But if the first rule is to obey your native bias, to accept that work
for which you were inwardly formed, the second rule is concentration,
which doubles its force. Thus if you are a scholar, be that. The same
laws hold for you as for the laborer. The shoemaker makes a good shoe
because he makes nothing else. Let the student mind his own charge;
sedulously wait every morning for the news concerning the structure of
the world which the spirit will give him.
No way has been found for making heroism easy, even for the scholar.
Labor, iron labor, is for him. The world was created as an audience for
him; the atoms of which it is made are opportunities. Read the
performance of Bentley, of Gibbon, of Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
Laplace. "He can toil terribly," said Cecil of Sir Walter Raleigh. These
few words sting and bite and lash us when we are frivolous. Let us get
out of the way of their blows, by making them true of ourselves. There
is so much to be done that we ought to begin quickly to bestir
ourselves. This day-labor of ours, we confess, has hitherto a certain
emblematic air, like the annual ploughing and sowing of the Emperor of
China. Let us make it an honest sweat. Let the scholar measure his valor
by his power to cope with intellectual giants. Leave others to count
votes and calculate stocks. His courage is to weigh Plato, judge
Laplace, know Newton, Faraday, judge of Darwin, criticise Kant and
Swedenborg, and on all these arouse the central courage of insight. The
scholar's courage should be as terrible as the Cid's, though it grow out
of spiritual nature, not out of brawn. Nature, when she adds difficulty,
adds brain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account