petals fell at his feet, while a strangely familiar odor filled the air
with its long-forgotten charm. Apple blossoms! How sweet they were!
With delicious subtlety the perfumed breath from the boughs filled him
with its own ethereal magic. Nature was playing a glorious game of
sound and color and form and fragrance. Deep in his slumbering heart
something stirred and fluttered and sprang up at the first touch of
this enchantment. The power in the fragile petals swept the sordid
earth from under his feet. The dear old apple orchard of his boyhood
was before him. Again he stood upon the threshold of joyous, strong,
young life. The taste of sweet belief in an untried world was on his
lips, the wine of high impulse tingling in every nerve. The harmony
of life's song thrilled him into vibrant sympathy with its purity and
beauty and his heart glowed with the faith which only youth knows.
Oh that he might crystallize the wondrous meaning of this perfumed
vision of unfolding life into sound or color or form that would make
the dreary world of men feel that this, this was the reality! His
pulses throbbed with a longing for toil and struggle and sacrifice--no
effort was too great, no price too much to pay, if only he might help
to voice this living poetry. He would valiantly espouse this cause of
beauty until mankind's glad belief should liberate the truth imprisoned
in a selfish world. No lesser ambition should lure him from the task:
this was the only thing worth while. Other champions might prove more
able, and he might sadly fail; but oh, how he longed to lose himself in
the glory of the attempt.
With uncovered head the financier stood disciple-wise among the
trees. Long and deeply he drank of the redolent air, feasting his
eyes upon the marvel of perfectly tinted petals and countless buds of
promise still brighter in their tender curves. It was all too subtle
for analysis, yet his heart recognized the meaning of the message
so strangely sweet and strong. What revelation lay at the heart of
this unfoldment, with its touch of the eternal spring which sleeps
beneath all forms! Oh the power and inspiration and the rare, old-time
enchantment of returning apple-blossoms!
SOKRATES: by F. S. Darrow, A. M., Ph. D. (Harv.)
Sokrates was born in 469 B. C. and was put to death in 399 B. C. at the
age of seventy. He grew to manhood among the splendors of the Periklean
Age; took an active and honorable part in the Peloponnesian War;
saw the Long Walls, extending from Athens to its harbor, Peiraeeus,
destroyed at the blast of Lysander's trumpet, and displayed the
fearlessness and nobility of his nature during the Reign of Terror when
the Thirty Tyrants ruled at Athens. Finally he was accused of heresy
and was condemned by his fellow-citizens to drink the hemlock--the
immemorial fate of great believers, to be condemned for unbelief by
unbelievers.
Three dialogs of Plato depict the last month of his master's life,
the _Apology_, the _Crito_, and the _Phaedo_. The _Apology_ is a
reproduction of the extemporaneous defense made by Sokrates at his
trial. The _Crito_ is a discussion between Sokrates and his old friend
Kriton on the subject: Would it be right and just for Sokrates to
accept Kriton's proffered assistance and escape? The _Phaedo_ is a most
beautiful and inspiring account of the last day of Sokrates' life, when
in prison surrounded by a few devoted disciples, in discussing the
nature and destiny of the soul he avowed his belief in its immortality,
its pre-existence, and its rebirth.
The personality of Sokrates was strikingly unique. He was unusually
robust and strong, capable of enduring fatigue and hardship to a
surprising degree. He went barefoot throughout the year, even when
campaigning at Potidaea and among the severe snows of Thrace. The same
clothing sufficed him in winter as in summer. His diet was simple
and temperate, and "he used to say in jest that Circe transformed
men into hogs by entertaining them with an abundance of luxury,
but that Odysseus through his temperance was not changed into a
hog." Nevertheless, at festivals and banquets when joviality and
indulgence were in order, Sokrates was able to outdo all the others.
He consciously limited the number of his wants and repressed all
artificial tastes. He was just, moderate, and above all independent
in thought and action, absolutely regardless of danger when confident
that he was acting rightly. His features were extremely ugly and
grotesque: his nose was flat, his nostrils large, his lips thick, his
eyes bulging; so that his companions jokingly compared him to the
mythical old Satyr, Silenus. He purposely avoided politics and never
held any public office until 406 B. C., when for a single day, as
chairman of the Prytanes, he presided at a meeting of the Popular
Assembly and refused to put to vote the unconstitutional proposal that
the victorious generals of Arginusae be condemned collectively and be
executed for their alleged neglect of duty. Heedless of threats and
protests, at the greatest personal risk Sokrates persisted in his noble
refusal to listen to the clamor of the mob. He was so law-abiding,
such an advocate of peace and stranger to violence, so diligent in
the performance of the duties of an upright man and of a brave and
righteous citizen, that despite his many enemies he was never summoned
to appear in court until in his seventieth year he was accused of
atheism and impiety. He was pre-eminently a teacher of ethics, a
preacher of morality, a defender of right, an earnest believer in duty.
