Washington, D. C., January 16, 1883.
*****
SUPERSTITION puts belief above goodness--credulity above virtue.
Here are two men. One is industrious, frugal, honest, generous. He has
a happy home--loves his wife and children--fills their lives with
sunshine. He enjoys study, thoughts, music, and all the subtleties of
Art--but he does not believe the creed--cares nothing for sacred books,
worships no god and fears no devil.
The other is ignorant, coarse, brutal, beats his wife and children--but
he believes--regards the Bible as inspired--bows to the priests, counts
his beads, says his prayers, confesses and contributes, and the Catholic
Church declares and the Protestant Churches declare that he is the
better man.
The ignorant believer, coarse and brutal as he is, is going to heaven.
He will be washed in the blood of the Lamb. He will have wings--a harp
and a halo.
The intelligent and generous man who loves his fellow-men--who develops
his brain, who enjoys the beautiful, is going to hell--to the eternal
prison.
Such is the justice of God--the mercy of Christ.
*****
WHILE reading the accounts of the coronation of the Czar, of the
pageants, processions and feasts, of the pomp and parade, of the
barbaric splendor, of cloth of gold and glittering gems, I could not
help thinking of the poor and melancholy peasants, of the toiling,
half-fed millions, of the sad and ignorant multitudes who belong body
and soul to this Czar.
I thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of the
thousands in prisons for having dared to say a whispered word for
freedom, of the great multitude who had been driven like cattle along
the weary roads that lead to the hell of Siberia.
The cannon at Moscow were not loud enough, nor the clang of the bells,
nor the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of the captives.
I thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and children for
the crime of speaking like men.
And when the priests spoke of the Czar as the "God-selected man," the
"God-adorned man," my blood grew warm.
When I read of the coronation of the Czarina I thought of Siberia. I
thought of girls working in the mines, hauling ore from the pits with
chains about their waists; young girls, almost naked, at the mercy
of brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning their lives away
because between their pure lips the word Liberty had burst into blossom.
Yet law neglects, forgets them, and crowns the Czarina. The injustice,
the agony and horror in this poor world are enough to make mankind
insane.
Ignorance and superstition crown impudence and tyranny. Millions of
money squandered for the humiliation of man, to dishonor the people.
Back of the coronation, back of all the ceremonies, back of all the
hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie.
It is not true that God "selected" this Czar to rule and rob a hundred
millions of human beings.
It is all an ignorant, barbaric, superstitious lie--a lie that pomp and
pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and swinging censers,
cannot change to truth.
Those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at Moscow see
millions of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of weeping
mothers, whose children have been stolen by the Czar; see thousands of
villages without schools, millions of houses without books, millions and
millions of men, women and children in whose future there is no star and
whose only friend is death.
The coronation is an insult to the nineteenth century.
Long live the people of Russia!
*****
MUSIC.--The savage enjoys noises--explosion--the imitation of thunder.
This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys concussion. His ear and
brain are in harmony. So, he takes cognizance of but few colors. The
neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. He appreciates the flames
of red and yellow. That is to say, there is a harmony between his brain
and eye. As he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other
sounds, his eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has
entered into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no
longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference between
noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The strings in
Corti's Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed.
The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight
increase from age to age.
The first idea of music is the keeping of time--a recurring emphasis at
intervals of equal length or duration. This is afterward modified--the
music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of
sorrow slow.
After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and
muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of both. In joy the
heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick.
In grief--in sadness, the blood is delayed. In music the broad division
is one of time. In language, words of joy are born of light--that which
shines--words of grief of darkness and gloom. There is still another
division: The language of happiness comes also from heat, and that of
sadness from cold.
These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the light and
shadow--the heat and cold.
*****
OF COURSE ENGLAND has no love for America. By England I mean the
governing class. Why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with
democracy? The monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from
what he is pleased to call the will of God, whereas in a republic the
sovereign authority is the will of the people. It is impossible that
there should be any real friendship between the two forms of government.
We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an
England within England--an England that does not belong to the titled
classes--an England that has not been bribed or demoralized by those
in authority; and that England has always been our friend, because that
England is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. But the
lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of the titled, those who are willing
to crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of
the great Republic.
It is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the highest
and lowest are generally friends. There may be a foundation for this
friendship in the fact that both are parasites--both live on the labor
of honest men. After all, there is a kinship between the prince and the
pauper. Both extend the hand for alms, and the fact that one is jeweled
and the other extremely dirty makes no difference in principle--and the
owners of these hands have always been fast friends, and, in accordance
with the great law of ingratitude, both have held in contempt the people
who supported them.
One thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people of
England are our friends. The best writers, the best thinkers are on our
side. It is only natural that all who visit America should find some
fault. We find fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is almost a plea
of guilty. For my part, I have no doubt about the future of America.
It not only is, but is to be for many, many generations, the greatest
nation of the world.
I DO not care so much where, as with whom, I live. If the right folks
are with me I can manage to get a good deal of happiness in the city or
in the country. Cats love places and become attached to chimney-corners
and all sorts of nooks--but I have but little of the cat in me, and
am not particularly in love with places. After all, a palace without
affection is a poor hovel, and the meanest hut with love in it is a
palace for the soul.
If the time comes when poverty and want cease for the most part to
exist, then the city will be far better than the country. People
are always talking about the beauties of nature and the delights of
solitude, but to me some people are more interesting than rocks and
trees. As to city and country life I think that I substantially agree
with Touchstone:
"In respect that it is solitary I like it very well; but in respect
that it is private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the
fields it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court it is
tedious."
*****
WHAT do I think of the lynchings in Georgia?
I suppose these outrages--these frightful crimes--make the same
impression on my mind that they do on the minds of all civilized
people. I know of no words strong enough, bitter enough, to express my
indignation and horror. Men who belong to the "superior" race take a
negro--a criminal, a supposed murderer, one alleged to have assaulted a
white woman--chain him to a tree, saturate his clothing with kerosene,
pile fagots about his feet. This is the preparation for the festival.
The people flock in from the neighborhood--come in special trains from
the towns. They are going to enjoy themselves.
Laughing and cursing they gather about the victim. A man steps from the
crowd--a man who hates crime and loves virtue. He draws his knife, and
in a spirit of merry sport cuts off one of the victim's ears. This he
keeps for a trophy--a souvenir. Another gentlemen fond of a jest cuts
off the other ear. Another cuts off the nose of the chained and
helpless wretch. The victim suffered in silence. He uttered no groan, no
word--the one man of the two thousand who had courage.
Other white heroes cut and slashed his flesh. The crowd cheered. The
people were intoxicated with joy. Then the fagots were lighted and the
bleeding and mutilated man was clothed in flame.
The people were wild with hideous delight. With greedy eyes they watched
him burn; with hungry ears they listened for his shrieks--for the music
of his moans and cries. He did not shriek. The festival was not quite
perfect.
But they had their revenge. They trampled on the charred and burning
corpse. They divided among themselves the broken bones. They wanted
mementos--keepsakes that they could give to their loving wives and
gentle babes.
These horrors were perpetrated in the name of justice. The savages who
did these things belong to the superior race. They are citizens of the
great Republic. And yet, it does not seem possible that such fiends are
human beings. They are a disgrace to our country, our century and the
human race.
Ex-Governor Atkinson protested against this savagery. He was threatened
with death. The good people were helpless. While these lynchers murder
the blacks they will destroy their own country. No civilized man wishes
to live where the mob is supreme. He does not wish to be governed by
murderers.
Let me say that what I have said is flattery compared with what I feel.
When I think of the other lynching--of the poor man mutilated and hanged
without the slightest evidence, of the negro who said that these murders
would be avenged, and who was brutally murdered for the utterance of a
natural feeling--I am utterly at a loss for words.
Are the white people insane? Has mercy fled to beasts? Has the United
States no power to protect a citizen? A nation that cannot or will not
protect its citizens in time of peace has no right to ask its citizens
to protect it in time of War.
*****
OUR COUNTRY.--Our country is all we hope for--all we are. It is the
grave of our father, of our mother, of each and every one of the sacred
dead.
It is every glorious memory of our race. Every heroic deed. Every act of
self-sacrifice done by our blood. It is all the accomplishments of the
past--all the wise things said--all the kind things done--all the poems
written and all the poems lived--all the defeats sustained--all the
victories won--the girls we love--the wives we adore--the children we
carry in our hearts--all the firesides of home--all the quiet springs,
the babbling brooks, the rushing rivers, the mountains, plains and
woods--the dells and dales and vines and vales.
*****
GIFT GIVING.--I believe in the festival called Christmas--not in the
celebration of the birth of any man, but to celebrate the triumph of
light over darkness--the victory of the sun.
I believe in giving gifts on that day, and a real gift should be given
to those who cannot return it; gifts from the rich to the poor, from the
prosperous to the unfortunate, from parents to children.
There is no need of giving water to the sea or light to the sun. Let us
give to those who need, neither asking nor expecting return, not even
asking gratitude, only asking that the gift shall make the receiver
happy--and he who gives in that way increases his own joy.
*****
We have no right to enslave our children. We have no right to bequeath
chains and manacles to our heirs. We have no right to leave a legacy of
mental degradation.
