Death of the Aged
Letter of condolence.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1892)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 12.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/death-of-the-aged/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• From a letter of condolence written to a friend on the
    death of his mother.

After all, there is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death
of the old. Nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the
strong. But when the duties of life have all been nobly done; when the
sun touches the horizon; when the purple twilight falls upon the past,
the present, and the future; when memory, with dim eyes, can scarcely
spell the blurred and faded records of the vanished days—then,
surrounded by kindred and by friends, death comes like a strain of
music. The day has been long, the road weary, and the traveler gladly
stops at the welcome inn.

Nearly forty-eight years ago, under the snow, in the little town
of Cazenovia, my poor mother was buried. I was but two years old. I
remember her as she looked in death. That sweet, cold face has kept my
heart warm through all the changing years.

*****
    There is no cunning art to trace
    In any feature, form or face,
    Or wrinkled palm, with criss-cross lines
    The good or bad in peoples' minds.
    Nor can we guess men's thoughts or aims
    By seeing how they write their names.
    We could as well foretell their acts
    By getting outlines of their tracks.
    Ourselves we do not know—how then
    Can we find out our fellow-men?
    And yet—although the reason laughs—
    We like to look at autographs—
    And almost think that we can guess
    What lines and dots of ink express.
  • From the autograph collection of Miss Eva Ingersoll
    Farrell.
    August 11, 1892. R. G. Ingersoll.

***

The World is Growing Poor.—Darwin the naturalist, the observer,
the philosopher, is dead. Wagner the greatest composer the world has
produced, is silent. Hugo the poet, patriot and philanthropist, is at
rest. Three mighty rivers have ceased to flow. The smallest insect was
made interesting by Darwin's glance; the poor blind worm became the
farmer's friend—the maker of the farm,—and even weeds began to dream
and hope.
  • But if we live beyond life's day and reach the dusk, and slowly travel
in the shadows of the night, the way seems long, and being weary we ask
for rest, and then, as in our youth, we chide the loitering hours. When
eyes are dim and memory fails to keep a record of events; when ears are
dull and muscles fail to obey the will; when the pulse is low and the
tired heart is weak, and the poor brain has hardly power to think,
then comes the dream, the hope of rest, the longing for the peace of
dreamless sleep.
  • SAINTS.—The saints have poisoned life with piety. They have soured the
mother's milk. They have insisted that joy is crime—that beauty is a
bait with which the Devil captures the souls of men—that laughter leads
to sin—that pleasure, in its every form, degrades, and that love itself
is but the loathsome serpent of unclean desire. They have tried to
compel men to love shadows rather than women—phantoms rather than
people.

The saints have been the assassins of sunshine,—the skeletons at
feasts. They have been the enemies of happiness. They have hated the
singing birds, the blossoming plants. They have loved the barren and
the desolate—the croaking raven and the hooting owl—tombstones, rather
than statues.

And yet, with a strange inconsistency, happiness was to be enjoyed
forever, in another world. There, pleasure, with all its corrupting
influences, was to be eternal. No one pretended that heaven was to be
filled with self-denial, with fastings and scourgings, with weepings and
regrets, with solemn and emaciated angels, with sad-eyed seraphim, with
lonely parsons, with mumbling monks, with shriveled nuns, with days of
penance and with nights of prayer.

Yet all this self-denial on the part of the saints was founded in the
purest selfishness. They were to be paid for all their sufferings in
another world. They were "laying up treasures in heaven." They had made
a bargain with God. He had offered eternal joy to those who would make
themselves miserable here. The saints gladly and cheerfully accepted the
terms. They expected pay for every pang of hunger, for every groan,
for every tear, for every temptation resisted; and this pay was to bean
eternity of joy. The selfishness of the saints was equaled only by the
stupidity of the saints.

It is not true that character is the aim of life. Happiness should be
the aim—and as a matter of fact is and always has been the aim,
not only of sinners, but of saints. The saints seemed to think that
happiness was better in another world than here, and they expected this
happiness beyond the clouds. They looked upon the sinner as foolish to
enjoy himself for the moment here, and in consequence thereof to suffer
forever. Character is not an end, it is a means to an end. The object of
the saint is happiness hereafter—the means, to make himself miserable
here. The object of the philosopher is happiness here and now, and
hereafter,—if there be another world.

