The Winslow mail., 1914-11-07

middle ages, 80 that the crippled beg
gar was. as it were. an essential fea-
lure of the human spectacle. was be-
'oming strange thing in the world.
It had curious effect upon Karenin's
,olleagues; their feeling toward him
was mingled with pity and a sense Of
inhumanity that it needed usage rather
han reason to overcome. He had q
strong face, with little bright brown
Eyes. rather deeply sunken, and large
'esolute, thin Tipped mouth. His skin
was very yellow and wrinkled and his
lair iron gray He was at all times
III impatient and sometimes an angry
nan. but this was forgiven him be-
'ause of the hot wire of suffering that
vas manifesty thrust through his be-
ng At the end of his life his personal
prestige was very great. To him far
more than to any contemporary is tE
lue that self abnegation, self identi-
6cation with the world spirit, was
made the basis of universal education.
That general memorandum to the
teachers which is the keynote of the
t1lOuSI Ii oNChI was pkOU-
IDLY entirely his work.
whatsoever would save his soul shall
lose it, he wrote. "That is the device
upon the seal Of this document and the
starting point of all we have to do. 1t
is mistake to regard it as anything
but plain statement of fact. 1t is the
basis for your work. You have to
teach self forgetfulness, and every
thing else that you have to teach is
contributory and subordinate to that
end. Education is the release Of man
from self. You have to widen the hO-
riZons of your children, encourage and
intensity their curiosity and their crea-
tive impulses and cultivate and enlarge
their sympathies. That is what you
are for. Under your guidance and the
suggestions you will bring to bear on
them they have to shed the old Adam
of instructive suspicious. hostilities and
passions and to find themselves again
in the great being of the universe. The
little circles of their egotisms have to
be opened out until they become arcs
And this that you teach to others you
must learn also sedulously yourselves.
Philosophy. discovery, art, every sort
Of skill, every sort Of service, love
these are the means of salvation from
that narrow loneliness of desire, that
brooding preoccupation with self and
egotistical relationships, which is hell
for the individual treason to the race
and exile from God"
AS things round themselves off and
accomplish themselves one begins fOF
the first time to see them clearly.
From the perSpectives Of new age
one can look back upon the great and
widening stream Of literature with
complete understanding. Things link
up that seemed disconnected, and
things that were once condemned as
harsh and aimless are seen to be fac
tors in the statement of gigantic
problem. An enormous bulk of the sim
cerer writing of the eighteenth, nine
teenth and twentieth centuries falls
together now into an unanticipated
OAC OCCo ~ Oo q hoSO tAC
sue of variations upon one theme, thei
conflict of human egotism and personal
passion and narrow Imagination on the1
one hand against the growing sense of
wider necessities and a possible, moreS
spacious life.
That conflict is in evidence in sol
early a work as Voltaire's "Candide,
for example, in which the desire for
justice as well as happiness beats
against human contrariety and takes
refuge at last In a forced and incOn
elusive contenment with little things.
"Candide" was but one Of the pioneersl
of a literature Of uneasy complaint
that was presently an innumerableE
multitude Of books. The novels. more
particularly, of the nineteenth century
If one excludes the mere story teliers
from our consideration, witness to this
uneasy realization of changes that call
for effort and Of the lack Of that effort
In a thousand aspects, now tragically
now comically. now with funny at
fectation of divine detachment, count
less host of witnesses tell their stor,
Of lives fretting between dreams and
limitations Now one laughs, now one
Weeps. now one reads with blank as
constituent at this huge and almost un
premediated record of how the growing
human spirit now warily, now eager
Iy, now furiously, and always, as II
seems. unSucceSsfully. tried to adap1
itself TO the maddening mistit of it,
patched and ancient garments. And
always in these books. as one draws
nearer to the heart of the matter there
comes diScOncerting evasion. 1t was
the fantastic convention of the time
that a writer should not touch upon
religion. TO do SO was to rouse the
Jealous fury Of the great multitude CT
the professional religious teachers. l.
was permitted to state the diScord. bu
it was forbidden to glance at any pos
sible reconciliation. Religion was the
privilege of the pulpit.
1t was not only from the novels that
religion was omitted. 1t was ignored
by the newspapers. 1t was pendantical
ly disregarded in the discussion of bust