Elbert Hubbard

“ Life to Edmund Burke was the gracious gift of the gods, and he was grateful for it. He ripened slowly. Arrested development never caught him—all the days of his life his mind was expanding and reaching out, touching every phase of human existence. Nothing was foreign to him; nothing that related to human existence was small or insignificant. When the home-thrust was made that Ireland had not suffered more through the absenteeism of her landlords than through the absenteeism of her men of genius, Burke made the reply that Ireland needed friends in the House of Commons more than at home. ”

“ MARTIN LUTHER
[Pg 111]
The idea of the monastery is as old as man, and its rise is as natural as the birth and death of the seasons.
We need society, and we need solitude. But it happens again and again that man gets a surfeit of society—he is thrown with those who misunderstand him, who thwart him, who contradict his nature, who bring out the worst in his disposition: he is sapped of his strength, and then he longs for solitude. He would go alone up into the mountain. What is called the "monastic impulse" comes over him—he longs to be alone—alone with God. ”

“ To inspire a mule with a passion for work and loyalty in a great cause is no mean thing.
So richly endowed was Pericles that he was able to appreciate the best not only in men, but in literature, painting, sculpture, music, architecture and life as well. In him there was as near a perfect harmony as we have ever seen—in him all the various lines of Greek culture united, and we get the perfect man. Under the right conditions there might be produced a race of such men—but such a race never lived in Greece and never could. Greece was a splendid experiment. ”

“ Miss Greene had suffered social obloquy on [Pg 402] account of her attitude on the question of slavery—to share this obloquy seemed now the one thing desirable to Phillips. It is a great joy to share disgrace with the right person. The woman had intellect, education, self-reliance—and passion. There was an understanding between them. And yet no word of tenderness had been spoken. An avowal formulated in words is a cheap thing, and a spoken proposal goes with a cheap passion. The love that makes the silence eloquent and fills the heart with a melody too sacred to voice is the true token. ”

“ Even for the sainted Mary of Galilee he has only a grim and patronizing smile, removing his clay pipe long enough to say to Milburn, the blind Preacher, "Oh, yes; a country lass elevated by Catholics into a wooden image and worshiped as a deity!"
Carlyle never held in his arms a child of his own and saw the light of love reflected in a baby's eyes; and nowhere in his forty-odd volumes does he recognize the truth that love, art and religion are one. And this limitation gives Taine excuse for saying, "He writes splendidly, but it is neither truth nor poetry." ”

“ Phillips never thought he was doing much—never took any great pride in past performances. When what you have done in the past looks large to you, you have not done much today. His hopes were so high that there crept into his life a tinge of disappointment—some have called it bitterness, but that is not the word—just a touch of sadness because he was unable to do more. This was a matter of temperament, perhaps, but it reveals the humanity as well as the divinity of the man. There is nothing worse than self-complacency—smugosity is sin. ”

“ The gladiatorial shows of Greece, the games, contests, displays, all the barbaric splendor of processions, music, fetes, festivals, chants, robes and fantastic folderol of Rome—ancient and modern—the boom of guns in sham battles, coronations, thrones and crowns are all manifestations of this great game of power.
The people are children, and must be pleased.
But eventually the people reach adolescence: knowledge comes to them (to a few at least) and they perceive that they themselves foot all bills, and pay in sweat and tears and blood for all this pomp of power. ”

“ There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! ”

“ The speakers supplied strong meat for men. The stars in the lyceum sky were Emerson, Chapin, Beecher, Holmes, Bartol, Phillips, Ballou, Everett and Lowell. These men made the New England Lyceum a vast pulpit of free speech and advanced thought. And to a degree the Lyceum made these men what they were. They influenced the times and were influenced by the times. They were in competition with each other. A pace had been set, a record made, and the audiences that gathered expected much. An audience gets just what it deserves and no more. If you have listened to a poor speech, blame yourself. ”