He is the Prophet of Reason, who "more than any other one of the great
teachers of religion sought to sanctify the mind and to give to common
sense a sacramental power."
Three peculiarities mark Sokrates as a loyal member of that splendid
band of brothers who possess that wisdom which in all ages, entering
into noble souls, makes them prophets and reformers. First, he passed
his long life teaching in contented poverty, and devoted all his
energy to pointing out piety, self-control, and justice to all, young
and old alike. Secondly, he was of a deeply sensitive, religious
nature, and firmly believed that he had a divine mission to perform
under the inspiration of his Daemon or Higher Self. Thirdly, he was
intellectually original both in choice of subject and in method of
teaching. Plato calls him "a cross-examining God."
His lecture-room was the street; his auditors were shoemakers,
tanners, sailors, and other craftsmen; his philosophy was for the
market-place. His disciples were young men whose minds he had
quickened and whose lives he had elevated. He aimed to prick the
bubble of pretension everywhere.... To Sokrates the precept inscribed
on the Delphian temple, "Know thyself," was the holiest of all texts.
He accepted no salary for the instruction he gave and refused the
many rich gifts which were offered to him, spending the entire day in
conversing with all who cared to listen to him, treating without any
distinction rich and poor, never withholding his assistance from any
one who consulted him in the spirit of truth. As his words were both
interesting and instructive, some regularly attended him in public,
and these were commonly called his disciples of students, although
neither Sokrates nor his personal friends used the terms teacher and
disciple because of the disrepute then attached to them as a result of
the mercenary and casuistical teachings of the Sophists. Early in the
morning Sokrates frequented the public walks, the gymnasia, and the
schools. Then later, between nine and ten, he went to the market-place,
when it was most crowded.
Sokrates' power of meditation was developed very exceptionally.
Frequently for hours at a time the strength of his inner life made him
entirely oblivious to the outer world. In proof of this it is recorded
that while he was a soldier at Potidaea
One morning he was thinking about something which he could not
resolve; and he would not give it up but continued thinking from
early dawn until noon--there he stood fixed in thought; and at noon
attention was drawn to him and the rumor ran through the wondering
crowd that Sokrates had been standing and thinking about something
ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening after supper,
some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was not in
winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the open
air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all
night. There he stood all night as well as all day and the following
morning; and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the
sun and went his way.
Two nights before he died, when the date of his execution was not known
by him or his friends, it was revealed to him by a vision "in the
likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, who
called out and cried: 'O Sokrates, the third day hence, to Phthia shalt
thou go.'" Sokrates also declares:
In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams that
"I should make music." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form
and sometimes in another but always saying the same or nearly the same
words: "Make and cultivate music," said the dream. And hitherto I
imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the
study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life and
is the noblest and best of music.
Also, Sokrates heard even in childhood a divine voice, which all
through his life acted as a restraining influence whenever he was about
to take a false step. This never urged him to adopt any particular
line of action but always served as a prohibitory warning. He heard
it not only on great but also on small occasions when it frequently
prevented him from continuing what he had begun to say or do. Later
writers refer to this as the Daemon or Genius of Sokrates, but he
always spoke of it as a "Divine Sign, a Prophetic Voice," and obeyed
it implicitly, referring to it publicly and familiarly to others. It
had continually forbidden him to enter public life, and after he was
indicted it forbade him to take any thought of what he should then do
or say, bidding him to trust that all would come out for the best.
So completely, he tells us, did he walk with a consciousness of this
bridle that whenever he felt no check he was confident that all was
well. His enemies asserted that this belief was an offensive heresy,
an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, atheistic and immoral.
Hence they accused him of not worshiping the recognized gods but of
introducing new and false divinities of his own. The truth is that
Sokrates believed in One Divine Life, the One in All and the All in
One, while he did not deny the existence of the popular gods but
declared that the popular conceptions were erroneous and imperfect.
To appreciate the mission of Sokrates, the message he had to deliver,
it is necessary to refer to the Oracle of Delphi, in which Apollo
proclaimed to Chaerephon, an intimate friend and enthusiastic follower,
that Sokrates was the wisest of all men of his time. This declaration
exerted a very great influence upon the subsequent life of Sokrates in
that it caused him to inquire continually, What is wisdom? and made him
not only a philosopher but a religious reformer as well. In the words
of Cicero: "Sokrates labored to bring philosophy from heaven to earth."
Sokrates taught:
There is no better way to true glory than to endeavor to _be good_
rather than to _seem so_.
A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of
living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything
he is doing right or wrong--acting the part of a good man or of a bad.
For wherever a man's place is, whether the place he has chosen or that
in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain
in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but
of disgrace.
