"Emerson, Ralph W. - Representative Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

few persons who either by the quality of that idea they embodied or by
the largeness of their reception were entitled to the position of
leaders and law-givers. These teach us the qualities of primary
nature,- admit us to the constitution of things. We swim, day by
day, on a river of delusions and are effectually amused with houses
and towns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is
a sincerity. In lucid intervals we say, "Let there be an entrance
opened for me into realities;*(3) I have worn the fool's cap too
long." We will know the meaning of our economies and politics. Give us
the cipher, and if persons and things are scores of a celestial music,
let us read off the strains. We have been cheated of our reason; yet
there have been sane men, who enjoyed a rich and related existence.
What they know, they know for us. With each new mind, a new secret
of nature transpires; nor can the Bible be closed until the last great
man is born. These men correct the delirium of the animal spirits,
make us considerate and engage us to new aims and powers. The
veneration of mankind selects these for the highest place. Witness the
multitude of statues, pictures and memorials which recall their genius
in every city, village, house and ship:-

"Ever their phantoms arise before us,

Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;

At bed and table they lord it o'er us

With looks of beauty and words of good."

How to illustrate the distinctive benefit of ideas, the service
rendered by those who introduce moral truths into the general mind?- I
am plagued, in all my living, with a perpetual tariff of prices. If
I work in my garden and prune an apple-tree, I am well enough
entertained, and could continue indefinitely in the like occupation.
But it comes to mind that a day is gone, and I have got this
precious nothing done. I go to Boston or New York and run up and
down on my affairs: they are sped, but so is the day. I am vexed by
the recollection of this price I have paid for a trifling advantage. I
remember the peau d'ane on which whoso sat should have his desire, but
a piece of the skin was gone for every wish. I go to a convention of
philanthropists. Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock.
But if there should appear in the company some gentle soul who knows
little of persons or parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a
law that disposes these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity
which checkmates every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker,
and apprises me of my independence on any conditions of country, or
time, or human body,- that man liberates me; I forget the clock. I
pass out of the sore relation to persons. I am healed of my hurts. I
am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible goods.
Here is great competition of rich and poor. We live in a market, where
is only so much wheat, or wool, or land; and if I have so much more,