venerable gentleman of Buffalo--Dr. Scott--who did, and who still
does, very great things in a very small way. At the age of seventy
he
became conscious of decaying power of vision. Being professionally a
physician and naturally a philosopher, he conceived the idea that
the eye might be improved by what he denominated a series of
"ocular gymnastics." He therefore undertook to exercise his eyes
upon the formation of minute letters--working upon them until the
organs began to be weary, and then, like a prudent man, resting for
hours. By progressing slowly and carefully, he became, at last,
able to do wonders in the way of fine writing, and also became able
to read the newspapers without glasses. (Here's a hint for some
clever Yankee--as good as a fortune.) Now, reader, prepare for a
large story; but be assured that it is true, and that my hands have
handled and my eyes seen the things of which I tell you. At the age
of seventy-one, Dr. Scott wrote upon an enamelled card with a stile,
on space exactly equal to that of one side of a three-cent
piece,--The Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, the Parable of the
Ten Virgins, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Beatitudes,
the fifteenth Psalm, the one hundred and twentieth Psalm, the one
hundred and thirty-third Psalm, the one hundred and thirty-first
Psalm, and the figures "1860." Every word, every letter, and every
point, of all these passages was written exquisitely on this minute
space; and that old man not only saw every mark he made, but had the
delicacy of muscular action and steadiness of nerve to form the
letters so beautifully that they abide the test of the highest
magnifying power. They were, of course, written by microscopic
aid.
Now who believes that it does not require more genius and skill to
execute this minute work than it does to bore a Hoosac tunnel, or
build a Victoria bridge, or put a dam across the Connecticut, or
construct an Erie canal? I do not speak of the relative importance
of the great works and the small, but of the relative amount and
quality of the power that is brought to bear upon them. In a very
important sense the greatest thing a man can do is the most
difficult thing he can do. The most difficult thing a man can do
may not be the most useful, or in any sense the most important;
but it will measure and show the limits of his power. Work grows
difficult as it goes below a man, quite as rapidly as it does when
it rises above him. It costs as much skill to make a dainty bit of
jewelry as it does to carve a colossal statue. It actually costs
more power to make the chain of gold that holds the former, than
it does to forge the clumsy links by which the latter is dragged
to its location. Thus, whether man goes down or up, he soon gets
beyond the sphere of his power. The further he can carry himself
in either direction the more does he demonstrate his superiority
over the majority of men. The more difficult the task which he
performs the further does he reach toward infinity.
In the town of Waltham there is a manufactory of watches which I
have examined with great interest. It is here undertaken to
organize the skill which has been achieved by thousands of patient
hands, and submit it to machinery; and it is done. Every thing is
so systematized, and the operations are carried on with such
exactness, that, among a hundred watches, corresponding parts may
be interchanged without embarrassment to the machinery. The
different parts are passed from hand to hand, and from machine to
machine, each hand and each machine simply doing its duty, and
when from different and distant rooms these parts are assembled,
and cunning fingers put them together, every wheel knows its
place, and every pivot and every screw its home, though it be
picked without discrimination from a dish containing ten thousand.
Yet among these parts there are screws of which it takes one
hundred and fifty thousand to make a pound, and shafts and
bearings which are so delicately turned that five thousand
shavings will only extend a lineal inch along the steel. This is
the way American watches are made, and this is the way in which
the highest practicable perfection is reached in the manufacture
of these pocket monitors.
Here we have small work, organized, and great elaboration of
related details. When Dr. Scott wrote his passages on the card,
his work was very simple. He did only one thing--he made letters.
When he had made letter after letter until the little space was
filled, his work was done. It was not a part of some complicated
and inter-dependent whole, related to a thousand other parts in
other hands. I suppose it may be as delicate work to drill a jewel
with a hair of steel, armed with paste of diamond-dust, as to
write "Our Father" under a microscope; but when the jewel has to
be drilled with relation to the reception of a revolving metallic
pivot, the process becomes very much nicer. So here are a hundred
processes going on at the same time, in different parts of a
building, all related to each other, each delicate almost beyond
description, and effected with such precision that a mistake is so
much an exception that it is a surprise. I have seen the huge
steam engines at Scranton which furnish power for the blast of the
furnaces there, and their magnitude and power and most impressive
majesty of movement have made me tremble; yet as works of man they
are no greater than a Waltham watch.
