The Kansas herald of freedom., 1859-11-12
Something Suggested by the German Singing
Festival


Divided between money making and
politics on tbe-one hand, and religion
without much of ''the beauty of holiness
on the other-between barren puritan
ism of correct department and its natural
alternative of stupid, bestial indulgence
we have somewhat. as people, lost the
art Of free, spontaneous, genial, happy
life. We are an unhappy people; none
the less so that we are more prosperous
than Others. Prosperity is the bugbear
tvrant, whom we serve as anxious bond
men, fearing to call one moment our own,
fearing to live, in our unceasing, feverish
pursuit of the means of living.
We are an anxious people, uncomfort-
ably 1emonized and ridden, pight-mare-
like, by that which gives US power. We
go ahead faster than Others, but it is by a
eentaur-like contrivance, by allowing so
much Of our real, vital, human Self to be
absorbed into the lower animal, or the
machine that carries Us. Soon we shall
cease to be men at all, we shall be so
fast" Your native American Give Yam
kee" wastes his life in rivalling steam
engine; be makes himself a mere machine
for generating power-power for what?
And with what solemn, pious, lean, bard
favored way he does it! With what a
quasi religious reverence he quotes his
business maxims, his rules of principal
and interest, and SO forth! How he ANAL
gamates unworldly orthodoxy with the
most secular showman's cant in the ad-
vertising of his wares! How he practi-
cally confouuds religion with his own
sefishness, as generalized into prudential
maximsi ..... .
Perhaps there are no people who put
forth so much Of will, so much of mul-
| tifarious power as We; as there are GER
tainly none who have so much political
freedom, so mnch liberty and even license
of opinion. Aud yet we have, perhaps
as little real freedom as any other. We
are the slaves of our own fevefish enter
prise, and of barren theory of life, which
would fain make US virtuous to fault
and substitute negative abstinence for har
monious positive living. We are sadls
destitute Of the srontaneous element. We
are afraid to give ourselves up to the free
and happy instincts Of our natures. AL
that is not business, or politics, or study
or religion, we count waste. We have
done it so long, that now we are like littlt
children, unfit to be left to ourselves Il
enjoy ourselves together. Pleasure be
comes intemperance with us; amusement
untaught, uninspired by higher senti
ments, runs into the gross and sensual.
l. We lack geniality; nor Dc we as peo
pie Understandable meaning of the wore
ysHttts. Genius differs from the other rul
ing principles of life by the fact tina
methods are spontaneous. Genius is tn,
spontaneous principle; it is free and hap
py inits work, it is practical reconcile
ment of haartiest pleasure with the high
est sense of duty, with most holy, univer
sal ends and sentiments of life. Genius
as Beethoven gloriously illustrates in hi
Symphony, finds the keynote and tn
SOLUTION of the problem of the highes
state in Joy. Now, all rnas not be geni
uses, in the sense that we call Shakespeare
| Mozart and Raphael men Of genius; bu
all should be partakers of this spontane
Gus, free and happy method of genius; al
should live childlike, genial lives, and no
wear the marks of their unrelaxing btsi
ness, or the badge 6r party and professio
in every line and feature of their faces
Dt06ght's Journal of Music. .acs 10