Give Me A Sentence Which No Intelligence Can Understand.
There
must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under its words
a kind of blood must circulate forever.
It is wonderful that
this sound should have come down to us from so far, when the
voice of man can be heard so little way, and we are not now
within ear-shot of any contemporary. The woodcutters have here
felled an ancient pine forest, and brought to light to these
distant hills a fair lake in the southwest; and now in an instant
it is distinctly shown to these woods as if its image had
travelled hither from eternity. Perhaps these old stumps upon
the knoll remember when anciently this lake gleamed in the
horizon. One wonders if the bare earth itself did not experience
emotion at beholding again so fair a prospect. That fair water
lies there in the sun thus revealed, so much the prouder and
fairer because its beauty needed not to be seen. It seems yet
lonely, sufficient to itself, and superior to observation. - So
are these old sentences like serene lakes in the southwest, at
length revealed to us, which have so long been reflecting our own
sky in their bosom.
The great plain of India lies as in a cup between the Himmaleh and
the ocean on the north and south, and the Brahmapootra and Indus,
on the east and west, wherein the primeval race was received.
We will not dispute the story. We are pleased to read in the
natural history of the country, of the "pine, larch, spruce, and
silver fir," which cover the southern face of the Himmaleh range;
of the "gooseberry, raspberry, strawberry," which from an
imminent temperate zone overlook the torrid plains. So did this
active modern life have even then a foothold and lurking-place in
the midst of the stateliness and contemplativeness of those
Eastern plains. In another era the "lily of the valley, cowslip,
dandelion," were to work their way down into the plain, and bloom
in a level zone of their own reaching round the earth. Already
has the era of the temperate zone arrived, the era of the pine
and the oak, for the palm and the banian do not supply the wants
of this age. The lichens on the summits of the rocks will
perchance find their level erelong.
As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned
to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any.
We can tolerate all philosophies, Atomists, Pneumatologists,
Atheists, Theists, - Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus, Democritus,
Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Confucius. It is the attitude of
these men, more than any communication which they make, that
attracts us. Between them and their commentators, it is true,
there is an endless dispute. But if it comes to this, that you
compare notes, then you are all wrong. As it is, each takes us
up into the serene heavens, whither the smallest bubble rises as
surely as the largest, and paints earth and sky for us.
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