It seems to me that man occupies a position just half way between
infinite greatness and infinite littleness, and that he can
neither ascend nor descend to any considerable degree without
bringing up against a wall which shows where man ends and God
begins. It seems, too, that that kind of human power which can
reach down deepest into the infinite littleness, is more
remarkable than that which rises highest toward the infinite
greatness. It is a more difficult and a more remarkable thing to
write the Lord's Prayer on a single line less than an inch long,
than it would be to paint it on the face of the Palisades, upon a
line a mile long, in letters the length of the painter's ladder. I
have heard of a watch so small that it was set in a ring, and worn
upon the finger; and such a watch seems very much more marvellous
to me than the engines of the Great Eastern.
We are in the habit of regarding God as the author of all the
great movements of the universe, but as having nothing to do
directly with the minor movements. Mr. Emerson becomes equally
flippant and irreverent when he speaks of a "pistareen Providence."
We kindly take the Creator and upholder of all things under our
patronage, and say, "it is very well for him to swing a star into
space, and set bounds to the sea, and order the goings of great
systems, and even to minister to the lives of great men, but when
it comes to meddling with the little affairs of the daily life of
a thousand millions of men, women, and children--pshaw! He's
above all that."
Not so fast, Mr. Emerson! The real reason why you and all those
who are like you do not believe in God's intimate cognizance and
administration of human affairs is, that you cannot comprehend
them. You have not faith enough in God to believe that he is able
to maintain this knowledge of human affairs, this interest in
them, and the power and the disposition to mould them to divine
issues. You are willing to admit that God can do a few great
things, but you are not willing to admit that he can do a great
many little things. It is well enough, according to your notion,
for God to make a mastodon, or a megatherium, but quite
undignified for him to undertake a mosquito or a horse-fly. It
would not compromise His reputation with you were you to catch Him
lighting a sun, or watching with something of interest the rise
and fall of a great nation, but actually to listen to the prayer
of a little child, and to answer that prayer with distinctness of
purpose and definite exercise of power, would not, in your
opinion, be dignified and respectable business for a being whom
you are proud to have the honor of worshipping!
I do not know how these people who do not believe in the intimate
special providence of God can believe in God at all. I can
conceive how God could rear Mont Blanc, but I cannot conceive how
He could make a honey bee, and endow that honey bee with an
instinct--transmitted since the creation from bee to bee, and
swarm to swarm--which binds it in membership to a commonwealth,
and enables it to build its waxen cells with mathematical
exactness, and gather honey from all the flowers of the field. It
is when we go into the infinity below us that the infinite power
and skill become the most evident. When the microscope shows us
life in myriad forms, each of which exhibits design; when we
contemplate vegetable life in its wonderful details; when
chemistry reveals to us something of the marvellous processes by
which vitality is fed, we get a more impressive sense of the power
and skill of the Creator than we do when we turn the telescope
toward the heavens. Yet Mr. Emerson would have us believe that the
Being who saw fit to make all these little things, to arrange and
throw into relation all these masses of detail, to paint the
plumage of a bird, and the back of a fly, as richly as he paints
the drapery of the descending sun, does not condescend to take
practical interest in the affairs of men and women! My God, what
blindness! Bird, bee, blossom--be my teacher. I do not like Mr.
Emerson's lesson.
The logical sequence of disbelief in what Mr. Emerson calls a
"pistareen Providence" is a belief in pantheism or polytheism.
