The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 76, February, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 76, February, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
We shall never rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in
an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep
from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with
the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the
worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is
secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea. Peace is joy
beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of Omnipotence in the
breast.
A filial relation to the universe is well expressed, not in speech, but
in the attitudes of her children, in their balance, tranquillity,
directness, their firm and quiet grasp, look, step, tone. Confidence and
joy are the only moral agents. Worship is immortal cheer. The Greeks
rebuke us with their sacred festivals and games: why should we not hunt
every evil as we follow gayly the buffalo and bear? Virtue cannot be
wrinkled and sad; Virtue is a joy of the Right added to our earliest
joy,--is refreshment and health, not fever. The Etruscan are right
religious sculptures: the body will be more, not less, when the soul is
most; for the body is created and perfected, not devoured by the soul.
In another Eden the curves of grace and power will reappear; every
wrinkle will be counted sin; goodness will be sap and blood, a growth of
grapes and roses, a sacrament of energy and content.
If there be great wrongs, we cannot distrust the Maker, and postpone the
security of the soul. Impatience is a wrong as great as any. Love and
trust are remedies for wrong. Music is our cure for insanity, and I
remember that incantation of fair reasons which Plato prescribed. What
gain is in scolding and knitting the brows? The blue sky, the bright
cloud, the star of night, the star of day, every creature is in its
smiling place a protest of the universe against our hasty method of
counter-working wrong with wrong. Let loose the Right. Go forward with
martial music; never await or seek, but carry victory and win every
battle in the organization of your band. Hear Beethoven:--"Nor do I fear
for my works. No evil can befall them, and whosoever shall understand
them shall be free from all such misery as burdens mankind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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