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding
unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.
Let every man be of good cheer about his soul, who has ruled his body
and followed knowledge and goodness in this life; for if death be a
journey to another place and there all the dead are, what good can be
greater than this? Be of good cheer about death and know this of a
truth that no evil can happen to a good man either in life or after
death.
To want as little as possible is to make the nearest approach to the
Deity.
Knowledge is the food of the soul.
We ought not to retaliate and render evil for evil to any one,
whatever evil we may have suffered from him. Neither injury nor
retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. Act toward
others as you would have others act toward you. Forgive your enemies,
render good for evil, and kiss even the hand that is upraised to smite.
Grant me to be beautiful in soul and may all I possess of outward
things be at harmony with those within. Teach me to think wisdom the
only riches.
If thou wouldst know what is the wisdom of the gods and what their
love is, render thyself deserving the communication of some of those
divine secrets, which may not be penetrated by man and which are
imparted to those alone who consult, adore, and obey the Deity.
Sokrates, speaking of his life-work, says:
In this research and scrutiny I have been long engaged. I interrogate
every man of reputation. I prove him to be defective in wisdom but I
can not prove it so as to make him sensible of the defect. Fulfilling
the mission imposed upon me, I have established the veracity of the
god (Apollo), who meant to pronounce that human wisdom is of little
reach and worth; and that he who like Sokrates feels most convinced of
his own worthlessness as to wisdom is really the wisest of men, for
the truth is, O men of Athens, the Deity only is wise. My service to
the god has not only constrained me to live in constant poverty and
neglect of political estimation, but has brought upon me a host of
bitter enemies in those whom I have examined and exposed, while the
bystanders talk of me as a wise man because they give me credit for
wisdom respecting all the points on which my exposure of others turns.
Whatever be the danger and obloquy which I may incur, it would be
monstrous indeed, if having maintained my place in the ranks as an
hoplite under your generals at Delium and Potidaea, I were now from
fear of death or anything else to disobey the oracle and desert
the post which the god has assigned to me, the duty of living for
philosophy and cross-questioning both myself and others. And should
you even now offer to acquit me, on condition of my renouncing this
duty, I should tell you with all respect and affection that I will
obey the god rather than you and that I will persist until my dying
day in cross-questioning you, exposing your want of wisdom and virtue
and reproaching you until the defect be remedied. My mission as your
monitor is a mark of the special favor of the gods to you and if you
condemn me it will be your loss; for you will find none other such.
Perhaps you will ask me, Why cannot you go away, Sokrates, and live
in peace and silence? This is the hardest of all questions for me to
answer to your satisfaction. If I tell you that silence on my part
would be disobedience to the god, you will think me in jest and not
believe me. You will believe me still less, if I tell you that the
greatest blessing which can happen to man is to carry on discussions
every day about virtue and those other matters which you hear me
conversing, when I cross-examine myself and others and that life
without such examination is no life at all. Nevertheless so stands the
fact, incredible as it may seem to you.
I certainly have my enemies [the Pharisaical party and the High
Priests of orthodoxy] and these will be my destruction if I am
destroyed; of that I am certain; not that Meletos, nor yet Anytos, but
the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of
many more--there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Later, after his condemnation, he added:
And I prophesy to you, my murderers, that immediately after my death,
punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await
you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser and
not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you
suppose; far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of
you than there are now. For if you think that by killing men you can
avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken--that is not
a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest
and noblest way is not to be crushing others but to be improving
yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter to the judges who have
condemned me.
How true have the last twenty-three centuries proved these words to be!
How many deaths and ruined lives have been accomplished by that same
spirit of intolerance! It led the way from Gethsemane to Golgotha. It
is responsible for the death of the martyrs in all ages. It lighted the
fagots that consumed the bodies of Giordano Bruno and Joan of Arc. Yes,
and hundreds of others. How just is the praise with which the Saint
Mark of Sokrates ends the _Memorabilia_ of his master:
Of those who know what sort of a man Sokrates was, such as are lovers
of virtue continue to regret him above all other men even to the
present date, as having contributed in the highest degree to their
advancement in goodness. To me, being such as I have described him, so
pious that he did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just,
that he wronged no man even in the most trifling affair, but was of
service in most important matters to those who enjoyed his society; so
temperate that he never preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise that he
never erred in distinguishing the better from the worse, needing no
counsel from others but being sufficient in himself to discriminate
between them; and so capable of discovering the character of others,
of confuting those who were in error and of exhorting them to virtue
and honor, he seemed to be such as the best and happiest of men would
be.
Then to side with Truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous to be just,
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood alone
While the men they agonized for, hurled the contumelious stone;
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline,
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine.--
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth.
