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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A t V.
 
 GLift'^s ^^nthusiasms^
 
 LIFE'S 
 ENTHUSIASMS 
 
 By 
 David Starr y or dan 
 
 President ofLeland Stanford Junior University 
 
 Boston : 
 American Unitarian Association 
 M DCCC cvi
 
 Copyright, igo6 
 American Unitarian Association 
 
 Published, October, iqot) 
 
 Printed by 
 The Heintzemann Press, Boston
 
 
 To Melville Best Anderson 

 
 THAT is poetry in which truth is expressed 
 in the fewest possible words ^ in words 
 which are inevitable, in words which could not 
 be changed without weakening the meaning or 
 throwing discord into the melody, ^o choose 
 the right word and to discard all others, this is 
 the chief faSior in good writing. 'To learn good 
 poetry by heart is to acquire help toward doing 
 thisy instin^ively automatically as other habits 
 are acquired. In the affairs of life, then, is no 
 form of good manners, no habit of usage more 
 valuable than the habit of good English.
 
 LIFE'S 
 ENTHUSIASMS 
 
 iTffiSJT^ is the layman's privi- 
 
 \ I k^trt^ ^^S^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^"^^ 
 
 riAj3r3\his sermons wherever 
 / 1 V^M^ he finds it. I take mine 
 )JLv^£bi} from a French novel, a 
 cynical story of an unpleasant person, 
 Samuel Brohl, by Victor Cherbuliez; 
 And this is the text and the whole ser- 
 mon: 
 
 " My son, we should lay up a stock of 
 absurd enthusiasms in our youth or else 
 we shall reach the end of our journey 
 with an empty heart, for we lose a great 
 many of them by the way."
 
 Ct^ife^s ^TEnthusicisms:) 
 
 And my message in its fashion shall be 
 an appeal to enthusiasm in things oflife, 
 a call to do things because we love them, 
 to love things because we do them, to 
 keep the eyes open, the heart warm and 
 the pulses swift, as we move across the 
 field oflife. " To take the old world by 
 the hand and frolic with it;" this is 
 Stevenson's recipe for joyousness. Old 
 as the world is, let it be always new to 
 us as we are new to it. Let it be every 
 morning made afresh by Him who 
 "instantly and constantly reneweth the 
 workof creation." Let^thebit of green 
 sod under your feet be the sweetest to 
 you in this world, in any world." Half 
 the joy oflife is in little things taken on 
 
 lo
 
 if €"5 ^^nthusiccsms^ 
 
 the run. Let us run if we must — even 
 the sands do that — but let us keep our 
 hearts young and our eyes open that 
 nothing worth our while shall escape 
 us. And everthing is worth our while, 
 if we only grasp it and its significance. 
 As we grow older it becomes harder to 
 do this. A grown man sees nothing he 
 was not ready to see in his youth. So 
 long as enthusiasm lasts, so long is youth 
 still with us. 
 
 To make all this more direct we may 
 look to the various sources from which 
 enthusiasm may be derived. What does 
 the school give us in this direction ? 
 Intellectual drill, broadening of mental 
 horizon, professional training, all this 
 
 II
 
 Gf.ife'^s cr£ntbusicisms^ 
 
 we expect from school, college,and uni- 
 versity and in every phase of this there 
 is room for a thousand enthusiasms. 
 Moreover, theschool gives us comrade- 
 ship, the outlook on the hopes and as- 
 pirations of our fellows. It opens to us 
 the resources of young life, the lumin- 
 ous visions of the boys that are to be 
 men. We come to know "the won- 
 derful fellow to dream and plan, with 
 the great thing always to come, who 
 knows ? " His dream may be our inspi- 
 ration as it passes, as its realization may 
 be the inspiration of future generations. 
 In the school is life in the making, and 
 with the rest we are making our own 
 lives with the richest materials ever at 
 
 12
 
 Gt^ifc 's ^^nthusiasms^ 
 
 our hand. Life is contagious, and in the 
 fact lies the meaning of Comradeship. 
 ** Gemeingeist unter freien Geistern," 
 comradery among free spirits: this is 
 the definition of College Spirit given us 
 by Hutten at Greifeswald, four centu- 
 ries ago. This definition serves for us 
 today. Life is the same in every age. All 
 days are one for all good things. They 
 are all holy-days ; to the freshman of to- 
 day, all joys of comradery, all delights 
 of free enthusiasm are just as open, just 
 as fresh as ever they were. From the 
 teacher like influences should proceed. 
 Ploddingand prodding isnotthe teach- 
 er's work. It is inspiration, on-leading, 
 the flashing of enthusiasms. A teacher 
 