If struggle and temptation, misery and misfortune, are essential to
the formation of what you call character, how do you account for the
perfection of your angels, or for the goodness of your God? Were the
angels perfected through misfortune? If happiness is the only good in
heaven, why should it not be considered the only good here?

In order to be happy, we must be in harmony with the conditions of
happiness. It cannot be obtained by prayer,—it does not come from
heaven—it must be found here, and nothing should be done, or left
undone, for the sake of any supernatural being, but for the sake of
ourselves and other natural beings.

The early Christians were preparing for the end of the world. In their
view, life was of no importance except as it gave them time to prepare
for "The Second Coming." They were crazed by fear. Since that time, the
world not coming to the expected end, they have been preparing for "The
Day of Judgment," and have, to the extent of their ability, filled the
world with horror. For centuries, it was, and still is, their business
to destroy the pleasures of this life. In the midst of prosperity they
have prophesied disaster. At every feast they have spoken of famine, and
over the cradle they have talked of death. They have held skulls before
the faces of terrified babes. On the cheeks of health they see the worms
of the grave, and in their eyes the white breasts of love are naught but
corruption and decay.
  • THE WASTE FORCES OF NATURE.—For countless years the great cataracts, as
for instance, Niagara, have been singing their solemn songs, filling the
savage with terror, the civilized with awe; recording its achievements
in books of stone—useless and sublime; inspiring beholders with the
majesty of purposeless force and the wastefulness of nature.

Force great enough to turn the wheels of the world, lost, useless.

So with the great tides that rise and fall on all the shores of the
world—lost forces. And yet man is compelled to use to exhaustion's
point the little strength he has.

This will be changed.

The great cataracts and the great tides will submit to the genius of
man. They are to be for use. Niagara will not be allowed to remain a
barren roar. It must become the servant of man. It will weave robes
for men and women. It will fashion implements for the farmer and the
mechanic. It will propel coaches for rich and poor. It will fill streets
and homes with light, and the old barren roar will be changed to songs
of success, to the voices of love and content and joy.

Science at last has found that all forces are convertible into each
other, and that all are only different aspects of one fact.

So the flood is still a terror, but, in my judgment, the time will
come when the floods will be controlled by the genius of man, when the
tributaries of the great rivers and their tributaries will be dammed
in such a way as to collect the waters of every flood and give them
out gradually through all the year, maintaining an equal current at all
times in the great rivers.

We have at last found that force occupies a circle, that Niagara is a
child of the Sun—that the sun shines, the mist rises, clouds form, the
rain falls, the rivers flow to the lakes, and Niagara fills the heavens
with its song. Man will arrest the falling flood; he will change its
force to electricity; that is to say, to light, and then force will have
made the circuit from light to light.
  • ARE Men's characters fully determined at the age of thirty?

It depends, first, on what their opportunities have been—that is to
say, on their surroundings, their education, their advantages; second,
on the shape, quality and quantity of brain they happen to possess;
third, on their mental and moral courage; and, fourth, on the character
of the people among whom they live.

The natural man continues to grow. The longer he lives, the more he
ought to know, and the more he knows, the more he changes the views and
opinions held by him in his youth. Every new fact results in a change of
views more or less radical. This growth of the mind may be hindered
by the "tyrannous north wind" of public opinion; by the bigotry of
his associates; by the fear that he cannot make a living if he becomes
unpopular; and it is to some extent affected by the ambition of the
person; that is to say, if he wishes to hold office the tendency is to
agree with his neighbor, or at least to round off and smooth the corners
and angles of difference. If a man wishes to ascertain the truth,
regardless of the opinions of his fellow-citizens, the probability is
that he will change from day to day and from year to year—that is, his
intellectual horizon will widen—and that what he once deemed of great
importance will be regarded as an exceedingly small segment of a greater
circle.

Growth means change. If a man grows after thirty years he must
necessarily change. Many men probably reach their intellectual height
long before they have lived thirty years, and spend the balance of their
lives in defending the mistakes of their youth. A great man continues to
grow until his death, and growth—as I said before—means change. Darwin
was continually finding new facts, and kept his mind as open to a new
truth as the East is to the rising of another sun. Humboldt at the age
of ninety maintained the attitude of a pupil, and was, until the moment
of his death, willing to learn.