There is certainly nothing ridiculous in the faith that the Being
who contrived and arranged, and adjusted the infinite littlenesses
of creation, and ordained their laws, and who continues their
existence, maintains an intimate interest in the only intelligent
creatures he has placed in this world. The little bird that sings
to me, the bee that bears me honey, the blossom that brings me
perfume, all testify to me that He who created them will not
neglect nor forget His own child. If I look up into the firmament,
and send my imagination into its deep abysses, and think that
further than even dreams can go, those abysses are strewn with
stars; if I think of comets coming and going with the rush of
lightning, and yet occupying whole centuries in their journey; or
if I only sit down by the sea, and think of the waves that kiss
other shores thousands of miles away, I am oppressed by a sense of
my own littleness. I ask the question whether the God who has such
large things in His care, can think of me--a speck on an infinite
aggregate of surface--a mote uneasily shifting in the boundless
space. I get no hope in this direction; but I look down, and find
that the shoulders of all inferior creation are under me, lifting
me into the very presence of God. I find that God has been at work
below me, in a mass of minute and munificent detail, by the side
of which my life is great and simple, and satisfyingly significant.
So, if I may not believe in a "pistareen Providence," I must make
a God of the universe itself, or pass into the hands of many Gods
the world's creation and governance. If the God that made the bee,
and the ant, and the daisy, made me, then He is not above taking
care of me, and of maintaining an interest in the smallest affairs
of my life. The faith that lives in reason is never stronger than
when it stands on flowers. There is not a fly that floats, nor a
fish that swims, nor an animalcule that navigates its little drop
of sea-spray, but bears a burden of hope to despairing humanity.
"If God so clothe the grass which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast
into the oven," then what, Mr. Emerson?
This subject is a very large one, and I can present only one more
phase of it. A great multitude--the larger part, in fact--of the
human race are engaged in doing small work. It may be a comfort
for them to know that the Almighty Maker of all things has done a
great deal of the same kind of work, and has not found it unworthy
or unprofitable employment. Let them remember that it is just as
hard to do a small thing well as a large thing, and that the
difficulty of a deed is the gauge of the power required for its
doing. Let them remember that when they go down, they are going
just as directly toward infinity as when they go up, and that
every man who works Godward, works in honor.
It was a very forcible reflection to which a visitor at Niagara
Falls gave utterance, when he said that, considering the relative
power of their authors, he did not regard the cataract as so
remarkable a piece of work as the Suspension Bridge; and it may be
said with truth that there is no work within the power of man--so
small that God has not been below it in a work smaller and
possibly humbler still,--certainly humbler when we consider the
infinite majesty and the ineffable dignity of His character. My
maid is too proud to go into the street for a pail of milk; my God
smiles upon me in flowers from the very gutter. My neighbor thinks
it beneath him to till the soil, working with his hands, but the
Being who made him, breathes upon that soil, and works in it, that
it may bear food to keep human dignity from starving. There are
men who set themselves above driving a horse, no part of which the
King of the universe was above making. Ah! human pride! Alas!
human dignity! I do not know what to make of you.
LESSON XII.
RURAL LIFE.
"Going into a village at night, with the lights gleaming on each
side of the street, in some houses they will be in the basement
and nowhere else."--BEECHER.
"The little God o' the world jogs on the same old way,
And is as singular as on the world's first day.
A pity 'tis thou shouldst have given
The fool, to make him worse, a gleam of light from heaven;
He calls it reason, using it
To be more beast than ever beast was yet.
He seems to me, (your grace the words will pardon,)
Like a long-legged grasshopper, in the garden,
Forever on the wing, and hops and sings
The same old song, as in the grass he springs."
GOETHE'S FAUST.