 13
 
 GLifc'^s <rEntbusicisms^ 
 
 in any field should be one who has cho- 
 sen his work because he loves it, who 
 makes no repine because he takes with 
 it the vow of poverty, who finds his re- 
 ward in the joy of knowing and in the 
 joy of making known. It requires the 
 master's touch to develop the germs of 
 the naturalist, the philosopher, the art- 
 ist, or the poet. Our teacher is the man 
 who has succeeded along the line in 
 which we hope to succeed, whose suc- 
 cess is measured as we hope to measure 
 our own. Each leader of science and of 
 intellectual life is in some degree the 
 discipleof one who has planned and led 
 before him. There is a heredity of in- 
 tellect, a heredity of action, as subtle 
 
 H
 
 and as real as the heredity of the con- 
 tinuous germ-plasm. Ask the teacher 
 who has helped mould your life, who 
 in turn was his own master. In a very 
 few generations you trace back your 
 lineage to one of the great teachers the 
 world knowsand loves. Who was your 
 teacher in Natural History in Amer- 
 ica? Was he a pupil of Agassiz, or was 
 he a student of one of Agassiz's pupils ? 
 Or, again, are there three generations 
 back from you to the grand master of 
 enthusiasms? 
 
 And there are masters in the art of liv- 
 ing as well as in other arts and sciences. 
 ** A log with Mark Hopkins at one end 
 and myself at the other." That was 
 
 15
 
 GLife's ^TEntbusictsms:) 
 
 Garfield's conception of a university. 
 It was said of Eliphalet Nott at Union 
 College, that he " took the sweepings 
 of other colleges and sent them back 
 to society pure gold." The older stu- 
 dents of Stanford will always show the 
 traces of the master teacher Thoburn. 
 " In terms of life," thus he construed 
 all problems of Science, of Philosophy, 
 of Religion. In terms of life, Tho- 
 burn's students will interpret all their 
 own various problems, for in terms of 
 life all things we do must finally be for- 
 mulated. Every observation we make, 
 every thought of our minds, every act 
 of our hands has in some degree an 
 ethical basis. It involves something of 
 
 i6
 
 GLife'^s c^nthusicisms^ 
 
 right or wrong, and without adhesion 
 to right, all thought, all action must end 
 in folly. And there is no road to right- 
 eousness so sure as that which has right 
 living as a travelling companion. 
 
 The very humanity of men at large 
 is in itself a source of inspiration. Study 
 men on the trains, at the ferry, on the 
 road, in the jungles of the forest or in 
 the jungles of great cities, — "through 
 the ages, every human heart is human." 
 Look for the best, and the best shall 
 rise up always to reward you. One who 
 has travelled among simple-living peo- 
 ple, men and women we call savages, 
 because they live in the woods and not 
 in cleared land or cities, will bear wit- 
 
 17
 
 Gf^ifc's ^^ntbusiccsmso 
 
 ness that a savage may be a perfect gen- 
 tleman. Now as I write their faces rise 
 before me. Joyous, free limbed, white 
 toothed swimmers in Samoan surf, a 
 Hawaiian eel-catcher, a Mexican peon 
 with his^sombrero trailing in the dust," 
 a deferential Japanese farm boy antic- 
 ipating your every want, a sturdy Chi- 
 naman without grace and without sen- 
 sitiveness, but with the saving quality 
 of loyalty to his own word, herdsmen 
 of the Pennine Alps, Aleuts, Indians 
 and Negroes, each race has its noble- 
 men and through these humanity is 
 ennobled. It is worth while to go far 
 from Boston to find that such things 
 are true. 
 
 i8
 
 GLife's <rEnthusiccsms^ 
 
 And we may look not alone among 
 primitive folk who have never envied 
 us our civilization or ever cared that 
 we possessed it. Badalia Herodsfoot, in 
 Kipling's story, lived and died in dark- 
 est London. Gentle hearts and pure 
 souls exist among our own unfortu- 
 nates, those to whom our society has 
 shown only its destroying side. All mis- 
 ery and failure as well as all virtue has 
 its degrees, and our social scheme is still 
 far from the demands of perfect justice. 
 
 Some one has said that "the wise 
 young man will wear out three dress 
 suits in a year." This is a playful way 
 of saying that he will not shun men and 
 women, even those bound by the con- 
 
 19
 
 GLifc'^s ^^nthusiasmso 
 
 ventions of society. All such associa- 
 tion can be made to pay — not in money 
 — but in getting the point of view of 
 other people. This is worth while 
 if not costing too much of time and 
 strength. There is another maxim 
 which can offset the first. It is from 
 Lorimer's Chicago pork packer: "You 
 will meet fools enough during the day 
 without trying to roundup the main 
 herd of them at night." But even the 
 main herd of fools may teach its les- 
 son to the student of human nature. 
 It gives at least a point of departure in 
 the study of wisdom. To study men or 
 to kill time. What is your motive? The 
 poorest use of time is to kill it. This 
 
 20 
 
 • <
 
 is the weakest and most cowardly form 
 of suicide. Moreover it is never quite 
 successful. That " time which crawl- 
 cth like a monstrous snake, wounded 
 and slow and very venomous" is sure 
 to take its own revenges. 
 
