The Arizona sentinel., 1888-12-22
MODERN SHALLOWNESS.

MODERN SHALLOWNESS.
 IsOud-Mouthed Sneerers Who Have No
 Intellectual Store in Reserve.
 All great minds have large store in reserve; all wise people know how to keep silent on what they have been told, when speech would be disastrous to the peace of others. Those who display their whole stock in the front window are the most disappointing warehousemeG with whom to deal; for what should be but samples we find to be totality, and nothing lies behind the surface from which to make a better choice. So with those shallow brilliancies who show all they have on an hours acquaint- ance, and who dazzie their new com panions like a shower of sparks from a falling rocket. But the end of that flaming rocket with its dazzling corus- cations is a charred stick of nothing ness. The splendor has burnt itself out in that one flash, and there is no re- serve force for renewal or continuance. These are the people who either do not go on learning at all, or who pick up superfcially the topics of the day. of which they never see the cause nor can define the prin- ciples. Their philosophy dates back to the time of their youth, and they have made no change since then-nO step forward, no addition, no modifica- tion. If they are Liberals in politics their liberality is of the jack-bOot kind. Waving flags; glancing swords; an attitude struck on the ramparts; the cry, E'liberty or deathr' the cause tour hearts and homes, :" this is the kind of thing that wanders about that track they call their mind, and they can compass nothing else. Of the deeper and more prosaic, because more scien- tific principles, they know nothing and care less. They have never ere ated a reserve fund of thought nor of knowledge since the days of their fer vent youth; and they live on the husks of that immature fruit, and think it good feeding for their manhood.
 Talk to them of the principles and sociology-or the truths of political economy-they answer you back with acheap sheer at the Dismal Science for the one; for the other they say: ''Tell me how a tree grows, and then shall believe that you have discovered the laws of human life." Or, what is even more pitiable, they catch up the cur rent phrases set in circulation by the original thinkers of the day, and use them as glibly as if they understood what they really meant and abreast of the thought which created them. ''Op- portunism' m''-''the survival of the fittestn -''the line of least resistance" -''the struggle for existence"-"en. vironment nt'-do we not all know these phrases-this clipped coin of knowl- edge-this false coin of ignorance? Probe these superfcialities plumb the depths-dredge up the bottom and see what is beneath the well-cov- cred surface of shining specimens-o AAOuy SOlOI6u IdSLuGubo' ADoOlulGly nothing. All the wares are in the shop windows; all the wealth is on the surface. These people are retailers of words and phrases which they use de- void of meaning. There is no more vitality in them, no more spiritual fire or essence than there is in the echo which filings back my love!" or re- peats the ''Te Deum," because the waves of sound strike the rock and re- bound on the ear, So these mere echoes of the current phrases which mean principles and are aroused with out knowledge. They sound well and are so sonorous and majestic; but they are merely the tin armor over the wooden knight. The armor is tin and the thing it covers is wood, and there is no more value in the one than there is life in the other. Home Journal.