"THE TIME" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo )

manners, is as commanding a feature of the nineteenth century, and
the American republic, as of old Rome, or modern England. The reason
and influence of wealth, the aspect of philosophy and religion, and
the tendencies which have acquired the name of Transcendentalism in
Old and New England; the aspect of poetry, as the exponent and
interpretation of these things; the fuller development and the freer
play of Character as a social and political agent; -- these and other
related topics will in turn come to be considered.

But the subject of the Times is not an abstract question. We
talk of the world, but we mean a few men and women. If you speak of
the age, you mean your own platoon of people, as Milton and Dante
painted in colossal their platoons, and called them Heaven and Hell.
In our idea of progress, we do not go out of this personal picture.
We do not think the sky will be bluer, or honey sweeter, or our
climate more temperate, but only that our relation to our fellows
will be simpler and happier. What is the reason to be given for this
extreme attraction which _persons_ have for us, but that they are the
Age? they are the results of the Past; they are the heralds of the
Future. They indicate, -- these witty, suffering, blushing,
intimidating figures of the only race in which there are individuals
or changes, how far on the Fate has gone, and what it drives at. As
trees make scenery, and constitute the hospitality of the landscape,
so persons are the world to persons. A cunning mystery by which the
Great Desart of thoughts and of planets takes this engaging form, to
bring, as it would seem, its meanings nearer to the mind. Thoughts
walk and speak, and look with eyes at me, and transport me into new
and magnificent scenes. These are the pungent instructors who thrill
the heart of each of us, and make all other teaching formal and cold.
How I follow them with aching heart, with pining desire! I count
myself nothing before them. I would die for them with joy. They can
do what they will with me. How they lash us with those tongues! How
they make the tears start, make us blush and turn pale, and lap us in
Elysium to soothing dreams, and castles in the air! By tones of
triumph; of dear love; by threats; by pride that freezes; these have
the skill to make the world look bleak and inhospitable, or seem the
nest of tenderness and joy. I do not wonder at the miracles which
poetry attributes to the music of Orpheus, when I remember what I
have experienced from the varied notes of the human voice. They are
an incalculable energy which countervails all other forces in nature,
because they are the channel of supernatural powers. There is no
interest or institution so poor and withered, but if a new strong man
could be born into it, he would immediately redeem and replace it. A
personal ascendency, -- that is the only fact much worth considering.
I remember, some years ago, somebody shocked a circle of friends of
order here in Boston, who supposed that our people were identified
with their religious denominations, by declaring that an eloquent
man, -- let him be of what sect soever, -- would be ordained at once
in one of our metropolitan churches. To be sure he would; and not
only in ours, but in any church, mosque, or temple, on the planet;