Sokrates was early canonized as a Christian Saint, and Professor
John Stuart Blackie (1808-1895) "Scotland's greatest Greek scholar,"
has taken the idea of his Latin refrain in the following poem from a
rosary by an early Christian father beginning "Sancte Socrates, ora pro
nobis:"--"O, Sainted Socrates, pray for us."
O SANCTE SOCRATES, ORA PRO NOBIS!
Dear God by wrathful routs
How is thy church divided,
And how may he that doubts
In such turmoil be guided!
When weeping I behold
How Christian people quarrel,
Ofttimes from Heathens old
I fetch a saintly moral;
And while they fret with rage
The sore-distraught community,
I look for some Greek sage
Who preaches peace and unity.
And thus I pray:
O Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis!
Let faith and love and joy increase,
And reason rule and wrangling cease,
Good saint, we pray thee!
They pile a priestly fence
Of vain scholastic babble,
To keep out common sense
With the unlearned rabble.
A curious creed they weave,
And, for the church commands it,
All men must needs believe,
Though no man understands it;
Thus while they rudely ban
All honest thought as treason
I from the Heathen clan
Seek solace to my reason.
And thus I pray:
O Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis!
From creeds that men believe because
They fear a damnatory clause,
Good saint, deliver us!
Some preach a God so grim
That when his anger swelleth,
They crouch and cower to him
When sacred fear compelleth;
God loves his few pet lambs,
And saves his one pet nation,
The rest he largely damns
With swinging reprobation.
Thus banished from the fold,
I wisely choose to follow
Some sunny preacher old
Who worshiped bright Apollo.
And thus I pray:
O Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis!
From silly flocks of petted lambs,
And from a faith that largely damns,
Good saint, deliver us!
* * * * *
Such eager fancies vain
Shape forth the rival churches;
And each man's fuming brain
God's holy light besmirches;
And thus they all conspire
The primal truth to smother,
And think they praise their sire
By hating well their brother.
Such wrangling when I see
Such storms of godly rancor,
To Heathendom I flee
To cast a peaceful anchor.
And thus I pray:
O Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis!
Let love and faith and joy increase,
And reason rule and wrangling cease,
Good saint, we pray thee!
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. SOKRATES AND SENECA
(Berlin Museum)]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. AVENUE OF ROYAL
PALMS, CUBA]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. CUBAN COUNTRY SCENE]
[Illustration: FLORIDA PALMETTOS ONE-HALF MILE AVENUE]
[Illustration: A CASUARINA AVENUE TREES 13 YEARS OLD]
ROYAL POINCIANA HOTEL, PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
Photos by Puffer, New York and Palm Beach
A VISIT TO A LOUISIANA SUGAR PLANTATION: by Barbara McClung
The writer recently made a visit to a section of the country that still
retains much of its own distinctive individuality and charm, most
delightful in these days, when the various widely-differing regions
of our vast commonwealth seem to be trying to become as much alike as
possible, and the very word _provincial_ is a name of scorn. We left
New Orleans in the early morning and much time was consumed in crossing
the Mississippi on a ferry. Soon after reaching the other side, the
sugar plantations began, and our way lay through mile after mile of
brown furrowed fields stretching, as flat as the sea, to the distant
river levee, the only high ground in sight. What a glorious scene it
must be in the spring, when the young green cane begins to sprout, or
in the fall, when it stands drawn up full height, waiting to be cut! It
is an extremely wet country, full of countless ditches and trenches,
and there is something about the flat land and straight, intersecting
canals that reminds one of Holland. As the train swept through one
plantation after another, we could see in the distance, gleaming white
homesteads, set in little islands of green live-oaks, cut off by a
fence from the spreading sea of bare fields. Each plantation had its
sugar-house, lifting four or five tall smoke-stacks in air, and its
laborers' quarters--quite a little village of cabins or cottages, and
sometimes, we ran close enough to see old-time darkies in actual red
bandannas, staring at the train.
There is a class of French "poor whites" in this region, called
"Cajins"--a corruption of "Arcadians"--and they are indeed a forlorn
remnant of those unfortunate exiles who wandered all the way from
Nova Scotia to the bayous of Louisiana. The writer's memory reverted
in a flash to the fields of Grandpré, which she had visited only last
summer, and to the vision of the lonely well-sweep and straggling line
of ancient French willows, which once bordered the vanished village
street. Strange to say, there is a noticeable resemblance between the
flat, inlet-threaded meadows of the Minas Basin and the winding bayous
around us. Occasionally the plantations would give way to swamps, where
palmettos, bamboos, and cypresses with their weirdly beautiful trailing
moss, were growing out of a watery, glassy floor, and it was hard to
realize that if drained, these marshes would be quite as good soil as
the rest. We saw a solitary hunter, gun in hand, standing on a bit of
tree trunk in the bog; how he could have gotten there without a boat or
else wings, is a mystery.