Evening star., 1932-04-26

It is never well to accept the thoughts
even of the wisest men. without apply
ing to them ones own knowledge.
Even if ones ideas happen to be
wrong, as viewed largely from the
standpoint of all knowledge, still this
will be better than accepting without
question the thoughts of others.
This is being critical to some purpose
for it prevents that wholesale accept
ance of the work of others, which is at
once such temptation but also such
danger.
Suppose one happens to run across
for instance, line by the wise Emerson
that one can learn more by being alone
by himself than by reading all the books
in the world
1t is a neat statement, to be sure, one
which might with propriety be used to
clinch many an argument, to discomfit
an adversary upon occasion, to round
out speech or article.
Yet it must be taken with grain OF
salt. indeed, and should have applied
to it. in any particular case, the very
man himself
GeneralizationS often fall before the
application of the personal Not every
wise saying is so chock full of genius
that it can meet the test of numbers.
What is true for one man will not be
so true of another.
Even genius must look at the world
through his own eyes. He necessarily
sees life as he lives it. If he writes, he
never has but one subject, himself.
All these thousands of words which
he has spun out for these many years,
what are they about, after all, but their
author?
Those who think, sometimes, that
they see themselves in what he writes
are very much mistaken. 1t Is true, of
course. that he is human, and his life
comedies with the lives of many other
persons
His life impinges upon other lives, so
that when he writes of himself he nee
essarily writes something about them,
too; but there is nothing personal in it,
he turns them into distractions, into
types and classes, in whom it is essen
TALLY Ill bred for others to recognize
themselves. All is grist that comes to
his MILL the spinning wheel of fancy
turns, and draws up the waters of life
and lets them down again. If any one
sees his own spicture in that shining
mirror, he should not accept it as his,
but merely as an image of what he
might have been-for usually it will be
better than he is.
A genius such as Emerson found that
he could learn more by going into the
solitude with his own soul, than by
reading all the books in the world. But
that would not necessarily be true for
all of us. 1t is significant that the sage
did not give up his books in the least.
He loved books more than most men,
even more than most bookloverS but he
applied to them the tests Of his own
sanity.
He was gifted man, an exceptionally
gifted one, despite his firm belief that
all men had the possibilities of a like
genius If they could put themselves in
the proper receptive mood.
Most men could not do this. there
fore most men could not approach his
peculiar combination of conservatism
and radicalism, of belief in nature and
in natures God, of doubt and faith,
OF reality and dreams.
He once said that he would hate to
be in the position which would force
him to look upon a man as an animal
He wanted to look upon man as a man!
Such views as these, although from
the mind of a man with an utterly
fresh viewpoint on life, partake Of the
nature of that individual beholder, and
can no more be diSaSsociated from him
than the stripes of the tiger from the
creature.
They we're his thoughts, not mine,
and why should I, or you, dear reader.
receive them implicitly? Emerson did
not know us. He might not have liked
us, if he had, and we, in our turn,
might have thought him pedantic, or
high-brow, or worse.
His thoughts are his thoughts and
cur thoughts are our thoughts, and
we shall honor him, as well as our
selves, If We are no more ashamed of
our ideas than he was of his. He was
the last man to want to form an insti-