 It is therefore good to look on the 
 cheerful side of life. A touch of humor 
 is necessary to the salvation of the seri- 
 ous man. It is a gift of the men of 
 America to see droll things and to 
 express them in droll fashion. To 
 see the funny side of one's own accom- 
 plishments is the highest achievement 
 of the American philosopher and there 
 is hope for the land in which the great- 
 est wits have been the most earnest of 
 
 21
 
 Ct^ifc'^s (^nthusidsms^ 
 
 moral teachers. Who was more earn- 
 est than OHver Wendell Holmes, who 
 moregenuine than MarkTwain? With- 
 out the saving graceof humor our Puri- 
 tan conscience which we all possess 
 would lead us again into all extrava- 
 gance, witch-burnings, Quaker-ston- 
 ing, heresy trials, and intolerance of 
 politics and religion. From all these 
 we are saved by our feeling for the 
 incongruous. A touch of humor re- 
 calls us to our senses. It " makes the 
 whole world kin." 
 
 In the love of nature is another source 
 of saving grace. Science is power. In 
 the stores of human experience lies the 
 key to action, and modern civilization 
 
 22
 
 GLife'^s (Enthusiasms^ 
 
 is built on Science. The love of nature 
 is akin to Science but different. Con- 
 tact with outdoor things is direct ex- 
 perience. It is not stored, not co-ordi- 
 nated, not always convertible into pow- 
 er, but real, nevertheless, and our own. 
 The song of birds, the swarming of 
 bees, the meadow carpeted with flow- 
 ers, the first pink harbingers of the early 
 spring, the rush of the waterfall, the 
 pilingup of therocks, the trail through 
 the forest, the sweep of the surf, the 
 darting of the fishes, the drifting of the 
 snow, the white crystals of the frost, 
 the shrieking of the ice, the boom of 
 the bittern, the barking of thesea lions, 
 the honk of the wild geese, the skulk- 
 
 23
 
 GLlfe'^s <^nthusiasms^ 
 
 ing coyote who knows that each beast 
 is his enemy and has not even a flea to 
 help him ** forget that he is a dog," the 
 leap of the salmon, the ecstacy of the 
 mocking-bird and bobolink, the nest- 
 ing of the field-mice, the chatter of 
 the squirrel, the gray lichen of the 
 oak, the green moss on the log, the 
 poppies of the field and the Mariposa 
 lilies of the cliff — all these and ten 
 thousand more pictures which could 
 be called up equally at random and from 
 every foot of land on the globe — all 
 these are objects of nature. All these 
 represent a point of human contact and 
 the reaction which makesfor youth,for 
 virtue and for enthusiasm. 
 
 24
 
 To travel is merely to increase the 
 variety of contact by giving our time 
 to it, and by extending the number of 
 points at which contact is possible. It 
 may be that " he who wanders widest, 
 lifts no more of beauty's jealous veils 
 than he who from his doorway sees the 
 miracle of flowers and trees." It is true, 
 however, that the experiences of the 
 traveller cover a wider range and fill 
 his mind with a larger and more varied 
 store of remembered delights. The very 
 names of beloved regions call up each 
 one its own picture. The South Seas ; 
 to have wandered among their green 
 isles is to have seen a new world, a new 
 heaven and a new earth. The white 
 
 25
 
 reef with its whiter rim of plunging 
 surf, the swaying pahiis, the flashing 
 waterfall, the joyous people, straight 
 as Greeks and colored like varnished 
 leather, the bread-fruit tree and the 
 brown orange, the purple splendor of 
 the vine called Bougainvillia, and 
 above all the volcanic mountains,green 
 fringed with huge trees, with tree ferns 
 and palms, the whole tied together in- 
 to an impenetrable jungle by the long 
 armed lianas. TheSierraNevada,sweep- 
 ing in majestic waves of stone, alive 
 with color and steeped in sunshine. 
 Switzerland, Norway, Alaska, Tyrol, 
 Japan, Venice, the Windward Islands 
 and the Gray Azores, Chapultepec with 
 
 26
 
 GLife'^s ^TEnthusiasms^ 
 
 its dream of white-cloaked volcanoes, 
 Enoshima and Gotemba with their 
 peerless Fujiyama, Nikko with its tem- 
 ples. Loch Lomond, Lake Tahoe, 
 Windermere, Tintagel by the Cornish 
 Sea, the Yellowstone and the Canon 
 of the Colorado, the Crater Lake of 
 Oregon, Sorrento with its Vesuvius, 
 Honolulu with its Pali, the Yosemite, 
 Banff with its Selkirks, Prince Fred- 
 erick's Sound with its green fjords, the 
 Chamounix with its Mont Blanc, Bern 
 with its Oberland, Zermatt with its 
 Matterhorn, Simla with "the great 
 silent wonder of the snows." 
 