The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man
knows, the more positive, a? is that he knows everything.

The smallest minds mature the earliest. The less there is to a man the
quicker he attains his growth. I have known many people who reached
their intellectual height while in their mother's arms. I have known
people who were exceedingly smart babies to become excessively stupid
people. It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a
year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have
continued to grow as long as they have lived. Small people delight in
what they call consistency—that is, it gives them immense pleasure to
say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply
amounts to a certificate that they have not grown—that they have not
developed—and that they know just as little now as they ever did.
The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the
knowledge of to-day, without the slightest reference to what your
opinion was years ago.

There is another view of this subject. Few men have settled opinions
before or at thirty. Of course, I do not include persons of genius. At
thirty the passions have, as a rule, too much influence; the intellect
is not the pilot. At thirty most men have prejudices rather than
opinions—that is to say, rather than judgments—and few men have lived
to be sixty without materially modifying the opinions they held at
thirty.

As I said in the first place, much depends on the shape, quality and
quantity of brain; much depends on mental and moral courage. There are
many people with great physical courage who are afraid to express their
opinions; men who will meet death without a tremor and will yet hesitate
to express their views.

So, much depends on the character of the people among whom we live. A
man in the old times living in New England thought several times before
he expressed any opinion contrary to the views of the majority. But
if the people have intellectual hospitality, then men express their
views—and it may be that we change somewhat in proportion to the
decency of our neighbors. In the old times it was thought that God was
opposed to any change of opinion, and that nothing so excited the auger
of the deity as the expression of a new thought. That idea is fading
away.

The real truth is that men change their opinions as long as they grow,
and only those remain of the same opinion still who have reached the
intellectual autumn of their lives; who have gone to seed, and who are
simply waiting for the winter of death. Now and then there is a brain
in which there is the climate of perpetual spring—men who never grow
old—and when such a one is found we say, "Here is a genius."

Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the
seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death.
But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter
how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls.
Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.
  • THE MOIETY SYSTEM.—The Secretary of the Treasury recommends a revival
of the moiety system. Against this infamous step every honest citizen
ought to protest.

In this country, taxes cannot be collected through such
instrumentalities. An informer is not indigenous to our soil. He
always has been and always will be held in merited contempt.

Every inducement, by this system, is held out to the informer to become
a liar. The spy becomes an officer of the Government. He soon becomes
the terror of his superior. He is a sword without a hilt and without a
scabbard. Every taxpayer becomes the lawful prey of a detective whose
property depends upon the destruction of his prey.

These informers and spies are corrupters of public morals. They resort
to all known dishonest means for the accomplishment of what they pretend
to be an honest object. With them perjury becomes a fine art. Their
words are a commodity bought and sold in courts of justice.

This is the first phase. In a little while juries will refuse to believe
them, and every suit in which they are introduced will be lost by the
Government. Of this the real thieves will be quick to take advantage. So
many honest men will have been falsely charged by perjured informers and
moiety miscreants, that to convict the guilty will become impossible.
If the Government wishes to collect the taxes it must set an honorable
example. It must deal kindly and honestly with the people. It must
not inaugurate a vampire system of espionage. It must not take it for
granted that every manufacturer and importer is a thief, and that all
spies and informers are honest men.

The revenues of this country are as honestly paid as they are expended.
There has been as much fair dealing outside as inside of the Treasury
Department.

But, however that may be, the informer system will not make them honest
men, but will in all probability produce exactly the opposite result.
If our system of taxation is so unpopular that the revenues cannot be
collected without bribing men to tell the truth; if our officers must
be offered rewards beyond their salaries to state the facts; if it is
impossible to employ men to discharge their duties honestly, then let
us change the system. The moiety system makes the Treasury Department
a vast vampire sucking the blood of the people upon shares. Americans
detest informers, spies, detectives, turners of State's evidence,
eavesdroppers, paid listeners, hypocrites, public smellers, trackers,
human hounds and ferrets. They despise men who "suspect" for a living;
they hate legal lyers-in-wait and the highwaymen of the law. They abhor
the betrayers of friends and those who lead and tempt others to commit
a crime in order that they may detect it. In a monarchy, the detective
system is a necessity. The great thief has to be sustained by smaller
ones.—December 4,1877.
  • LANGUAGE.—Most people imagine that men have always talked; that
language is as old as the race; and it is supposed that some language
was taught by some mythological god to the first pair. But we now know,
if we know anything, that language is a growth; that every word had to
be created by man, and that back of every word is some want, some wish,
some necessity of the body or mind, and also a genius to embody that
want or that wish, to express that thought in some sound that we call a
word.

