The Derveeshes In The Deserts Of Bokhara And
The Reformers In Marlboro' Chapel Sing The Same Song.
"There's a
good time coming, boys," but, asked one of the audience, in good
faith, "Can you fix the date?" Said I, "Will you help it along?"
The nonchalance and _dolce-far-niente_ air of nature and society
hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. The States
have leisure to laugh from Maine to Texas at some newspaper joke,
and New England shakes at the double-entendres of Australian
circles, while the poor reformer cannot get a hearing.
Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of
prudence to give wisdom the preference. What we need to know in
any case is very simple. It is but too easy to establish another
durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature
consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something,
and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.
They _must_ behave, at any rate, and will work up any material.
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse,
which all combine to uphold. We should be slow to mend, my
friends, as slow to require mending, "Not hurling, according to
the oracle, a transcendent foot towards piety." The language of
excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm
before you can utter oracles. What was the excitement of the
Delphic priestess compared with the calm wisdom of Socrates? - or
whoever it was that was wise. - Enthusiasm is a supernatural
serenity.
"Men find that action is another thing
Than what they in discoursing papers read;
The world's affairs require in managing
More arts than those wherein you clerks proceed."
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the
causes of all past change in the present invariable order of
society. The greatest appreciable physical revolutions are the
work of the light-footed air, the stealthy-paced water, and the
subterranean fire. Aristotle said, "As time never fails, and the
universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have
flowed forever." We are independent of the change we detect.
The longer the lever the less perceptible its motion. It is the
slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will
know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with
him who waiteth _wisely_; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by
remaining here than by hurrying over the hills of the west. Be
assured that every man's success is in proportion to his
_average_ ability. The meadow flowers spring and bloom where the
waters annually deposit their slime, not where they reach in some
freshet only. A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet
his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, still less
what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our
day's work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we shall
discover the real purport of our toil.
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