 "Even now as I write," says Why mper 
 the master mountain climber, " they 
 
 27
 
 GLifc's ^TEnthusiccsms^ 
 
 rise before me an endless series of pic- 
 tures magnificent in effect, in form and 
 color. I see great peaks with clouded 
 tops, seeming to mount upward for 
 ever and ever. I hear the music of dis- 
 tant herds, the peasant's yodel and the 
 solemn church bells. And after these 
 have passed away, another train of 
 thought succeeds, of those who have 
 been brave and true, of kind hearts and 
 bold deeds, of courtesies received from 
 strangers' hands, trifles in themselves 
 but expressive of that good-will which 
 is the essence of charity." 
 
 That poetry was a means of grace was 
 known to the first man who wrote a 
 verse or who sang a ballad. It was dis- 
 
 28
 
 GLift'^s ^Enthusiasms:) 
 
 covered back in the darkness before 
 men invented words or devised letters. 
 The only poetry you w^ill ever know is 
 that you learned by heart when you 
 were young. Happy is he who has 
 learned much, and much of that which 
 is good. Bad poetry is not poetry at all 
 except to the man who makes it. For 
 its creator, even the feeblest verse speaks 
 something of inspiration and of aspira- 
 tion. It is said that Frederick the Great 
 went into battle with a vial of poison in 
 one pocket and a quire of bad verse in 
 the other. Whatever we think of the 
 one, we feel more kindly toward him 
 for the other. 
 Charles Eliot Norton advises every 
 
 29
 
 Gt^lfe^s ^Enthusiasms:) 
 
 man to read a bit of poetry every day 
 for spiritual refreshment. It would be 
 well for each of us if we should follow 
 this advice. It is not too late yet and 
 if some few would heed his words and 
 mine, these pages would not be writ- 
 ten in vain. 
 
 I heard once of a man banished from 
 New England to the Llano Estacado, 
 the great summer-bitten plains of 
 Texas. While riding alone among his 
 cows over miles of yucca and sage he 
 kept in touch with the world through 
 the poetry he recited to himself. His 
 favorite, I remember, was Whittier's 
 " Randolph of Roanoke : '* 
 
 30
 
 GLife''s (Enthusiasms^ 
 
 *' Here where with living ear and eye 
 He heard Potomac Jlowifig, 
 And through his tall ancestral trees 
 Saw Autumn s sunset glowing; 
 
 ** Too honest or too proud to feign 
 A love he never cherished. 
 Beyond Virginia's border line 
 His patriotism perished. 
 
 **But none heheld with clearer eye 
 The plague spot o er her spreading. 
 Nor heard more sure the steps of doom 
 Along her future treading ^ 
 
 This is good verse and it may well 
 serve to relate thegray world of North- 
 ern Texas to the many-colored world 
 in which men struggle and die for 
 
 31
 
 GLife^s ^^ntbusictsms^ 
 
 things worth while, winning their lives 
 eternally through losing them. 
 
 Here are some other bits of verse 
 which on the sea and on the lands, in 
 the deserts or in the jungles have served 
 the same purpose for other men, per- 
 haps indeed for you. 
 
 "// has been prophesied these many years 
 
 I should not die save in 'Jerusalem, 
 
 Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land. 
 
 But bear me to that chamber ^ there Til 
 lie. 
 
 In this Jerusalem shall Hardy die.*' 
 
 **And gentle7nen of Rngland now abed 
 
 Shall think themselves accursed they 
 were not here. 
 
 32
 
 And hold their manhood cheap while any 
 
 speaks 
 Who fought with us upon St. Crispin s 
 
 day." 
 
 ^* Let me come in where you sit weepings 
 
 aye: 
 Let me who have not any child to die 
 Weep with you for the little one whose 
 
 love 
 I have known nothing of 
 The little arms that slowly ^ slowly loosed 
 Their pressure round your necky the 
 
 hands you used 
 To kiss. Such armSy such hands I never 
 
 knew. 
 May I not weep with you F 
 
 33
 
 Fain ivould I be of service ^say something 
 Between the tears, that would be com- 
 forting. 
 But ah ! So sadder than yourselves am I 
 Who have no child to die.'* 
 
 " Tour picture smiles as once it smiled; 
 The ring you gave is still the same ; 
 Tour letter tells, O changing child. 
 No tidings since it came ! 
 Give me some amulet 
 That marks intelligence with you. 
 Red when you love and rosier red. 
 And when you love not, pale and blue, 
 Alas that neither bonds nor vows 
 Can certify possession. 
 
 34
 
 Torments me still the fear that Love 
 Died in his last expression.'* 
 
 " He walks with God upon the hills 
 And sees each inorn the world arise 
 New bathed in light of Paradise. 
 He hears the laughter of her rills ; 
 She to his spirit undefled 
 Makes answer as a little child; 
 Unveiled before his eyes she stands 
 And gives her secrets to his hands.'* 
 
 ^^ Above the pines the moon was slowly 
 drifting. 
 The river sang below. 
 The dim Sierras far beyond uplifting 
 
 35
 
 Their j?iinarets of snow. 
 
