"SCHOLAR" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo )

shall quit the false good, and leap to the true, and leave
governments to clerks and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by
the gradual domestication of the idea of Culture. The main
enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding
of a man. Here are the materials strown along the ground. The
private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy, -- more
formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence to
its friend, than any kingdom in history. For a man, rightly viewed,
comprehendeth the particular natures of all men. Each philosopher,
each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what
one day I can do for myself. The books which once we valued more
than the apple of the eye, we have quite exhausted. What is that but
saying, that we have come up with the point of view which the
universal mind took through the eyes of one scribe; we have been that
man, and have passed on. First, one; then, another; we drain all
cisterns, and, waxing greater by all these supplies, we crave a
better and more abundant food. The man has never lived that can feed
us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person, who shall
set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, unboundable empire.
It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of the lips of Etna,
lightens the capes of Sicily; and, now out of the throat of Vesuvius,
illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It is one light
which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates
all men.

But I have dwelt perhaps tediously upon this abstraction of the
Scholar. I ought not to delay longer to add what I have to say, of
nearer reference to the time and to this country.

Historically, there is thought to be a difference in the ideas
which predominate over successive epochs, and there are data for
marking the genius of the Classic, of the Romantic, and now of the
Reflective or Philosophical age. With the views I have intimated of
the oneness or the identity of the mind through all individuals, I do
not much dwell on these differences. In fact, I believe each
individual passes through all three. The boy is a Greek; the youth,
romantic; the adult, reflective. I deny not, however, that a
revolution in the leading idea may be distinctly enough traced.

Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion. Must that
needs be evil? We, it seems, are critical; we are embarrassed with
second thoughts; we cannot enjoy any thing for hankering to know
whereof the pleasure consists; we are lined with eyes; we see with
our feet; the time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness, --

"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied.
Would we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God,
and drink truth dry? I look upon the discontent of the literary