"Virtues As Rivers Pass,
But Still Remains That Virtuous Man There Was."
Most men have no inclination, no rapids, no cascades, but
marshes, and alligators, and miasma instead.
We read that when
in the expedition of Alexander, Onesicritus was sent forward to
meet certain of the Indian sect of Gymnosophists, and he had told
them of those new philosophers of the West, Pythagoras, Socrates,
and Diogenes, and their doctrines, one of them named Dandamis
answered, that "They appeared to him to have been men of genius,
but to have lived with too passive a regard for the laws." The
philosophers of the West are liable to this rebuke still. "They
say that Lieou-hia-hoei, and Chao-lien did not sustain to the end
their resolutions, and that they dishonored their character.
Their language was in harmony with reason and justice; while
their acts were in harmony with the sentiments of men."
Chateaubriand said: "There are two things which grow stronger in
the breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the
love of country and religion. Let them be never so much
forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us
arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our
hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty." It may be so.
But even this infirmity of noble minds marks the gradual decay of
youthful hope and faith. It is the allowed infidelity of age.
There is a saying of the Yoloffs, "He who was born first has the
greatest number of old clothes," consequently M. Chateaubriand
has more old clothes than I have.
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