 The roaring caijipjire with good humor 
 
 painted 
 The ruddy tifits of health 
 On haggard face and form that drooped 
 
 and fainted 
 In the fierce race for wealth. 
 Till 07ie arose and fro fn his pack's scant 
 
 treasure 
 The hoarded volume drew. 
 And cards were d?'Opped from hands of 
 
 listless leisure 
 To hear the tale anew. 
 And as around them shadows gathered 
 
 faster 
 And as the firelight fell. 
 He read aloud the book wherein the Master 
 
 36
 
 CLife'^s (Enthusiasms^ 
 
 Had writ of Little Nell, 
 
 Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy^ for the reader 
 
 Was youngest of thetii all, 
 
 Tet, as he read,fro?n clustering pine and 
 cedar 
 
 A silence seemed to fall. 
 
 The fir trees gathering closer in the shad- 
 ows 
 
 Listened in every spray. 
 
 While the whole camp with little Nell, on 
 English meadows, 
 
 Wandered and lost their way. 
 
 Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire. 
 
 And he who wrdt that spell; 
 
 Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish 
 spire, 
 
 Te have one tale to tell. 
 
 37
 
 Lost is that ca7npy but let its fragrant 
 
 story 
 Blend with the breath that thrills 
 With hop vines' incense all the pensive 
 
 glory 
 That Jills the Kentish hills. 
 And on that grave where English oak 
 
 and holly 
 And laurel wreath entwine. 
 Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly , 
 This spray of Western pine J* 
 
 *^Dark browed she broods with weary lids 
 Beside her Sphy?ix and Pyramids, 
 With her low, never lifted eyes. 
 If she be dead, respect the dead; 
 
 38
 
 If she be weeping, let her weep ; 
 If she be sleeping, let her sleep ; 
 For lo, this woman named the stars. 
 She suckled at her tawny dugs 
 Tour Moses, while ye reeked with wars 
 And prowled the woods, rude, painted 
 
 thugs y 
 
 ^''The tumult and the shouting dies; 
 The captains and the kings depart ; 
 Still stands thine ancient safrifice, 
 The humble and the contrite hearth 
 
 '■^Careless seems the Great Avenger, 
 History' s pages but record 
 
 39
 
 GLifc's c^nthusiccsmso 
 
 One death grapple in the darkness 
 
 Twixt old systems and the word. 
 Truth forever on the scaffold^ 
 
 Wrong forever on the throne ; 
 But that scaffold sways the future y 
 
 And behind the di?7i Unknown 
 Standeth God within the shadow^ 
 
 Keeping watch above his ownJ" 
 
 " Pledge me rounds I bid you declare. 
 All good fellows whose beards are gray. 
 Did not the fairest of the fair 
 Co??ifnon grow and wearisome, ere 
 Ever a month had passed away ? 
 The reddest lips that ever have kissed. 
 The brightest eyes that ever have shone 
 May pray and whisper and we not list 
 
 40
 
 Or look away and never be fnissed 
 Ere yet ever a month is gone. 
 Gillian s dead. God rest her bier I 
 How I loved her twenty years syne ! 
 Marian's married and I sit here 
 Alone and fnerry at forty year. 
 Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine," 
 
 Under the wide and starry sky 
 Dig my grave and let me lie. 
 Glad did I live and gladly die 
 And I lay ine down with a will. 
 This be the verse ye grave for me: 
 'Here he lies where he longed to be. 
 Hofne is the sailor, home from the sea. 
 And the hunter home from the hill.* *' 
 
 41 
 
 <<
 
 GjLife's ^^ntbusiasmsT) 
 
 it 
 
 By the brand upon 77iy shoulders , 
 By the lash of clinging steely 
 By the welts the whips have left me. 
 By the wounds that never heal. 
 By the eyes grown di?n with staring 
 At the sufi-wash on the brine, 
 I am paid in full for service, — 
 Would that service still were mine,'' 
 
 And with these the more familiar 
 verses beginning: 
 
 *^ Break, break, break. 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea.'' 
 
 Bells of the past whose longforgotten 
 
 i< 
 
 music." 
 
 n 
 
 fust for a handful of silver he left us." 
 
 42
 
 GLifc'^s ^Enthusiasms:) 
 
 ** Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead." 
 
 " O to be in England^ now that ApriPs 
 there." 
 
 " The mists are on the Oberland, 
 
 The yungfraus snows look faint and 
 far." 
 
 " The word of the Lord by night 
 To the watclwtg pilgrims came." 
 
 " Feary a forgotten fonn ; 
 Death, a dream of the eyes ; 
 We were atoms in God's great storm 
 That raged through the angry skies I" 
 
 And with this you may take many 
 other bits of verse which were ham- 
 mered out on the anvil of the terrible 
 Civil War. 
 
