the bank-note of aninward capital of culture, of insight and noble human worth, thenspeech is precious, and the art of speech shall be honored. Butif there is no inward capital; if speech represent no realculture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, butthe fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas,said bank-note is then a forged one; passing freely current inthe market; but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer,and to all the world, which are in sad truth infallible, and ofamount incalculable. Few think of it at present; but the truthremains forever so. In parliaments and other loud assemblages,your eloquent talk, disunited from Nature and her facts, is takenas wisdom and the correct image of said facts: but Nature wellknows what it is, Nature will not have it as such, and willreject your forged note one day, with huge costs. The foolishtraders in the market pass freely, nothing doubting, and rejoicein the dexterous execution of the piece: and so it circulatesfrom hand to hand, and from class to class; gravitating everdownwards towards the practical class; till at last it reachessome poor working hand, who can pass it no farther, but musttake it to the bank to get bread with it, and there the answeris, "Unhappy caitiff, this note is forged. It does not meanperformance and reality, in parliaments and elsewhere, for thybehoof; it means fallacious semblance of performance; and thou,poor dupe, art thrown into the stocks on offering it here!"Alas, alas, looking abroad over Irish difficulties, Mosaicsweating-establishments, French barricades, and an anarchicEurope, is it not as if all the populations of the world wererising or had risen into incendiary madness;--unable longer toendure such an avalanche of forgeries, and of penalties inconsequence, as had accumulated upon them? The speaker is"excellent;" the notes he does are beautiful? Beautifully fitfor the market, yes; he is an excellent artist in hisbusiness;--and the more excellent he is, the more is my desire tolay him by the heels, and fling him into the treadmill, that Imight save the poor sweating tailors, French Sansculottes, andIrish Sanspotatoes from bearing the smart!For the smart must be borne; some one must bear it, as sure asGod lives. Every word of man is either a note or a forgednote:--have these eternal skies forgotten to be in earnest, thinkyou, because men go grinning like enchanted apes? Foolish souls,this now as of old is the unalterable law of your existence. Ifyou know the truth and do it, the Universe itself seconds you,bears you on to sure victory everywhere:--and, observe, to suredefeat everywhere if you do not do the truth. And alas, if you know only the eloquent fallacious semblance of the truth, whatchance is there of your ever doing it? You will do somethingvery different from it, I think!--He who well considers, willfind this same "art of speech," as we moderns have it, to be atruly astonishing product of the Ages; and the longer heconsiders it, the more astonishing and alarming. I reckon it thesaddest of all the curses that now lie heavy on us. With horrorand amazement, one perceives that this much-celebrated "art," sodiligently practised in all corners of the world just now, is thechief destroyer of whatever good is born to us (softly, swiftlyshutting up all nascent good, as if under exhausted glassreceivers, there to choke and die); and the grand parentmanufactory of evil to us,--as it were, the last finishing andvarnishing workshop of all the Devil's ware that circulates underthe sun. No Devil's sham is fit for the market till it have beenpolished and enamelled here; this is the general assaying-housefor such, where the artists examine and answer, "Fit for themarket; not fit!" Words will not express what mischiefs themisuse of words has done, and is doing, in these heavy-ladengenerations.Do you want a man not to practise what he believes, thenencourage him to keep often speaking it in words. Every time hespeaks it, the tendency to do it will grow less. His emptyspeech of what he believes, will be a weariness and anaffliction to the wise man. But do you wish his empty speech ofwhat he believes, to become farther an insincere speech of whathe does not believe? Celebrate to him his gift of speech; assurehim that he shall rise in Parliament by means of it, and achievegreat things without any performance; that eloquent speech,whether performed or not, is admirable. My friends, eloquentunperformed speech, in Parliament or elsewhere, is horrible! Theeloquent man that delivers, in Parliament or elsewhere, abeautiful speech, and will perform nothing of it, but leaves itas if already performed,--what can you make of that man? He hasenrolled himself among the Ignes Fatui and Children of theWind; means to serve, as beautifully illuminated Chinese Lantern,in that corps henceforth. I think, the serviceable thing youcould do to that man, if permissible, would be a severe one: Toclip