At first, the probability is that men uttered sounds of fear, of
content, of anger, or happiness. And the probability is that the first
sounds or cries expressed such feelings, and these sounds were nouns,
adjectives, and verbs.

After a time, man began to give his ideas to others by rude pictures,
drawings of animals and trees and the various other things with which he
could give rude thoughts. At first he would make a picture of the whole
animal. Afterward some part of the animal would stand for the whole, and
in some of the old picture-writings the curve of the nostril of a horse
stands for the animal. This was the shorthand of picture-writing. But it
was a long journey to where marks would stand, not for pictures, but for
sounds. And then think of the distance still to the alphabet. Then to
writing, so that marks took entirely the place of pictures. Then the
invention of movable type, and then the press, making it possible to
save the wealth of the brain; making it possible for a man to leave not
simply his property to his fellow-man, not houses and lands and dollars,
but his ideas, his thoughts, his theories, his dreams, the poetry and
pathos of his soul. Now each generation is heir to all the past.

If we had free thought, then we could collect the wealth of the
intellectual world. In the physical world, springs make the creeks and
brooks, and they the rivers, and the rivers empty into the great sea. So
each brain should add to the sum of human knowledge. If we deny freedom
of thought, the springs cease to gurgle, the rivers to run, and the
great ocean of knowledge becomes a desert of barren, ignorant sand.
  • THIS IS AN AGE OF MONEY-GETTING, of materialism, of cold, unfeeling
science. The question arises, Is the world growing less generous, less
heroic, less chivalric?

Let us answer this. The experience of the individual is much like the
experience of a generation, or of a race. An old man imagines that
everything was better when he was young; that the weather could then be
depended on; that sudden changes are recent inventions. So he will tell
you that people used to be honest; that the grocers gave full weight and
the merchants full measure, and that the bank cashier did not spend the
evening of his days in Canada.

He will also tell you that the women were handsome and virtuous. There
were no scandals then, no divorces, and that in religion all were
orthodox—no Infidels. Before he gets through, he will probably tell you
that the art of cooking has been lost—that nobody can make biscuit now,
and that he never expects to eat another slice of good bread.

He mistakes the twilight of his own life for the coming of the night
of universal decay and death. He imagines that that has happened to the
world, which has only happened to him. It does not occur to him that
millions at the moment he is talking are undergoing the experience of
his youth, and that when they become old they will praise the very days
that he denounces.

The Garden of Eden has always been behind us. The Golden Age, after all,
is the memory of youth—it is the result of remembered pleasure in the
midst of present pain.

To old age youth is divine, and the morning of life cloudless.

So now thousands and millions of people suppose that the age of true
chivalry has gone by and that honesty has about concluded to leave the
world. As a matter of fact, the age known as the age of chivalry was the
age of tyranny, of arrogance and cowardice. Men clad in complete armor
cut down the peasants that were covered with leather, and these soldiers
of the chivalric age armored themselves to that degree that if they fell
in battle they could not rise, held to the earth by the weight of
iron that their bravery had got itself entrenched within. Compare the
difference in courage between going to war in coats of mail against
sword and spear, and charging a battery of Krupp guns!

The ideas of justice have grown larger and nobler. Charity now does,
without a thought, what the average man a few centuries ago was
incapable of imagining. In the old times slavery was upheld, and
imprisonment for debt. Hundreds of crimes—or rather misdemeanors—were
punishable by death. Prisons were loathsome beyond description.
Thousands and thousands died in chains. The insane were treated like
wild beasts; no respect was paid to sex or age. Women were burned and
beheaded and torn asunder as though they had been hyenas, and children
were butchered with the greatest possible cheerfulness.