 43
 
 GLif€''s ^Enthusiasms:) 
 
 Perhaps these bits of verse chosen al- 
 ahnost at random will not appeal to 
 your taste. Then find some other verse 
 that does. The range of literature is 
 as wide as humanity. It touches every 
 feeling, every hope, every craving of 
 the human heart. Select what you can 
 understand — best, what you can rise 
 on tiptoe to understand. " It was my 
 duty to have loved the highest." It 
 is your duty toward poetry to take the 
 highest you can reach. Then learn 
 it by heart. Learn it when you are 
 young. It will give you a fresh well 
 of thoughts. It will form your style 
 as a writer. That is poetry in which 
 truth is expressed in the fewest pos- 
 
 44
 
 GLift'^s ^^ntbusicLsmrp 
 
 sible words, in words which are in- 
 evitable, in words which could not 
 be changed without weakening the 
 meaning or throwing discord into the 
 melody. To choose the right word and 
 to discard all others, this is the chief 
 factor in good writing. To learn good 
 poetry by heart is to acquire help to- 
 ward doing this instinctively, auto- 
 matically, as other habits are acquired. 
 In the affairs of life there is no form of 
 good manners, no habit of usage more 
 valuable than the habit of good Eng- 
 lish. And to this end the masters of 
 English, from Chaucer to Tennyson, 
 and in spite of perversities, we may add 
 Emerson, Browning, and Kipling, have 
 
 45
 
 written English verse. It is not in verse 
 alone that poetry is written. Sweetness 
 and light and truth can be crystallized 
 into prose, and prose well worthy to be 
 borne in memory. 
 
 Take this from Emerson: 
 
 "Thepoet is thetrue landlord, sea lord, 
 air lord ! Wherever snow falls or water 
 flows or birds fly, wherever day and 
 night meet in twilight, wherever the 
 blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown 
 with stars, wherever are forms with 
 transparent boundaries, wherever are 
 outlets into celestial spaces, wherever is 
 danger and awe and love — there's Beau- 
 ty, plenteous as rain shed for thee and 
 though thou shouldst walk the world 
 
 46
 
 GUife's <^nthusiasTnrD 
 
 over thou shalt not be able to find a con- 
 dition inopportune or ignoble." 
 
 "I took a walk the other day," so 
 Thoreau tells us, **on Spaulding's farm. 
 I saw the setting sun lighting up the 
 opposite side of a stately pine wood. 
 Its golden rays straggled into the aisles 
 of the wood as into some noble hall. I 
 was impressed as if some ancient and 
 altogether admirable family had set- 
 tled there in that part of Concord, un- 
 known to me — to whom the sun was 
 servant. I saw their path, their pleas- 
 uring ground through the woods in 
 Spaulding's cranberry meadow. The 
 pines furnished them with gables as 
 they grew. Their house was not obvi- 
 
 47
 
 CLife^s ^^nthusiasms-D 
 
 ous to vision, the trees grew through 
 it. They have sons and daughters. They 
 are quite well. The farmer's cart path 
 which leads directly through their hall 
 does not in the least put them out, as 
 the muddy bottom of the pool is some- 
 times seen through the reflected skies. 
 They never heard of Spaulding, and do 
 notknowthat he is their neighbor, not- 
 withstanding I heard him whistle as he 
 drove his team through their house. 
 Nothing can equal the serenity of their 
 lives. Their coat of arms is simply a 
 lichen. It is painted on the pines and 
 the oaks. Theyareof no politics. There 
 was no noise of labor. I did not per- 
 ceive that they were weaving or spin- 
 
 48
 
 Gt.ife'^s (Enthusiasms^ 
 
 ning. Yet I did detect, when the wind 
 lulled and hearing was done away, the 
 finest imaginable sweet musical hum 
 as of a distant hive in May, which per- 
 chance was the sound of their think- 
 ing. They had no idle thoughts and no 
 one without could say their work, for 
 their industry was not in knots and ex- 
 crescences embayed. Yet I find it dif- 
 ficult to remember them. They fade 
 irrevocably even while I speak. It is 
 only after a long and serious effort to 
 recollect that I became again aware of 
 their cohabitance. If it were not for 
 such families as this I think I should 
 move out of Concord." 
 In the arts of music and painting and 
 
 49
 
 Ct.ifc'^s ^nEnthusiasms^ 
 
 sculpture, one may find not only pro- 
 fessional satisfaction, but the strength 
 that comes from higher livingand more 
 lofty feeling. In the study of history 
 as biography, the acquaintancewith the 
 men and women of other times, those 
 who have felt and thought and acted 
 and suffered to make a freer world for 
 you and me, like inspiration may be 
 found. History is more than its inci- 
 dents. It is the movement of man. It 
 is the movement of individual men, and 
 it is in giving illumination to personal 
 and racial characters that the succes- 
 sion of incidents has its value. The 
 picturesque individual, the man who 
 could not be counted with the mass. 
 
