The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1877-11-22
Broken Careers.

If we single, out of the whole range
of human history, the few men of ge-
MUS whom we are constrained to re-
gard as the eminently. favored and en-
dOwed Of our race, we find what u
broken career has been allotted to most
OF them. Have not many Of them, pos
sessing courage to inspire, intelligence
to enlighten, sensibility to refine the
world, sickened under the languOr of
neglect or become embittered at the end
less contradictions and misrepresenta-
tions of their fellows, dying at last as
unfortunate men, unhappy to them
selves, unbeneticial TO their cOntempo-
raries? What an evil is the not unfre-
quent depravity of genius, and which
under happier circumstances might
have been great salutary influence in
stead! Might not the tremendous
forces of Swift, for example, have been
turned to better account than left to eX-
plode in shocks of half-diabOlic hate in
earlier days, and in madness at the
end? Think of the generous human
heart, brave will, and clear head of
Burns, man of quite transcendent
powers, yet fain to stink past on the
shady side of the street, left to bleed so
wretchedly to death in the midsummer
of his days. Contemplate the great
intellect and great heart of Lessing, a
man of thricc-eXcellent mOther-wit and
effectiveness, disposing with lordly
air of the whole literature of Europe,
awakening with his clarion voice his
slumbering nation to new intellectual
conquests, yet himself imprisoned for
so many of his best years in the sitting
library dust of Wolfenbuttel, isolated
there i'm the midst of an unhealthy
swamp; the world such dish of
skinned milk as to be incapable of any
sense of honor. Was not Lessing's
child boy of remarkable sense, who
no sooner came into the world than,
seeing his mistake, made out of it
double quick? Is it not probable that
many brave souls, braver and better
perhaps than any known to fame, have
gone down to silence unregarded, the
worlds stupidity being more than a
match for the gods themselves! Think
of good EdgSr in "King Lear" and had
he been left to die a maniac, would
that, think you, have been untrue to
fact? Even the one or two to whom
fate has been most propitiGus, Shakes
peare, Goethe, have not they too suf-
fercd from the bruises or flattery of for
tune, fallen at any rate far short of the
fulluess and balance happier age and
education might have conducted them
to? People are indeed fond of raising
monuments and holding centenaries TO
the so-called honOrD of great men, but
do you think there is any significance
at the bottom of it? Very little indeed.
The fathers kill the prophets, and the
sons garnish their sepulchres. In the
face of these facts and considerations
how disgusting to hear the universal
cant about "public opinion" The shoe
makers opinion may indeed have some
value on the matter of boots, the tailor's
on that of clothes; but what opinion
can the masses, all absorbed in the
question of simple existence, have about
gOvernmentand education and religion!
At best they are capable of Il total heart
belief in names, Of dying as martyrs for
names. Dean Stanley admits that most
of the noble martyrdoms have been in
attestation Of peculiar combinations of
letters of the alphabet. See the intel
lect and heart of Scotland wrangling
down into the latter end of the nine
teenth century, (and into how many
later centuries?) as to whether little
children at school shall learn how to
define eflectual calling and distinguish
between justification, adoption and
sanctitication -MdcmHlaR'S MdgdziRc.