The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 02
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
well of yourself and your neighbour.
You need repent none of your youthful vagaries. They may have been over
the score on one side, just as those of age are probably over the score
on the other. But they had a point; they not only befitted your age and
expressed its attitude and passions, but they had a relation to what was
outside of you, and implied criticisms on the existing state of things,
which you need not allow to have been undeserved, because you now see
that they were partial. All error, not merely verbal, is a strong way of
stating that the current truth is incomplete. The follies of youth have
a basis in sound reason, just as much as the embarrassing questions put
by babes and sucklings. Their most anti-social acts indicate the defects
of our society. When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you
must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream
is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England,
discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads
irritated at the injustices of society see nothing for it but the
abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a
young fool; so are these cock-sparrow revolutionaries. But it is better
to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the
shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and
incongruities of life, and take everything as it comes in a forlorn
stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on
through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's
sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of
himself! As for the others, the irony of facts shall take it out of
their hands, and make fools of them in downright earnest, ere the farce
be over. There shall be such a mopping and a mowing at the last day, and
such blushing and confusion of countenance for all those who have been
wise in their own esteem, and have not learnt the rough lessons that
youth hands on to age. If we are indeed here to perfect and complete our
own natures, and grow larger, stronger, and more sympathetic against
some nobler career in the future, we had all best bestir ourselves to
the utmost while we have the time. To equip a dull, respectable person
with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.
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