 50
 
 GLift's (Enthusiasms^ 
 
 the David, the Christ, the Brutus, the 
 Caesar, the Plato, the Alfred, the Charle- 
 magne, the Cromwell, the Mirabeau, 
 the Luther, the Darwin, the Helm- 
 holtz, the Goethe, the Franklin, the 
 Hampden, the Lincoln, all these give 
 inspiration to history. It is well that 
 we should know them, should know 
 them all, should know them well — 
 an education is incomplete that is not 
 built about a Pantheon, dedicated to 
 the worship of great men. 
 With all this comes that feeling of ded- 
 ication to the highest purposes which 
 is the essential feature of religion. Re- 
 ligion should be known by its tolerance, 
 its broadmindedness, its faith in God 
 
 51
 
 GLife'^s ^TEnthusiccsmso 
 
 and humanity, its recognition of the 
 duty of action. 
 
 And action should be understood in 
 a large way, the taking of one's part 
 in affairs worth doing, not mere activ- 
 ity, nor fussiness, nor movement for 
 movement's sake, like that of" ants on 
 whompepperissprinkled." As the les- 
 ser enthusiasms fade and fail, oneshould 
 take a stronger hold on the higher ones. 
 *' Grizzling hair the brain doth clear" 
 and one sees in better perspective the 
 things that need doing. It is thus pos- 
 sible to grow old as a " grand old man,' ' 
 a phrase invented for Gladstone, but 
 which fits just as well our own Mark 
 Twain. Grand old men are those who 
 
 52
 
 GLife''s ^TEnthusiasmso 
 
 have been grand young men, and carry- 
 still a young heart beneath old shoul- 
 ders. There are plenty of such in our 
 country to-day, though the average 
 man begins to give up the struggle for 
 thehigherlifeatforty. PresidentWhite, 
 PresidentEliot, President Angell,— few 
 men have left so deep an impression 
 on the Twentieth Century. Edward 
 Everett Hale, the teacher who has 
 shown us what it is to have a country. 
 Senator Hoar, Professor Agassiz, Pro- 
 fessor Le Conte, Professor Shaler, — all 
 these, whatever the weight of years, re- 
 mained young men to the last. When 
 Agassiz died, the Harvardstudents"laid 
 a wreath of laurel on his bier and their 
 
 53
 
 GLife'^s ^^nthusiasms^ 
 
 manly voices sang a requiem, for he 
 had been a student all his life long, and 
 when he died he was younger than any 
 of them." Jefferson was in the seven- 
 ties when he turned back to his early 
 ambition, the foundation of the Uni- 
 versity of Virginia. The mother of 
 Stanford University was older than Jef- 
 ferson before she laid down the great 
 work of her life as completed. When 
 the heart is full, it shows itself in action 
 as well as in speech. When the heart 
 is empty, then life is no longer worth 
 while. The days pass and there is no 
 pleasure in them. Let us then fill our 
 souls with noble ideals of knowledge, 
 of art, of action. "Let us lay up a stock 
 
 54
 
 CLife'^s CTEnthusiasms:) 
 
 of enthusiasms in our youth, lest we 
 reach the end of our journey with an 
 empty heart, for we lose many of them 
 by the way." 
 
 We hear much in these days of the 
 wickedness of power, of the evil be- 
 havior of men in high places, of men 
 in low places, and men whom the peo- 
 ple have been perforce obliged to trust. 
 This is no new thing, though the strug- 
 gle against it, the combination of the 
 forces of reform and blackmail, of 
 dreamers and highwaymen, is offering 
 some new phases. 
 
 There is a kind of music popular with 
 uncritical audiences and with people 
 who know no better, which answers to 
 
 55
 
 GLlfc'^s ^Enthusiasms:) 
 
 the name of "ragtime." It is the music 
 of those who do not know good music 
 or who have not the moral force to de- 
 mand it. The spirit of ragtime is not 
 confined to music: graft is the ragtime 
 of business, the spoils system the rag- 
 time of politics, adulteration the rag- 
 time of manufacture. There is ragtime 
 science, ragtime literature, ragtime re- 
 ligion. You will know each of these by 
 its quick returns. The spirit of ragtime 
 determines the six best sellers, the most 
 popular policeman, the favorite con- 
 gressman, the wealthiest corporation, 
 the church which soonest rents its 
 pews. 
 But it does not control the man who 
 
 S6
 
 GLifc's (^nthusicismrD 
 
 thinks for himself. It has no lien on 
 the movements of history, its decrees 
 avail nothing in the fixing of truth. 
 The movements of the stars pay it no 
 tribute, neither do the movements of 
 humanity. The power of graft isa tran- 
 sient deception. Emerson's parable of 
 the illusions gives the clue to our time, 
 to all time, in its contrast of the things 
 which appear with the things that 
 abide. 
 