So it seems to me that the world is more chivalric, more generous,
nearer just and fair, more charitable, than ever before.
  • THE COLORED MAN is doing well. He is hungry for knowledge. Their
children are going to school. Colored boys are taking prizes in the
colleges. A colored man was the orator of Harvard. They are industrious,
and in the South many are becoming rich. As the people, black and white,
become educated they become better friends. The old prejudice is the
child of ignorance. The colored man will succeed if the South succeeds.
The South is richer to-day than ever before, more prosperous, and both
races are really improving. The greatest danger in the South, and for
that matter all over the country, is the mob. It is the duty of every
good citizen to denounce the mob. Down with the mob.
  • FREEDOM OF RELIGION is the destruction of religion. In Rome, after
people were allowed to worship their own gods, all gods fell into
disrepute. It will be so in America. Here is freedom of religion, and
all devotees find that the gods of other devotees are just as good as
theirs. They find that the prayers of others are answered precisely as
their prayers are answered.

The Protestant God is no better than the Catholic, and the Catholic is
no better than the Mormon, and the Mormon is no better than Nature for
answering prayers. In other words, all prayers die in the air which they
uselessly agitate. There is undoubtedly a tendency among the Protestant
denominations to unite. This tendency is born of weakness, not of
strength. In a few years, if all should unite, they would hardly have
power enough to obstruct, for any considerable time, the march of the
intellectual host destined to conquer the world. But let us all be
good natured; let us give to others all the rights that we claim for
ourselves. The future, I believe, has both hands full of blessings for
the human race.
  • THE DEISTS AND NATURE.—We who deny the supernatural origin of the
Bible, must admit not only that it exists, but that it was naturally
produced. If it is not supernatural, it is natural. It will hardly
do for the worshipers of Nature to hold the Bible in contempt, simply
because it is not a supernatural book.

The Deists of the last century made a mistake. They proceeded to show
that the Bible is immoral, untrue, cruel and absurd, and therefore came
to the conclusion that it could not have been written by a being of
infinite wisdom and goodness,—the being whom they believed to be the
author of Nature. Could not infinite wisdom and goodness just as easily
command crime as to permit it? Is it really any worse to order the
strong to slay the weak, than to stand by and refuse to protect the
weak?

After all, is Nature, taken together, any better than the Bible? If God
did not command the Jews to murder the Canaanites, Nature, to say
the least, did not prevent it. If God did not uphold the practice of
polygamy, Nature did. The moment we deny the supernatural origin of the
Bible, we declare that Nature wrote its every word, commanded all its
cruelties, told all its falsehoods. The Bible is, like Nature, a mixture
of what we call "good" and "bad,"—of what appears, and of what in
reality is.

The Bible must have been a perfectly natural production not only, but
a necessary one. There was, and is, no power in the universe that could
have changed one word. All the mistakes in translation were necessarily
made, and not one, by any possibility, could have been avoided. That
book, like all other facts in Nature, could not have been otherwise than
it is. The fact being that Nature has produced all superstitions, all
persecution, all slavery, and every crime, ought to be sufficient to
deter the average man from imagining that this power, whatever it may
be, is worthy of worship.

There is good in Nature. It is the nature in us that perceives the evil,
that pursues the right. In man, Nature not only contemplates herself,
but approves or condemns her actions. Of course, "good" and "bad" are
relative terms, and things are "good" or "bad" as they affect man well
or ill.

Infidels, skeptics,—that is to say, Freethinkers, have opposed the
Bible on account of the bad things in it, and Christians have upheld it,
not on account of the bad, but on account of the good. Throw away the
doctrine of inspiration, and the Bible will be more powerful for good
and far less for evil. Only a few years ago, Christians looked upon the
Bible as the bulwark of human slavery. It was the word of God, and for
that reason was superior to the reason of uninspired man. Had it been
considered simply as the work of man, it would not have been quoted to
establish that which the man of this age condemns. Throw away the idea
of inspiration, and all passages in conflict with liberty, with science,
with the experience of the intelligent part of the human race, instantly
become harmless. They are no longer guides for man. They are simply
the opinions of dead barbarians. The good passages not only remain, but
their influence is increased, because they are relieved of a burden.

No one cares whether the truth is inspired or not. The truth is
independent of man, not only, but of God. And by truth I do not mean
the absolute, I mean this: Truth is the relation between things and
thoughts, and between thoughts and thoughts. The perception of this
relation bears the same relation to the logical faculty in man, that
music does to some portion of the brain—that is to say, it is a
mental melody. This sublime strain has been heard by a few, and I am
enthusiastic enough to believe that it will be the music of the future.

