A way of life : $b An address to Yale students Sunday evening, April 20th, 1913Osler, William, Sir
Philosophy
A way of life : $b An address to Yale students Sunday evening, April 20th, 1913
Osler, William, Sir
Conduct of life; Students -- Conduct of life
come in troops, and pry open the eyelids, each one presenting a sin,
a sorrow, a regret. Bad enough in the old and seasoned, in the young
these demons of past sins may be a terrible affliction, and in
bitterness of heart many a one cries with Eugene Aram, "Oh God!
Could I so close my mind, and clasp it with a clasp." As a vaccine
against all morbid poisons left in the system by the infections of
yesterday, I offer "a way of life." "Undress," as George Herbert
says, "your soul at night," not by self-examination, but by shedding,
as you do your garments, the daily sins whether of omission or of
commission, and you will wake a free man, with a new life. To look
back, except on rare occasions for stock-taking, is to risk the fate
of Lot's wife. Many a man is handicapped in his course by a cursed
combination of retro- and intro-spection, the mistakes of yesterday
paralysing the efforts of to-day, the worries of the past hugged to
his destruction, and the worm Regret allowed to canker the very heart
of his life. To die daily, after the manner of St. Paul, ensures the
resurrection of a new man, who makes each day the epitome of a life.
III
The load of to-morrow, added to that of yesterday, carried to-day
makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the
past. No dreams, no visions, no delicious fantasies, no castles in
the air, with which, as the old song so truly says, "hearts are
broken, heads are turned." To youth, we are told, belongs the
future, but the wretched to-morrow that so plagues some of us has no
certainty, except through to-day. Who can tell what a day may bring
forth? Though its uncertainty is a proverb, a man may carry its
secret in the hollow of his hand. Make a pilgrimage to Hades with
Ulysses, draw the magic circle, perform the rites, and then ask
Tiresias the question. I have had the answer from his own lips. The
future is to-day,--there is no to-morrow! The day of a man's
salvation is _now_--the life of the present, of to-day, lived
earnestly, intently, without a forward-looking thought, is the only
insurance for the future. Let the limit of your horizon be a
twenty-four hour circle. On the title page of one of the great books
of science, the _Discours de la Méthode_ of Descartes (1637) is a
vignette showing a man digging in a garden with his face towards the
earth, on which rays of light are streaming from the heavens; beneath
is the legend "_Fac et Spera_." 'Tis a good attitude and a good
motto. Look heavenward, if you wish, but never to the horizon--that
way danger lies. Truth is not there, happiness is not there,
certainty is not there, but the falsehoods, the frauds, the
quackeries, the _ignes fatui_ which have deceived each
generation--all beckon from the horizon, and lure the men not content
to look for the truth and happiness that tumble out at their feet.
Once while at College climb a mountain-top, and get a general outlook
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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