It is a common remark that a railroad car is an excellent place in
which to study human nature; but the particular phase of human
nature which is usually presented there is not, I think,
sufficiently attractive to engage a man who desires to maintain a
good opinion of his race. I would as soon think of studying human
nature in a pig-pen as in a railroad car. I do not like to study
even my own nature there, for I find that the more I ride, the
more selfish I become, and the more desirable it seems to me that
I should occupy the space usually assigned to four men, viz,: two
seats for my feet, and two for such other portions of my person as
are not required for spanning the space between the sofas. It must
be a matter of regret to most persons, I am sure, that they are
not large enough to cover twice as many seats as they do, and thus
drive those who travel with them into more close and inconvenient
quarters. Whenever I witness an instance of genuine, self-sacrificing
politeness in a railroad car, I become aware that there is at least one
man on the train who has travelled very little. No; when I travel I turn
my observation upon things outside--upon the farms and streams, and
mountains and forests, and towns and villages through which the
train bears me. I am particularly interested in the faces of those
who gather at the smaller stations to gaze at the passengers, get
the papers, and feel the rush, for a single moment, of the world's
great life. I love to listen to the smart remarks of some rustic wit in
shirt-sleeves, who, if the train should happen to be behind time,
intimates to the brakeman that the old horse didn't have his
allowance of oats that morning, or commiserates the loneliness of
the conductor of a train not crowded with passengers, all of which
is intended for the ears of a village girl who stands in the door
of the "Ladies' Room," with the tip of a parasol in her teeth, and
a hat on her head that was jaunty last year.
Riding into the country recently, I saw at one of these little
stations a pair of young men, leaning against the station-house.
They had evidently been waiting for the approach of the train, but
they did not stir from their positions. They were young men whose
life had been spent in severe and unremitting toil. Their hands
were large, and coarse, and brown; their faces and necks were
bronzed; their clothing was of the commonest material and pattern,
and was old and patched besides; and they had a hard look
generally. There was the usual bustle about them, but they did not
seem to mind it. At last, they started, and these are the words
that one of them spoke: "Come, Bob, let's go over and see if we
can't tuck away some of that grub." So both turned their backs
upon the train, and upon me; and as they went over to see if they
couldn't "tuck away some of that grub," I got a view of their
heavy shoulders, and their shambling, awkward gait. A pair of old
draft horses, going out in the morning to take their places in
front of their truck, would not move more stiffly than those
fellows moved.
Now these young men taught me nothing, for I had seen many such
before; but through them I took a fresh and a very impressive
glimpse into a style of life that abounds among the rural
population of America, and shows but feeble signs of improvement.
These men, who, when they eat, only "tuck away grub," of course
"go to roost" when they sleep. They call the sun "Old Yaller,"
naming him in honor of a favorite ox. When they undress themselves
"they peel off," as if they were onions or potatoes; and when they
put themselves into their Sunday clothing, they "surprise their
backs with a clean shirt." When they marry, they "hitch on," as if
matrimony were a sled, and a wife were a saw-log. Every thing in
their life is brought down to the animal basis, and why should it
not be? They labor as severely as any animal they own; they are
proud of their animal strength and endurance; they eat, and work,
and sleep, like animals, and they do nothing like men. Their
frames are shaped by labor; and they are only the best animals,
and the ruling animals, on their farms. As between the wives and
children who live in their houses, and the horses and cattle that
live in their barns, the latter have the easier time of it.
Having brought every thing down to the animal basis in their homes
and in their lives, their intercourse with other men will
naturally betray the ideas upon which they live. They are usually
very blunt men, who "never go round" to say any thing, but who
blurt out what they have to say in a manner entirely regardless
of the feelings of others. They enter each other's houses with
their hats on, and "help themselves" when they sit at each other's
tables, and affect great contempt for the courtesies and forms of
polite life. They are exceedingly afraid of being looked upon as
"stuck up;" and if they can get the reputation of being able to
mow more grass, or pitch more hay, or chop and pile more wood, or
cradle more grain, than any of their neighbors, their ambition is
satisfied. There is no dignity of life in their homes. They cook
and eat and live in the same room, and sometimes sleep there, if
there should be room enough for a bed. There is no family life
that is not associated with work, and no thought of any life that
is not connected with bodily labor; and if they sit down five
minutes, either at home or at church, they go to sleep. Their
highest intellectual exercise is that which is called out by the
process of swapping horses, and the selling of their weekly
product of eggs and butter at the highest market price. They
invariably call their wives--"the old woman," or "she;" and if
they should stumble into saying, "my dear," in the presence of a
neighbor, they would blush at being self-convicted of unjustifiable
politeness and unpardonable weakness.
