The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other SketchesJordan, David Starr
Philosophy
The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches
Jordan, David Starr
Essays
The men you meet as you leave these halls will not understand your
ideals. They will not know that your life is not bound up in the
present, but has something to ask or to give for the future. Till they
understand you they will not yield you their sympathies. They may jeer
at you because the whip they respond to leaves no mark upon you. They
will try to buy you, because the Devil has always bid high for the
lives of young men with ideals. A man in his market stands always
above par. Slaves are his stock in trade. If a man of power can be
had for base purposes, he can be sure of an immediate reward. You can
sell your blood for its weight in milk, or for its weight in
gold--whatever you choose,--if you are willing to put it up for sale.
You can sell your will for the kingdoms of the earth; and you will see,
or seem to see, many of your associates making just such bargains. But
in this be not deceived. No young man worthy of anything else ever
sold himself to the Devil. These are dummy sales. The Devil puts his
own up at auction in hope of catching others. If you fall into his
hands, you had not far to fall. You were already ripe for his clutches.
When a man steps forth from the college, he is tested once for all. It
takes but a year or two to prove his mettle. In the college high
ideals prevail, and the intellectual life is taken as a matter of
course. In the world outside it appears otherwise, though the
conditions of success are in fact just the same. It is not true,
though it seems so, that the common life is a game of "grasping and
griping, with a whine for mercy at the end of it." It is your own
fault if you find it so. It is not true that the whole of man is
occupied, with the effort "to live just asking but to live, to live
just begging but to be." The world of thought and the world of action
are one in nature. In both truth and love are strength, and folly and
selfishness are weakness. There is no confusion of right and wrong in
the mind of the Fates. It is only in our poor bewildered slave
intellects that evil passes for power. All about us in the press of
life are real men, "whose fame is not bought nor sold at the stroke of
a politician's pen." Such are the men in whose guidance the currents
of history flow.
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