For the good and for the true in the Old and New Testaments I have the
same regard that I have for the good and true, no matter where they may
be found. We who know how false the history of to-day is; we who know
the almost numberless mistakes that men make who are endeavoring to tell
the truth; we who know how hard it is, with all the facilities we now
have—with the daily press, the telegraph, the fact that nearly all can
read and write—to get a truthful report of the simplest occurrence,
must see that nothing short of inspiration (admitting for the moment the
possibility of such a thing,) could have prevented the Scriptures from
being filled with error.
  • AT LAST, THE SCHOOLHOUSE is larger than the church. The common people
have, through education, become uncommon. They now know how little is
really known by kings, presidents, legislators, and professors. At last,
they are capable of not only understanding a few questions, but they
have acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands. With
the facility of the cultured, they can now hide behind phrases and make
barricades of statistics. They understand the sophistries of the upper
classes; and while the cultured have been turning their attention to
the classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas that they
contain,—while they have been giving their attention to ceramics,
artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have
been compelled to learn the practical things. They are acquainted with
facts, because they have done the work of the world.
  • CRUELTY.—Sometimes it has seemed to me that cruelty is the climate of
crime, and that generosity is the Spring, Summer and Autumn of virtue.
Every form of wickedness, of meanness, springs from selfishness, that is
to say, from cruelty. Every good man hates and despises the wretch who
abuses wife and child—who rules by curses and blows and makes his home
a kind of hell. So, no generous man wishes to associate with one who
overworks his horse and feeds the lean and fainting beast with blows.

The barbarian delights in inflicting pain. He loves to see his victim
bleed,—but the civilized man staunches blood, binds up wounds and
decreases pain. He pities the suffering animal as well as the suffering
man.

He would no more inflict wanton wounds upon a dog than on a man. The
heart of the civilized man speaks for the dumb and helpless.

A good man would no more think of flaying a living animal than of
murdering his mother. The man who cuts a hoof from the leg of a horse is
capable of committing any crime that does not require courage. Such an
experiment can be of no use. Under no circumstances are hoofs taken from
horses for the good of the horses any more than their heads would be cut
off.

Think of the pain inflicted by separating the hoof of a living horse
from the flesh! If the poor beast could speak what would he say? The
same knowledge could be obtained by cutting away the hoof of a dead
horse. Knowledge of every bone, ligament, artery and vein, of every
cartilage and joint can be obtained by the dissection of the dead.
"But," says the biologist, "we must dissect the living."

Well, millions of living animals have been cut in pieces; millions of
experiments have been tried; all the nerves have been touched; every
possible agony has been inflicted that ingenuity could invent and
cruelty accomplish. Many volumes have been published filled with
accounts of these experiments, giving all the details and the results.
People who are curious about such things can read these reports. There
is no need of repeating these savage experiments. It is now known how
long a dog can live with all the pores of his skin closed, how long he
can survive the loss of his skin, or one lobe of his brain, or both of
his kidneys, or part of his intestines, or without his liver, and there
is no necessity of mutilating and mangling thousands of other dogs to
substantiate what is already known.

Of what possible use is it to know just how long an animal can live
without water—at what time he becomes insane from thirst, or blind or
deaf?
  • THE WORLD'S FAIR will do great good. A great many thousand people of the
Old World will for the first time understand the new; will for the first
time appreciate what a free people can do. For the first time they will
know the value of free institutions, of individual independence, of
a country where people express their thoughts, are not afraid of
each other, not afraid to try—a people so accustomed to success
that disaster is not taken into calculation. Of course, we have great
advantages. We have a new half of the world. We have soil better than is
found in other countries, and the soil is new and generous and anxious
to be cultivated. So we have everything in hill and mountain that
man can need—silver, and gold, and iron beyond computation—and, in
addition to all that, our people are the most inventive. We sustain
about the same relation to invention that Italy in her palmy days did to
art, or that Spain did to superstition.

And right here it may be well enough to say that I think it was
exceedingly unfortunate that this country was discovered under the
auspices of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella were a couple of wretches. The
same year that Columbus discovered America, these sovereigns expelled
the Jews from Spain, and the expulsion was accompanied by every outrage,
by every atrocity to which man—that is to say, savage man—that is to
say, the superstitious savage—is capable of inflicting.