off a bit of his eloquent tongue by way of penance andwarning; another bit, if he again spoke without performing; andso again, till you had clipt the whole tongue away from him,--andwere delivered, you and he, from at least one miserable mockery: "There, eloquent friend, see now in silence if there be anyredeeming deed in thee; of blasphemous wind-eloquence, at least,we shall have no more!" How many pretty men have gone this road,escorted by the beautifulest marching music from all the "publicorgans;" and have found at last that it ended--where? It is the broad road, that leads direct to Limbo and the Kingdom of theInane. Gifted men, and once valiant nations, and as it were thewhole world with one accord, are marching thither, in melodioustriumph, all the drums and hautboys giving out their cheerfulest Ca-ira. It is the universal humor of the world just now. Myfriends, I am very sure you will arrive, unless you halt!--Considered as the last finish of education, or of human culture,worth and acquirement, the art of speech is noble, and evendivine; it is like the kindling of a Heaven's light to show uswhat a glorious world exists, and has perfected itself, in aman. But if no world exist in the man; if nothing but continentsof empty vapor, of greedy self-conceits, common-place hearsays,and indistinct loomings of a sordid chaos exist in him, whatwill be the use of "light" to show us that? Better a thousandtimes that such a man do not speak; but keep his empty vapor andhis sordid chaos to himself, hidden to the utmost from allbeholders. To look on that, can be good for no human beholder;to look away from that, must be good. And if, by delusivesemblances of rhetoric, logic, first-class degrees, and the aidof elocution-masters and parliamentary reporters, the poorproprietor of said chaos should be led to persuade himself, andget others persuaded,--which it is the nature of his sad task todo, and which, in certain eras of the world, it is fatallypossible to do,--that this is a cosmos which he owns; that he,being so perfect in tongue-exercise and full of college-honors,is an "educated" man, and pearl of great price in his generation;that round him, and his parliament emulously listening to him, asround some divine apple of gold set in a picture of silver, allthe world should gather to adore: what is likely to become ofhim and the gathering world? An apple of Sodom set in theclusters of Gomorrah: that, little as he suspects it, is thedefinition of the poor chaotically eloquent man, with his emulousparliament and miserable adoring world!--Considered as the wholeof education, or human culture, which it now is in our modernmanners; all apprenticeship except to mere handicraft havingfallen obsolete, and the "educated man" being with usemphatically and exclusively the man that can speak well withtongue or pen, and astonish men by the quantities of speech hehas heard ("tremendous reader," "walking encyclopaedia," andsuch like),--the Art of Speech is probably definable in that caseas the short summary of all the Black Arts put together.But the Schoolmaster is secondary, an effect rather than a causein this matter: what the Schoolmaster with his universitiesshall manage or attempt to teach will be ruled by what theSociety with its practical industries is continually demandingthat men should learn. We spoke once of vital lungs for Society: and in fact this question always rises as the alpha and omega ofsocial questions, What methods the Society has of summoning aloftinto the high places, for its help and governance, the wisdomthat is born to it in all places, and of course is born chieflyin the more populous or lower places? For this, if you willconsider it, expresses the ultimate available result, and netsum-total, of all the efforts, struggles and confused activitiesthat go on in the Society; and determines whether they are trueand wise efforts, certain to be victorious, or false and foolish,certain to be futile, and to fall captive and caitiff. How domen rise in your Society? In all Societies, Turkey included, andI suppose Dahomey included, men do rise; but the question ofquestions always is, What kind of men? Men of noble gifts, ormen of ignoble? It is the one or the other; and a life-and-deathinquiry which! For in all places and all times, little as you mayheed it, Nature most silently but most inexorably demands that itbe the one and not the other. And you need not try to palm anignoble sham upon her, and call it noble; for she is a judge. And her penalties, as quiet as she looks, are terrible: amounting to world-earthquakes, to anarchy and deatheverlasting; and admit of no appeal!