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

but he must be eloquent, able to supplant our method and
classification, by the superior beauty of his own. Every fact we
have was brought here by some person; and there is none that will not
change and pass away before a person, whose nature is broader than
the person which the fact in question represents. And so I find the
Age walking about in happy and hopeful natures, in strong eyes, and
pleasant thoughts, and think I read it nearer and truer so, than in
the statute-book, or in the investments of capital, which rather
celebrate with mournful music the obsequies of the last age. In the
brain of a fanatic; in the wild hope of a mountain boy, called by
city boys very ignorant, because they do not know what his hope has
certainly apprised him shall be; in the love-glance of a girl; in the
hair-splitting conscientiousness of some eccentric person, who has
found some new scruple to embarrass himself and his neighbors withal;
is to be found that which shall constitute the times to come, more
than in the now organized and accredited oracles. For, whatever is
affirmative and now advancing, contains it. I think that only is
real, which men love and rejoice in; not what they tolerate, but what
they choose; what they embrace and avow, and not the things which
chill, benumb, and terrify them.

And so why not draw for these times a portrait gallery? Let us
paint the painters. Whilst the Daguerreotypist, with camera-obscura
and silver plate, begins now to traverse the land, let us set up our
Camera also, and let the sun paint the people. Let us paint the
agitator, and the man of the old school, and the member of Congress,
and the college-professor, the formidable editor, the priest, and
reformer, the contemplative girl, and the fair aspirant for fashion
and opportunities, the woman of the world who has tried and knows; --
let us examine how well she knows. Could we indicate the indicators,
indicate those who most accurately represent every good and evil
tendency of the general mind, in the just order which they take on
this canvass of Time; so that all witnesses should recognise a
spiritual law, as each well known form flitted for a moment across
the wall, we should have a series of sketches which would report to
the next ages the color and quality of ours.

Certainly, I think, if this were done, there would be much to
admire as well as to condemn; souls of as lofty a port, as any in
Greek or Roman fame, might appear; men of great heart, of strong
hand, and of persuasive speech; subtle thinkers, and men of wide
sympathy, and an apprehension which looks over all history, and
everywhere recognises its own. To be sure, there will be fragments
and hints of men, more than enough: bloated promises, which end in
nothing or little. And then truly great men, but with some defect in
their composition, which neutralizes their whole force. Here is a
Damascus blade, such as you may search through nature in vain to
parallel, laid up on the shelf in some village to rust and ruin. And
how many seem not quite available for that idea which they represent!
Now and then comes a bolder spirit, I should rather say, a more