“ Benedict had the greater executive ability, but Cassiodorus had the more far-reaching and subtle intellect. He anticipated all that we have to say today on the New Education—the necessity of playing off one faculty of the mind against another through manual labor, play and art creation. He even anticipated the primal idea of the Kindergarten, for he said, "The pleasurable emotion that follows the making of beautiful forms with one's hands is not a sin, like unto the pleasure that is gained for the sake of pleasure—rather to do good and beautiful work is incense to the nostrils of God." ”

“ The French Revolution traces a lineal descent direct from Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau. These men were contemporaries; they came to the same conclusions, expressing the same thought, each in his own way, absolutely independent of the other. And as genius seldom recognizes genius, neither knew the greatness of the other.
Voltaire was an aristocrat—the friend of kings and courtiers, the brilliant cynic, the pet of the salons and the center of the culture and brains of his time.
Rousseau was a man of the people, plain and unpretentious—a man without ambition—a dreamer. ”

“ The voice is the index of the soul. The voice of the two Pitts was the same voice, we have been told—a deep, rich, cultivated lyric-barytone. It was a trained voice, a voice that came from a full column of air, that never broke into a screech, rasping the throat of the speaker and the ear of the listener. It was the natural voice carefully developed by right use. The power of Pitt lay in his cold, calculating intellect, but the instrument that made manifest this intellect was his deep, resonant, perfectly controlled voice. ”

“ When he fell, civil authority was trampled underfoot. He had "planted himself on his constitutional rights"—appealed to the laws—claimed the protection of the civil authority—taken refuge under "the broad shield of the Constitution. When through that he was pierced and fell, he fell but one sufferer in a common catastrophe." He took refuge under the banner of liberty—amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem of free constitutions, around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the martyr's blood. ”

“ The auditors are not there to be amused nor instructed—they have not stopped at the box-office and paid good money to have their senses alternately lulled and titillated. No! The question is that of liberty or bondage, life or death—passion is in the saddle—hate and prejudice are sweeping events into a maelstrom—and now is the time for oratory! Such occasions are as rare as the birth of stars. ”

“ Greece is a beautiful dream. Dreams do not endure, yet they are a part of life, no less than the practical deeds of the day. The glory of Greece could not last; its limit was thirty years—one generation. The splendor of Athens was built on tribute and conquest, and the lesson of it all lies in this: For thirty years Pericles turned the revenues of war into art, beauty and usefulness. ”

“ And Savonarola saw these things—saw them to the exclusion of everything else—and his cry continually was for a return to the religion of Jesus the Carpenter, the Man who gave his life that others might live.
The Christ spirit filled the heart of Savonarola. His soul was wrung with pity for the poor, the unfortunate, the oppressed; and he had sufficient insight into economics to know that where greed, gluttony and idleness abound, there too stalk oppression, suffering and death. The palaces of the rich are built on the bones of the poor. ”

“ And the baby in the crib knew quite as much about it as the toddler in the linsey-woolsey dress, and the toddler knew as much about death as we do today. This wee youngster kept thinking how good it was that Mamma could have such a nice rest—the first rest she had ever known—and just lie there in the beautiful room and hold her flowers!
Fifty years pass. These children, grown to manhood, are again together. One, his work done, is at rest. Standing by his bier, the other voices these deathless words:
"Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. ”

“ That Ingersoll won the distinction of being more grossly misrepresented than any other man of his time, there is no doubt. This was to his advantage—he was advertised by his rabid enemies no less than by his loving friends. But his good friends who are putting out this vindication should cultivate faith, and know that there is a God, or Something, who looks after the lies and the liars—we needn't.
A big man should never be cheapened by a defense. Life is its own excuse for being, and every life is its own apology. Silence is better than wordy refutation. ”

“ The wide encompassing quality of Burke's mind made him a man among men. Just how much he lent his power in those early days to assist those in high places who needed him, we do not know. Such services were sacred to him—done in friendship and in confidence, and held as steadfast as a good lawyer holds the secrets of his client.
No doubt, though, that the one speech which gave glory and a nickname to Single-Speech Hamilton was written by Burke. It was wise, witty and profound—and never again did Hamilton do a thing that rose above the dull and deadly mediocre. ”

“ It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light to tired souls—builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody—for music is the voice of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right-royal kings and queens of common clay. ”