--Surely England still flatters herself that she has lungs; thatshe can still breathe a little? Or is it that the poor creature,driven into mere blind industrialisms; and as it were, gonepearl-diving this long while many fathoms deep, and tearing upthe oyster-beds so as never creature did before, hardlyknows,--so busy in the belly of the oyster chaos, where is nothought of "breathing,"--whether she has lungs or not? Nationsof a robust habit, and fine deep chest, can sometimes take in adeal of breath before diving; and live long, in the muddydeeps, without new breath: but they too come to need it at last,and will die if they cannot get it!To the gifted soul that is born in England, what is the career,then, that will carry him, amid noble Olympic dust, up to theimmortal gods? For his country's sake, that it may not lose theservice he was born capable of doing it; for his own sake, thathis life be not choked and perverted, and his light from Heavenbe not changed into lightning from the Other Place,--it isessential that there be such a career. The country that canoffer no career in that case, is a doomed country; nay it isalready a dead country: it has secured the ban of Heaven uponit; will not have Heaven's light, will have the Other Place'slightning; and may consider itself as appointed to expire, infrightful coughings of street musketry or otherwise, on a setday, and to be in the eye of law dead. In no country is therenot some career, inviting to it either the noble Hero, or thetough Greek of the Lower Empire: which of the two do yourcareers invite? There is no question more important. The kind ofcareers you offer in countries still living, determines withperfect exactness the kind of the life that is in them,--whetherit is natural blessed life, or galvanic accursed ditto, andlikewise what degree of strength is in the same.Our English careers to born genius are twofold. There is thesilent or unlearned career of the Industrialisms, which are verymany among us; and there is the articulate or learned career ofthe three professions, Medicine, Law (under which we may includePolitics), and the Church. Your born genius, therefore, willfirst have to ask himself, Whether he can hold his tongue orcannot? True, all human talent, especially all deep talent, is atalent to do, and is intrinsically of silent nature; inaudible,like the Sphere Harmonies and Eternal Melodies, of which it is anincarnated fraction. All real talent, I fancy, would muchrather, if it listened only to Nature's monitions, express itselfin rhythmic facts than in melodious words, which latter at best,where they are good for anything, are only a feeble echo andshadow or foreshadow of the former. But talents differ much inthis of power to be silent; and circumstances, of position,opportunity and such like, modify them still more;--and Nature'smonitions, oftenest quite drowned in foreign hearsays, are by nomeans the only ones listened to in deciding!--The Industrialismsare all of silent nature; and some of them are heroic andeminently human; others, again, we may call unheroic, noteminently human: beaverish rather, but still honest; some areeven vulpine, altogether inhuman and dishonest. Your borngenius must make his choice.If a soul is born with divine intelligence, and has its lipstouched with hallowed fire, in consecration for high enterprisesunder the sun, this young soul will find the question asked ofhim by England every hour and moment: "Canst thou turn thy humanintelligence into the beaver sort, and make honest contrivance,and accumulation of capital by it? If so, do it; and avoid thevulpine kind, which I don't recommend. Honest triumphs inengineering and machinery await thee; scrip awaits thee,commercial successes, kingship in the counting-room, on thestock-exchange;--thou shalt be the envy of surrounding flunkies,and collect into a heap more gold than a dray-horse candraw."--"Gold, so much gold?" answers the ingenuous soul, withvisions of the envy of surrounding flunkies dawning on him; andin very many cases decides that he will contract himself intobeaverism, and with such a horse-draught of gold, emblem of anever-imagined success in beaver heroism, strike the surroundingflunkies yellow.This is our common course; this is in some sort open to everycreature, what we call the beaver career; perhaps more open inEngland, taking in America too, than it ever was in any countrybefore. And, truly, good consequences follow out of it: who canbe blind to them? Half of a most excellent and opulent result isrealized to us in this way; baleful only when it sets up (as toooften now) for being the whole result. A half-result which willbe blessed and heavenly so soon as the other half is had,--namelywisdom to guide the first half. Let us honor all honest humanpower of contrivance in its degree. The beaver intellect, solong as it steadfastly refuses to be vulpine, and answers thetempter pointing out short routes to it with an honest "No, no,"is truly respectable to me; and many a highflying speaker andsinger whom I have known, has appeared to me much less of adeveloped man than certain of my mill-owning, agricultural,commercial, mechanical, or otherwise industrial friends, who haveheld their peace all their days and gone on in the silent state. If a man can keep his intellect sile