The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1909-05-06
IDEALS AND REAL LIFE.

One Of the most striking OF Emersoh
ESSAYS is that on "Self- Reliance" in which
he urges men and women to have the cour-
ACE to live their real lives. The most in
spring passages are these:
"My life is not on an apology, but life.
It is for itself and not for spectacle.
much prefer that it should be OF lower
strain, so it be genuine and equal, than
that it should be glittering and unsteady.
| wish it to be sound and sweet.
My life should be unique; it should De
an aims, battle, conquest, medicine.
What must do is all that con-
Germs me, not what the people think. This
rule, equally arduous in actual and INTEL
lectuaI life, may serve as the whole dis
tinction between greatness and meanness.
1t is easy in the world to live after
the worlds opinion; it is easy in solitude
to live after our own; but the great man is
he who in the midst of the crowd keeps
with perfect sweetness the independence
of the solitude
Emerson's advice is plea to follow the
highest and truest. 1t is not to be sup
posed that each and every man is wiser
than the worlds opinion, but if only the
majority would try to follow their own
ideals, imperfect though they be, the world
would be different place.
When young men go out into the world
they are sure to be confronted with sheer
which is hard to refute. When they pro-
TESS their fine ideals and their lofty aspira-
tons, they will find hosts of worldly wise
men ready and eager to tell them that their
notions, which they have brought from the
teachings of the home, the church, or the
school, are very we'll indeed for cloister
or for women to think upon, but that in
the crush and strife of actual life these
ideals are only so much talk without SUBJ
stance. 1t will be of advantage to every
young man and young woman to regard
closely and try to estimate the character
and standing of the people who talk in
this degrading strain. They will find upon
examination that these people have been
corrupted at heart. The fact that they take
that attitude toward life is the very best
evidence that through evil training, or
misfortune which they had not enough
strength to meet, or a bad heart, they
have chosen the lower path and have be-
come thoroughly vulgarized and common.
Ideals are the masters of the world"
Let any one consider for himself who are
the heroes of the world; whose lives and
examples furnish all mankind with guild
ance and instruction.; what sort of charac-
ter is il which has lifted up nations and
advanced civilization. Nobody ever heard
any sane man holding up as examples of
right conduct the corrupted and material
istic beings of the past whose base philoso-
ply teaches that nothing is of any use but
so much provender and cash, or that beauty
of conduct, lofty aspirations and love of
virtue are hollow, unreal, unfit for the
affairs of life. Far from it; those people
are condemned and clean forgotten. The
men who are the lights of history and the
heroes OF song and story are the noble
natures who died and suffered in what they
thought to be good and holy causes.
1t is to be noted that the measure of their
virtue and nobility does not depend upon
our present estimate of the Brightness or
the wrongness of their course. An Amer
lean can love and glory in the heroism of
an Englishman, even though that English
man might have been engaged in war
against the United States. Virtue and
nobility of character and of life have no
nationally, no creed and no Sect All
those who have fought and striven for their
own high ideals with all their might and
from sense of duty constitute the blessed
army of saints, martyrs and patriots of
the world.
The base camp followers and skeptical
suffers, who stand on the outside of the
great battle of life, in safety from any sort
of anxiety or concern, have ever Knocked
true fighters with sneers and jeers, saying
that the struggle is naught. Who does
them honor? Who fails to estimate truly
the same class of the present day? Who
would any more trust their children to their
guidance or mpanionship than to persons
afflicted with an infectious disease?
An American once said that he was
profoundly thankful that he was we'll bred.
He could get along very we'll without
money, but his life without the " simplicity
and high spirit that come from good breed
ing would have seemed to him ga very