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

surrendered soul, more informed and led by God, which is much in
advance of the rest, quite beyond their sympathy, but predicts what
shall soon be the general fulness; as when we stand by the seashore,
whilst the tide is coming in, a wave comes up the beach far higher
than any foregoing one, and recedes; and for a long while none comes
up to that mark; but after some time the whole sea is there and
beyond it.

But we are not permitted to stand as spectators of the pageant
which the times exhibit: we are parties also, and have a
responsibility which is not to be declined. A little while this
interval of wonder and comparison is permitted us, but to the end
that we shall play a manly part. As the solar system moves forward
in the heavens, certain stars open before us, and certain stars close
up behind us; so is man's life. The reputations that were great and
inaccessible change and tarnish. How great were once Lord Bacon's
dimensions! he is now reduced almost to the middle height; and many
another star has turned out to be a planet or an asteroid: only a few
are the fixed stars which have no parallax, or none for us. The
change and decline of old reputations are the gracious marks of our
own growth. Slowly, like light of morning, it steals on us, the new
fact, that we, who were pupils or aspirants, are now society: do
compose a portion of that head and heart we are wont to think worthy
of all reverence and heed. We are the representatives of religion
and intellect, and stand in the light of Ideas, whose rays stream
through us to those younger and more in the dark. What further
relations we sustain, what new lodges we are entering, is now
unknown. To-day is a king in disguise. To-day always looks mean to
the thoughtless, in the face of an uniform experience, that all good
and great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank
to-days. Let us not be so deceived. Let us unmask the king as he
passes. Let us not inhabit times of wonderful and various promise
without divining their tendency. Let us not see the foundations of
nations, and of a new and better order of things laid, with roving
eyes, and an attention preoccupied with trifles.

The two omnipresent parties of History, the party of the Past
and the party of the Future, divide society to-day as of old. Here
is the innumerable multitude of those who accept the state and the
church from the last generation, and stand on no argument but
possession. They have reason also, and, as I think, better reason
than is commonly stated. No Burke, no Metternich has yet done full
justice to the side of conservatism. But this class, however large,
relying not on the intellect but on instinct, blends itself with the
brute forces of nature, is respectable only as nature is, but the
individuals have no attraction for us. It is the dissenter, the
theorist, the aspirant, who is quitting this ancient domain to embark
on seas of adventure, who engages our interest. Omitting then for
the present all notice of the stationary class, we shall find that
the movement party divides itself into two classes, the actors, and