The Spaniards came to America and destroyed two civilizations far better
than their own. They were natural robbers, buccaneers, and thought
nothing of murdering thousands for gold. I am perfectly willing to
celebrate the fact of discovery, but for the sovereigns of Spain I am
not willing to celebrate, except, perhaps their deaths. There is at
least some joy to be extracted from that.

In spite of the untoward circumstances under which the continent was
discovered and settled, there is one thing that counteracted to a
certain degree the influence of the Old World in the New. Possibly we
owe our liberty to the Indians. If there had been no hostile savages on
this continent, the kings and princes of the Old World would have taken
possession and would have divided it out among their favorites. They
tried to do that, but their favorites could not take possession. They
had to fight for the soil and in the conflict of centuries they found
that a good fighter was a good citizen, and the ideas of caste were
slowly lost.

Then another thing was of benefit to us. The settlers felt that they
had earned the soil; that they had fought for it, gained it by their
sufferings, their courage, their selfdenial, and their labor; and the
idea crept into their heads that the kings in Europe, who had done
nothing, had no right to dictate to them.

Thus at first the spirit of caste was destroyed by respectability
resting on usefulness. The spirit of subserviency to the Old World also
died, and the people who had rescued the land made up their minds not
only to own it, but to control it. They were also firmly convinced that
the profits belonged to them. In this way manhood was recognized in the
New World. In this way grew up the feeling of nationality here.

What I wish to see celebrated in this great exposition are the triumphs
that have been achieved in this New World. These I wish to see above
all. At the same time I want the best that labor and thought have
produced in all countries. It seems to me that in the presence of the
wonderful machines, of those marvelous mechanical contrivances by which
we take advantage of the forces of nature, by which we make servants of
the elemental powers—in the presence, I say, of these, it seems to me
respect for labor must be born. We shall begin to appreciate the men of
use instead of those who have posed as decorations. All the beautiful
things, all the useful things, come from labor, and it is labor that has
made the world a fit habitation for the human race.

Take from the World's Fair what labor has produced—the work of the
great artists—and nothing will be left. What have the great conquerors
to show in this great exhibition? What shall we get from the Caesars and
the Napoleons? What shall we get from popes and cardinals? What shall
we get from the nobility? From princes and lords and dukes? What excuse
have they for having existence and for having lived on the bread earned
by honest men? They stand in the show-windows of history, lay figures,
on which fine goods are shown, but inside the raiment there is nothing,
and never was. This exposition will be the apotheosis of labor. No man
can attend it without losing, if he has any sense at all, the spirit
of caste; or, if he still maintains it, he will put the useful in the
highest class, and the useless, whether carrying sceptres or dishes for
alms, in the lowest.—October, 1892.
  • THE SAVAGE made of the river, the tree, the mountain, a fetich. He put
within, or behind these things, a spirit—according to Mr. Spencer, the
spirit of a dead ancestor. This is considered by the modern Christian,
and in fact by the modern philosopher, as the lowest possible phase of
the religious idea. To put behind the river or the tree, or within them,
a spirit, a something, is considered the religion of savagery; but
to put behind the universe, or within it, the same kind of fetich, is
considered the height of philosophy.

For my part, I see no possible distinction in these systems, except that
the view of the savage is altogether the more poetic. The fetich of
the savage is the noumenon of the Greek, the God of the theologian,
the First Cause of the metaphysician, the Unknowable of Spencer.
  • THE UNTHINKABLE.—It is admitted by all who have thought upon the
question that a First Cause is unthinkable—that a creative power
is beyond the reach of human thought. It therefore follows that the
miraculous is unthinkable. There is no possible way in which the human
mind can even think of a miracle. It is infinitely beyond our power of
conception. We can conceive of the statement, but not of the thing. It
is impossible for the intellect to conceive of a clay pot producing oil.
It is impossible to conceive even, of human life being perpetuated in
the midst of fire. This is just as unthinkable as that twice two are
twenty-seven. A man can say that three times three are two, but it
is impossible to think of any such thing—that is, to think of such a
statement as true. A man may say that he heard a stone sing a song and
heard it afterward repeat a part of Milton's "Paradise Lost." Now, I can
conceive of a man telling such a falsehood, but I cannot conceive of the
thing having happened.
  • CAN HUMAN TESTIMONY Overcome the Apparently Impossible Without
Explanation?—It can only be believed by a philosophic mind when
explained—that is to say, by being destroyed as a miracle, and
persisting simply as a fact.