Liberty is the birthright of all. Parents should not deprive their
children of the great gifts of nature. We cannot all leave lands and
gold to those we love; but we can leave Liberty, and that is of more
value than all the wealth of India.
The dead have no right to enslave the living. To worship ancestors is to
curse posterity. He who bows to the Past insults the Future; and allows,
so to speak, the dead to rob the unborn. The coffin is good enough in
its way, but the cradle is far better. With the bones of the fathers
they beat out the brains of the children.
*****
RANDOM THOUGHTS.--The road is short to anything we fear.
Joy lives in the house beyond the one we reach.
In youth the time is halting, slow and lame.
In age the time is winged and eager as a flame.
The sea seems narrow as we near the farther shore.
Youth goes hand in hand with hope--old age with fear. .
Youth has a wish--old age a dread.
In youth the leaves and buds seem loath to grow.
Youth shakes the glass to speed the lingering sands.
Youth says to Time: O crutched and limping laggard, get thee wings.
The dawn comes slowly, but the Westering day leaps like a lover to the
dusky bosom of the Ethiop night.
*****
I THINK that all days are substantially alike in the long run. It is no
worse to drink on Sunday than on Monday. The idea that one day in the
week is holy is wholly idiotic. Besides, these closing laws do no good.
Laws are not locks and keys. Saloon doors care nothing about laws. Law
or no law, people will slip in, and then, having had so much trouble
getting there, they will stay until they stagger out. These nasty,
meddlesome, Pharisaic, hypocritical laws make sneaks and hypocrites. The
children of these laws are like the fathers of the laws. Ever since I
can remember, people have been trying to make other people temperate by
intemperate laws. I have never known of the slightest success. It is
a pity that Christ manufactured wine, a pity that Paul took heart and
thanked God when he saw the sign of the Three Taverns; a pity that
Jehovah put alcohol in almost everything that grows; a great pity that
prayer-meetings are not more popular than saloons; a pity that our
workingmen do not amuse themselves reading religious papers and the
genealogies in the Old Testament.
Rum has caused many quarrels and many murders.
Religion has caused many wars and covered countless fields with dead.
Of course, all men should be temperate,--should avoid excess--should
keep the golden path between extremes--should gather roses, not thorns.
The only way to make men temperate is to develop the brain.
When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are
savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the
passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need
education--facts--philosophy. Drunkenness is one form of intemperance,
prohibition is another form. Another trouble is that these little laws
and ordinances can not be enforced.
Both parties want votes, and to get votes they will allow unpopular laws
to sleep, neglected, and finally refuse to enforce them. These spasms of
virtue, these convulsions of conscience are soon over, and then comes a
long period of neglectful rest.
*****
THE OLD AND NEW YEAR.--For countless ages the old earth has been making,
in alternating light and shade, in gleam and gloom, the whirling circuit
of the sun, leaving the record of its flight in many forms--in leaves of
stone, in growth of tree and vine and flower, in glittering gems of many
hues, in curious forms of monstrous life, in ravages of flood and flame,
in fossil fragments stolen from decay by chance, in molten masses hurled
from lips of fire, in gorges worn by waveless, foamless cataracts of
ice, in coast lines beaten back by the imprisoned sea, in mountain
ranges and in ocean reefs, in islands lifted from the underworld--in
continents submerged and given back to light and life.
Another year has joined his shadowy fellows in the wide and voiceless
desert of the past, where, from the eternal hour-glass forever fall the
sands of time. Another year, with all its joy and grief, of birth and
death, of failure and success--of love and hate. And now, the first day
of the new o'er arches all. Standing between the buried and the babe, we
cry, "Farewell and Hail!"--January 1,1893.
*****
KNOWLEDGE consists in the perception of facts, their
relations--conditions, modes and results of action. Experience is the
foundation of knowledge--without experience it is impossible to know.
It may be that experience can be transmitted--inherited. Suppose that an
infinite being existed in infinite space. He being the only existence,
what knowledge could he gain by experience? He could see nothing, hear
nothing, feel nothing. He would have no use for what we call the senses.
Could he use what we call the faculties of the mind? He could not
compare, remember, hope or fear. He could not reason. How could he
know that he existed? How could he use force? There was in the universe
nothing that would resist--nothing.
*****
Most men are economical when dealing with abundance, hoarding gold and
wasting time--throwing away the sunshine of life--the few remaining
hours, and hugging to their shriveled hearts that which they do not and
cannot even expect to use. Old age should enjoy the luxury of giving.
How divine to live in the atmosphere, the climate of gratitude! The men
who clutch and fiercely hold and look at wife and children with eyes
dimmed by age and darkened by suspicion, giving naught until the end,
then give to death the gratitude that should have been their own.
*****