Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1923-10-18
WITH THE
HIGH SCHOOL
CLASSICS
By MARGARET BOYD
So. y.
% by Margaret Boyd. }


20 by Margaret Boyd)
"The thralI in person may be free in
soul,
And shall see the jousts,"
-IdyIIs of the King.
When Gareth wished to go to Ar
thurs court his mother forbade his
going unless he would there serve as
scullery lad, without telling his name
or rank to any one, for year and a
day. She thought the young prince
much too proud to accept such terms
and hoped to keep him home with her
for another year or two; but he ac-
cepted her terms, because by so doing
he could see the jousts.
Those with like spirit get any
thing they want from life. Whether
the desire is to see the jousts, to gain
wealth, to gain power, or what not, if
man desires that one thing so much
that ne is willing to do anything what
ever to gain his desire, he will gain it.
Most people go through life wishing
for dozen things instead of one. AS
result they often get nothing at all.
If Gareth had insisted upon retaining
his princely rank and his servitors, he
could not have seen the jousts He
got the one thing he wanted by giving
up everything else for it,
Wealth and power and learning and
beauty and health and the many other
things for which men long may all be
had If one is willing to pay the price.
Often the price Is much more than the
thing is worth, but if one is willing to
pay it, the thing becomes his. The
price for wealth may be unending
toll; denial of comfort and all self
independence, and a sacrificing of
friends, relatives and principles. The
price for power may be murder, as it
was in the case of Macbeth, and as it
has been in the case of many another
ruler. The price for learning is much
study and self-deprivation. The price
for beauty and the price for health are
much the same eternal vigilance,
proper exercise, temperate diet, hy
gienic habits and a calm mind.
Gareth was able to reconcile himself
to mental servitude by the reflection
that the thrall in person may be free
in soul That his reflection was cor
rect is abundantly attested by history.
Two names stand out prominently from
the many names of those who have
been free in mind, although bound in
body-Aesop and Epictetus. Both were
slaves-the latter of a master who once
tortured him by breaking his leg but
no one could have been freer in soul.
The first by his fables. and the latter
by his discourses, have done more to-
mold the thought and manner of man
kind than any of the freemen who were
their contemporaries.
"There is a tide in the affairs Of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to
fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shadows and in miseries."
Julius Caesar.
Modern writer's speak of this tide
In the affairs Of men, as the psyche
logical moment Anything attempted
is sure to succeed that which is at
tempted at any other moment is likely
to fail.
Solomon spoke of the "tide' as
time or season-"To everything there
| is a season, and a time to every pur-
pose under the heaven" No man
would plant potatoes in frozen ground
and expect them to grow, for winter
| is not the season for planting pota-
toes 1t is just as hopeless to start
a venture at the wrong season as to
plant potatoes at the wrong time
Our inventions show the Importance
of the tide in the affairs of mem
whether we call it that or the psyche
logical moment or the right time. 1t
has often been pointed out that the
people of antiquity knew the principle
of the printing press, because they
stamped coins with die. There was
no need of a printing press during the
| time when the only material men had
for writing on was parchment or vel
lum or papyrus. When the discovery
Of way of making paper afforded the
psychological moment, the printing
press was invented.
Similarly with aircraft. Leonardo is
/ said to have known the principles OF
the airplane four centuries ago; but
he did not bother building aircraft be-
cause there was no development of
commerce and industry sufficient to
make his century the psychological
/ time for such an invention.
The martyrs to science and to re-
! ligion were those who attempted to
popularize beliefs for which the psy-
Geological moment had not yet ar
rived. How much their deaths had to
do with creating the psychological mo-
ment we have no means of knowing.
Usually, man fails to achieve for
tune not so much because he cannot
recognize the ''tide in the affairs of
men, as because he is not ready to
| take advantage of it.
Every twenty years or less we have
a financial depression in our country
During this depression stocks and
bonGs and property usually sell for
fraction of their real value, and the
man who has savings has his oppor-
| tunity to launch forth on the tide that
| will carry him to fortune. AS the
Scotch express it, however, "When it
rains porridge, one seldom has a