 "There is no chance and no anarchy in 
 theUniverse," says Emerson, "all is sys- 
 tem and gradation. Every god is there 
 sitting in his sphere. The young mortal 
 enters the hall of the firmament; there 
 he is alone with them alone, they pro- 
 
 57
 
 nouncingon him benedictions and gifts, 
 and beckoning him up to their thrones. 
 On the instant and incessantly fall snow 
 storms of illusions. He fancies himself 
 in a vast crowd which sways this way 
 and that and whose movements and do- 
 ings he must obey. He fancies himself 
 poor, orphaned, insignificant. The mad 
 crowd drives hither and thither, now 
 furiously commanding this thing to be 
 done, now that. What is he that he 
 should resist their will and think and 
 act for himself? Every moment new 
 changes and new showers of deceptions 
 to baffle and distract him. And when, 
 by and by, for an instant the air clears 
 and the cloud lifts a little, there are 
 
 58
 
 the gods still sitting around him on 
 their thrones — they alone with him 
 alone." 
 
 THE last paragraphs of this little 
 essay were written within a huge 
 hotel of steel and stone in the heart 
 of a bustling city, in the most gracious 
 of lands and under the bluest of skies. 
 A great commercial city it was, a 
 wondrous city, full of all manner of 
 men — eager, impulsive, loving, en- 
 thusiastic men; men cunning and 
 grasping, given over to all "high, 
 hard lust and wilful deed ; " care- 
 free, joyous men living in the pres- 
 
 59
 
 GLifc's <^ntbusiccsmsD 
 
 ent and taking their chances for the 
 future ; men who have whistled all 
 the airs that fluttering birds and frol- 
 icking children have learned to sing; 
 workmen of all grades, quiet, courage- 
 ous and self-respecting, and weak, dis- 
 gruntled and incapable; bright-eyed, 
 clear-headed, sagacious men, such men 
 as build a state ; hopeless, broken, dis- 
 appointed men, who have made this 
 city of hope their last resort; gamblers, 
 parasites, bartenders, agitators, self- 
 seekers, haters of men and haters of 
 organization, impossibles, men uncon- 
 trolled and uncontrollable, of every na- 
 tion and with every dialect of the civil- 
 ized world — and of uncivilized worlds 
 
 60
 
 GLifc'^s ^^nthusiasms^ 
 
 also; — the most cosmopolitan of all 
 American towns, the one fullest of the 
 joy of living, the one least fearful of 
 future disaster, ** serene, indifferent to 
 fate," thus her own poets have styled 
 her, and on no other city since the 
 world began has fate, unmalicious, me- 
 chanical and elemental, wrought such 
 a terrible havoc. In a day this city 
 has vanished; the shock of a mighty 
 earthquake forgotten in an hour in the 
 hopeless horror of fire; homes, hotels, 
 hospitals, hovels, libraries, museums, 
 skyscrapers, factories, shops, banks and 
 gambling dens, all blotted out of exist- 
 ence almost in the twinkling of an 
 eye; millionaires, beggars, dancers and 
 
 6i
 
 Gt.ife'^s ^^ntbusiasms^ 
 
 workers, men great and small, foolish 
 and courageous, with their women and 
 children of like natures with them, 
 fleeing together by the thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands to the hills and 
 the sand-dunes, where on the grass and 
 the shifting sands they all slept togeth- 
 er or were awake together in the old 
 primal equality of life. Never since man 
 began to plan and to create has there 
 been such a destruction of the results 
 of human effort. Never has a great 
 calamity been met with so little repin- 
 ing. Never before has the common 
 man shown himself so hopeful, so 
 courageous, so sure of himself and his 
 future. For it is the man, after all, that 
 
 62
 
 survives and it is the will of man that 
 shapes the fates. 
 
 It is the lesson of earthquake and fire 
 that man cannot be shaken and cannot 
 be burned. The houses he builds are 
 houses of cards, but he stands outside 
 of them and can build again. It is a 
 wonderful thing to build a great city. 
 Men can do this in a quarter century, 
 working together each at his own part. 
 More wonderful still is it to be a city, 
 for a city is composed of men, and now, 
 ever and forever the man must rise 
 above his own creations. That which 
 is in the man is greater than all that 
 he can do. 
 
 63
 
 Ct.ife'^s ^TEnthusidsms^ 
 
 ** Out of the night that covers me. 
 Black as the pit frorn pole to pole, 
 I thank whatever gods ?nay be 
 For my unconquerable soul. 
 
 In the fell clutch of circumstance 
 I have not winced nor cried aloud 
 Under the bludgeonings of chance. 
 My head is bloody but not bowed. 
 
 Beyond this place of wrath and tears 
 Looms but the Horror of the shade. 
 And yet the menace of the years 
 Finds and shall find me unafraid. 
 
 It matters not how straight the gate. 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 I am the master of 7ny fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul!" 
 
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