These men have learned to read, but they rarely read any thing,
except the weekly newspaper, taken exclusively for the probate
notices. The only books in their houses are the Bible and two
or three volumes forced upon them at unguarded moments by
book-agents, who made the most of internal wood-cuts, and external
Dutch metal to place them in possession of the "History of the
World," or the "Lives of the Presidents," or some other production
equally extensive and comprehensive. There is no exhibition of
taste about their dwellings. Every thing is brought down to the
hard standard of use. If their wives should desire a border for
flowers, they regard them as very silly, and look upon their
attempts to "fix up things" as a great waste of labor. They never
go out with their wives to mingle in the social life of their
neighborhood; and if the wives of their neighbors come to spend an
afternoon, they harness their horses, and drive off to attend to
some distant business that will detain them until the women get
away. It is useless to say to me that this is an extreme picture,
for I know what I am writing about, and know that I am painting
from the life. I know that there are hundreds of thousands of
American farmers whose life and whose ideas of life are cast upon
these models. Some of these are as coarse and hard as I paint
them, and others are only a little better. Such a farmer's boy is
brought up to the idea that work is the grand thing in life. Work,
indeed, is supposed by him to be pretty much all of life. It is
supposed to spoil farmers to get any thing but work into their
heads; and scientific agriculturists will bear witness that they
have been obliged to fight the popular prejudices against "book
farming" at every step of their progress. They will also testify
that the improvements made in farming and in the implements of
agriculture have not been made by farmers themselves, but by
outsiders--mechanics, and men of science--who have marvelled at
the brainless stupidity which toiled on in its old track of
unreasoning routine, and looked with suspicion and discouragement
upon innovations. The reason why the farmer has not been foremost
in improving the instruments and methods of his own business, is,
that his mind has been unfitted for improvement by the excessive
labors of his body. A man whose whole vital energy is directed to
the support of muscle has, of course, none to direct to the
support of thought. A man whose strength is habitually exhausted
by bodily labor becomes, at length, incapable of mental exertion;
and I cannot help feeling that half of the farmers of the country
establish insuperable obstacles to their own improvement by their
excessive toil. They are nothing more than the living machines of
a calling which so far exhausts their vitality that they have
neither the disposition nor the power to improve either their
calling or themselves.
To a student or a literary man, it is easy to explain the
necessity of the proper division of the nervous energies between
the mind and the body. Any student or literary man who has a daily
mental task to do, will do it before he exercises his body to any
great extent. If I wished to unfit my mind for a day of literary
labor, I would use the hoe in my garden for an early hour in the
morning. If I wished utterly to unfit a pupil for his daily task
of study, I would put him through an exhausting walk before
breakfast. The direction of all the nervous energies to the
support of the muscular system, and the necessary draft upon the
digestive and nutritive functions to supply the muscular waste,
leave the mind temporarily a bankrupt. I have never seen a man who
was really remarkable for acquired muscular power, and, at the
same time, remarkable for mental power. A man may be born into the
world with a fine muscular system and a fine brain, and in early
life his muscular system may have a fine development. Such a man
may subsequently have a remarkable mental development, but this
development will never be accompanied by large and regular
expenditures of muscular power. If I wished to repress the mental
growth and manifestation of a man, I would undertake to educate
him up to the point of lifting eight or ten kegs of nails. There
is danger at first of overdoing our "muscular Christianity"--
danger of getting more muscle than Christianity; and there is a
good deal more danger of overdoing our muscular intellectuality.
The difference between the kind and amount of exercise necessary
to produce a healthy machine and the kind and amount necessary to
produce a powerful one, is very great. We are never to look for
great intellectuality in a professor of gymnastics, nor to expect
that the time will come when a man will not only walk a thousand
miles in a thousand hours, but compose a poem of a thousand lines
at the same time.