Men of this surcharge of arterial blood cannot live on nuts, herb-tea,
and elegies; cannot read novels, and play whist; cannot satisfy all
their wants at the Thursday Lecture, or the Boston Athenæum. They pine
for adventure, and must go to Pike’s Peak; had rather die by the hatchet
of a Pawnee, than sit all day and every day at a counting-room desk.
They are made for war, for the sea, for mining, hunting, and clearing;
for hair-breadth adventures, huge risks, and the joy of eventful living.
Some men cannot endure an hour of calm at sea. I remember a poor Malay
cook, on board a Liverpool packet, who, when the wind blew a gale, could
not contain his joy; "Blow!" he cried, "me do tell you, blow!" Their
friends and governors must see that some vent for their explosive
complexion is provided. The roisters who are destined for infamy at
home, if sent to Mexico, will "cover you with glory," and come back
heroes and generals. There are Oregons, Californias, and Exploring
Expeditions enough appertaining to America, to find them in files to
gnaw, and in crocodiles to eat. The young English are fine animals,
full of blood, and when they have no wars to breathe their riotous
valors in, they seek for travels as dangerous as war, diving into
Maelstroms; swimming Hellesponts; wading up the snowy Himmaleh; hunting
lion, rhinoceros, elephant, in South Africa; gypsying with Borrow in
Spain and Algiers; riding alligators in South America with Waterton;
utilizing Bedouin, Sheik, and Pacha, with Layard; yachting among the
icebergs of Lancaster Sound; peeping into craters on the equator; or
running on the creases of Malays in Borneo.
The excess of virility has the same importance in general history, as in
private and industrial life. Strong race or strong individual rests at
last on natural forces, which are best in the savage, who, like the
beasts around him, is still in reception of the milk from the teats of
Nature. Cut off the connection between any of our works, and this
aboriginal source, and the work is shallow. The people lean on this,
and the mob is not quite so bad an argument as we sometimes say, for it
has this good side. "March without the people," said a French deputy
from the tribune, "and you march into night: their instincts are a
finger-pointing of Providence, always turned toward real benefit. But
when you espouse an Orleans party, or a Bourbon, or a Montalembert
party, or any other but an organic party, though you mean well, you have
a personality instead of a principle, which will inevitably drag you
into a corner."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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