The Ghosts, and Other LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Ghosts, and Other Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all
that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell
you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the
palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for
the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts.
That is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help
somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love
is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender
both. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false
standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man
must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely
wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is
all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be
powerful, to be happy. The happy, man is the successful man.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.
Joy is wealth.
A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and
gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at
last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and
thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide.
I saw him at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of
Paris--I saw him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing
the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand--I saw him in Egypt in
the shadows of the pyramids--I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the
eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo--at
Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow
and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by
a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished
to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his
genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and
Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him
at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the
sad and solemn sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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