Zoologists may deny that horse-hair in the water changes to worms ; but I find that what-
ever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes. The reverence for the deeds of our
ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to
honor the present moment ; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which
they hated and defied.
The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty. A third illusion
haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a decade, a century, is valuable. But an old
French sentence says: "God works in minutes;" — "Enpcu d'hetire Dicu labcurc." We
ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or grand moments that signify. Let the measure of
time be spiritual, not mechanical. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile,
a glance, — what ample borrowers of eternity they are! Life culminates and concentrates;
and Homer said: " The gods ever give to mortals their appropriate share of reason only
on one day."
I am of opinion of the poet Wordsworth: " That there is no real happiness in life, but
in intellect and virtue." I am of the opinion of Pliny: "That, whilst we are musing on
these things, we are adding to the length of our lives." I am of opinion of Glauco, who
said: " The measure of life, O Socrates, is, with the wise, the speaking and hearing such
discourses as yours." He only can enrich me who can recommend to me the space
between sun and sun. 'T is the measure of a man, — his apprehension of a day.
You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself, and not interrogate
it like a college professor. The world is enigmatical, — everything said, and everything
known or done, — and must not be taken literally, but genially. We must be at the top of
our condition to understand anything rightly. You must hear the bird's song without
TO-DAY. 37
attempting to render it into nouns and verbs. Cannot we be a little abstemious and obe-
dient? Cannot we let the morning alone? There can be no greatness without abandonment.
Just to fill the hour, — that is happiness. Fill my hour, ye gods, so I shall not sayt
whilst I have done this, ' Behold, alas, an hour of my life has gone,' — but rather, ' I have
lived an hour." "
And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead cir-
cumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day after day. The hours should be
instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours.
'T is pitiful the things by which we are rich or poor, — a matter of coins, coats, and
carpets, a little more or less stone, or wood, or paint, the fashion of a cloak or hat ; like
the luck of naked Indians, of whom one is proud in the possession of a glass bead or a
red feather, and the rest miserable in the want of it. But the treasures which Nature
spent itself to amass, — the secular, refined, composite anatomy of man, — which all strata
go to form, which the prior races, from infusory and saurian, existed to ripen; the sur-
rounding plastic natures; the earth with its floods; the intellectual, temperamenting air;
the sea with its invitations; the heavens with deep worlds; and the answering brain and
nervous structure replying to these; the eye that looketh into the deeps, — which again
look back to the eye, — abyss to abyss; these, not like a glass bead, or the coins or carpets,
are given immeasur
Page 29
Presented as published in 1891. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Zoologists may deny that horse-hair in the water changes to worms ; but I find that whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes. The reverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment. Their merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present moment ; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they hated and defied.
The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty. A third illusion haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a decade, a century, is valuable. But an old French sentence says: "God works in minutes;" — "En peu d'heure Dieu labeure." We ask for long life, but 'tis deep life, or grand moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance, — what ample borrowers of eternity they are! Life culminates and concentrates; and Homer said: " The gods ever give to mortals their appropriate share of reason only on one day."
I am of opinion of the poet Wordsworth: " That there is no real happiness in life, but in intellect and virtue." I am of the opinion of Pliny: "That, whilst we are musing on these things, we are adding to the length of our lives." I am of opinion of Glauco, who said: " The measure of life, O Socrates, is, with the wise, the speaking and hearing such discourses as yours." He only can enrich me who can recommend to me the space between sun and sun. 'T is the measure of a man, — his apprehension of a day.
You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself, and not interrogate it like a college professor. The world is enigmatical, — everything said, and everything known or done, — and must not be taken literally, but genially. We must be at the top of our condition to understand anything rightly. You must hear the bird's song without
[illustration: TO-DAY. 37]
attempting to render it into nouns and verbs. Cannot we be a little abstemious and obedient? Cannot we let the morning alone? There can be no greatness without abandonment.
Just to fill the hour, — that is happiness. Fill my hour, ye gods, so I shall not sayt whilst I have done this, ' Behold, alas, an hour of my life has gone,' — but rather, ' I have lived an hour." "
And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day after day. The hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours.
'T is pitiful the things by which we are rich or poor, — a matter of coins, coats, and carpets, a little more or less stone, or wood, or paint, the fashion of a cloak or hat ; like the luck of naked Indians, of whom one is proud in the possession of a glass bead or a red feather, and the rest miserable in the want of it. But the treasures which Nature spent itself to amass, — the secular, refined, composite anatomy of man, — which all strata go to form, which the prior races, from infusory and saurian, existed to ripen; the surrounding plastic natures; the earth with its floods; the intellectual, tempering air; the sea with its invitations; the heavens with deep worlds; and the answering brain and nervous structure replying to these; the eye that looketh into the deeps, — which again look back to the eye, — abyss to abyss; these, not like a glass bead, or the coins or carpets, are given immeasurably