Now, I say that a miracle is unthinkable because a power above Nature,
a power that created Nature, is unthinkable. And if a power above
Nature be unthinkable, the miracles claiming to be supernatural are
unthinkable. In other words, all consequences flowing from a belief in
an infinite Creator are necessarily unthinkable.
  • EDOUARD REMENYI.—This week the great violinist, Edouard Remenyi, as my
guest, visited the Bass Rocks House, Cape Ann, Mass., and for three days
delighted and entranced the fortunate idlers of the beach. He played
nearly all the time, night and day, seemingly carried away with his own
music. Among the many selections given, were the andante from the Tenth
Sonata in E flat, also from the Twelfth Sonata in G minor, by Mozart.
Nothing could exceed the wonderful playing of the selections from the
Twelfth Sonata. A hush as of death fell upon the audience, and when he
ceased, tears fell upon applauding hands. Then followed the Elegie from
Ernst; then "The Ideal Dance" composed by himself—a fairy piece, full
of wings and glancing feet, moonlight and melody, where fountains fall
in showers of pearl, and waves of music die on sands of gold—then came
the "Barcarole" by Schubert, and he played this with infinite spirit,
in a kind of inspired frenzy, as though music itself were mad with joy;
then the grand Sonata in G, in three movements, by Beethoven.—August,
1880.

Remenyi's Playing.—In my mind the old tones are still rising and
falling—still throbbing, pleading, beseeching, imploring, wailing like
the lost—rising winged and triumphant, superb and victorious—then
caressing, whispering every thought of love—intoxicated, delirious with
joy—panting with passion—fading to silence as softly and imperceptibly
as consciousness is lost in sleep.
  • THE KINDERGARTEN is perfectly adapted to the natural needs and desires
of children. Most children dislike the old system and go "unwillingly
to school." They feel imprisoned and wait impatiently for their liberty.
They learn without understanding and take no interest in their lessons.
In the Kindergarten there is perfect liberty, and study is transformed
into play. To learn is a pleasure. There are no wearisome tasks—no
mental drudgery—nothing but enjoyment,—the enjoyment of natural
development in natural ways. Children do not have to be driven to the
Kindergarten. To be kept away is a punishment.

The experience in many towns and cities justifies our belief that the
Kindergarten is the only valuable school for little children. They are
brought in contact with actual things—with forms and colors—things
that can be seen and touched, and they are taught to use their hands and
senses—to understand qualities and relations, and all is done under
the guise of play. We agree with Froebel who said: "Let us live for our
children."
  • THE METHODIST CHURCH STATISTICS.—First. In 1800, a resolution in favor
of gradual emancipation was defeated.

Second. In 1804, resolutions passed requiring ministers to exhort slaves
to be obedient to their masters.

Third. In 1808, everything about laymen owning slaves Stricken out.

Fourth. In 1820, a resolution that ministers should not hold slaves was
defeated.

Fifth. In 1836, a resolution passed that the Methodist Church opposed,
abolition of slavery—one hundred and twenty to fourteen.

Sixth. In 1845-1846, the Methodist Church divided—Bishop Andrews owned
slaves.

Seventh. As late as 1860 there were over ten thousand Methodists who
were slaveholders in the M. E. Church, North.

***

117 East 21st Str., N. Y.
  • Response to an invitation to a dinner and a billiard
    tournament at the Manhattan Athletic Club, New York City.

Feby. 18, 1899.

My Dear Dr. Ranney:

I go to Boston to-morrow. So, you see it is impossible for me to be with
you on the 22d inst. I would like to make a few remarks on "orthodox
billiards." The fact is that the whole world is a table, we are the
balls and Fate plays the game. We are knocked and whacked against each
other,—followed and drawn—whirled and twisted, pocketed and spotted,
and all the time we think that we are doing the playing. But no matter,
we feel that we are in the game, and a real good illusion is, after all,
it may be, the only reality that we know. At the same time, I feel
that Fate is a careless player—that he is always a little nervous and
generally forgets to chalk his cue. I know that he has made lots of
mistakes with me—lots of misses.

With many thanks, I remain, yours always.

R. G. