"Ralph Waldo Emerson - Man the Reformer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

the venality of the officers of the government has passed into usage,
and that no article passes into our ships which has not been
fraudulently cheapened. In the Spanish islands, every agent or
factor of the Americans, unless he be a consul, has taken oath that
he is a Catholic, or has caused a priest to make that declaration for
him. The abolitionist has shown us our dreadful debt to the southern
negro. In the island of Cuba, in addition to the ordinary
abominations of slavery, it appears, only men are bought for the
plantations, and one dies in ten every year, of these miserable
bachelors, to yield us sugar. I leave for those who have the
knowledge the part of sifting the oaths of our custom-houses; I will
not inquire into the oppression of the sailors; I will not pry into
the usages of our retail trade. I content myself with the fact, that
the general system of our trade, (apart from the blacker traits,
which, I hope, are exceptions denounced and unshared by all reputable
men,) is a system of selfishness; is not dictated by the high
sentiments of human nature; is not measured by the exact law of
reciprocity; much less by the sentiments of love and heroism, but is
a system of distrust, of concealment, of superior keenness, not of
giving but of taking advantage. It is not that which a man delights
to unlock to a noble friend; which he meditates on with joy and
self-approval in his hour of love and aspiration; but rather what he
then puts out of sight, only showing the brilliant result, and
atoning for the manner of acquiring, by the manner of expending it.
I do not charge the merchant or the manufacturer. The sins of our
trade belong to no class, to no individual. One plucks, one
distributes, one eats. Every body partakes, every body confesses, --
with cap and knee volunteers his confession, yet none feels himself
accountable. He did not create the abuse; he cannot alter it. What
is he? an obscure private person who must get his bread. That is the
vice, -- that no one feels himself called to act for man, but only as
a fraction of man. It happens therefore that all such ingenuous
souls as feel within themselves the irrepressible strivings of a
noble aim, who by the law of their nature must act simply, find these
ways of trade unfit for them, and they come forth from it. Such
cases are becoming more numerous every year.

But by coming out of trade you have not cleared yourself. The
trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and
practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and
very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each
requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a
certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a
sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a
compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity. Nay, the evil
custom reaches into the whole institution of property, until our laws
which establish and protect it, seem not to be the issue of love and
reason, but of selfishness. Suppose a man is so unhappy as to be
born a saint, with keen perceptions, but with the conscience and love
of an angel, and he is to get his living in the world; he finds