The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1898-01-28
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY MEMO"

not of deep thought, who had among
other things, saturated his mind with
the thoughts of Schopenhauer, the pes
simist. In weary tones he told of the
disappointments and sorrows of life, of
the selfishness of human beings, of the
savagery into which some of us find it
so easy to drop, of the curse of educa-
ton in opening before us all vast fields
of learning that Time prevents us from
traversing, of the mockery of life in
giving us a mere peep of great things
and then sending us onward into death
and darkness. The dreary catalogue
of woe-stricken thoughts grew more
and more irksome as it progressed, and
1 fear there were replies given more
forceful than polite Since he is one Of
a class, may just in few crowded
words, repeat some things that were
said during my portion of the CONVEX
sation.
/ believe that a man talks only in
such gloomy fashion when he is such an
intense egoist that he regards the world
as under obligation to circle for him
and his pleasure; that he makes the
centre of the universe mere speck of
complaining humanity; and that his
own little toothache of his own little
misery is alone used in estimating the
feelings of others.
believe that rainy days have their
place fully as much as days of sunshine
in bringing forth the fruits of the earth.
So believe that none of us bring forth
our best when all is sunshine. AS the
glare and glory of blazing sun cause
the desert, so perfect ease of life de-
velops desert men and women, who
make the counterpart of the wasted
miles of Sahara, in the wasted years
of their lives ardently spent for self
and therefore hostile to every other
human being. must believe this or
else regard the Creator as mere teaser
of men.
| believe that the selfishness of hui
man beings is. more talked about than
real. Even among the poor-and that
includes most of us-there is so much
unselfish helping of one another, little
doles of kindness given with freehand
out of almost empty wallets, that one is
compelled to believe that the example
of the majority of us will finally be-
come the guide of the world. AS Sir
Edwin Arnold says, "All the poor are
piteous to the poor p so as long as the
poor last pity will last, and when the
poor and grief-strained cease, pity will
no longer be needed.
believe that though savagery and
grossness Turk in the breasts of all of
us, there is an increasing control of the
hereditary inner savage, and that the
general orderliness of daily life pro-
claim this truth. To prove it, run over
in your mind the things your impulses
would drive you toward; and then see
how your hesitancy is confirmed into
active enmity to those feelings by your
knowledge of the standard society,"
made up of units like yourself-expects
of you. To see what we were few
centuries ago, one might go to the ma
tiyes of South Africa. According to
the word of a missionary-bis they
are so unused to control by reason of
centuries lacking in it, that at present
it is impossible for the Roman Catholic
| ohurrb m ord DIN notivo pr;aStS thara
So foreign to their thought is any de-
sire for self-conquest on behalf of 9TH
ers that celibacy is an absolute bar
against them. But under our civiliza-
both men and women pass happy lives
without floating way on the waves of
! passion.
l believe that when we rise from the
first keen feeling of our own littleness
after education has opened our eyes, we
are driven to a fuller understanding OF
what living really means; that it leads
us to look around for the same unity
that pervades the universe, wherein
each body in the heavens moves with
apparent independence and yet all are
moving together in one vast progress
through space. l believe this unity Of
the human race will some day be more
than a mere glittering dream,-even an
actual fact, with only here and there
an erratic creature moving like a comet
across the paths of others. 1 believe
that pessimism regarding Education
arises from wrenching it cut of its prop
er sphere. Rightly used it gives us
larger views. 1t makes life more
varied, fuller and more interesting. II
it; does not do this, it is because we
have loaded ourselves down with it.
pebbles instead of its rubies, and found
darkness where brightness alone
should be.
believe that the shoItness of life JUS
serves to show us that the race is more
important than the individual, and tha
therefore the test of a valued life viii
some day come to be-not how much
for self was gathered and seraped to
! gether, but how much service was done
to repay something to the race for the
pleasures and opportunities that are
our heritages as members of one great
human family.