Page 46 - SampleIssue

KING PELLINORE’S LITERARY MAGAZINE

but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the
riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the
future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives
with nature in the present, above time.

This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong
intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak
the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or
Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few
texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by
rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they
grow older, of the men of talents and character they
chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact words
they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of
view which those had who uttered these sayings, they
understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for,
at any time, they can use words as good when occasion
comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for
the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be
weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly
disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old
rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as
sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the
corn.

And now at last the highest truth on this subject
remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we
say is the far-off remembering of the intuition. That
thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is
this. When good is near you, when you have life in
yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you
shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not
see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the
way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and
new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take
the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever
existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike
beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the
hour of vision, there is nothing that can be called
gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion

46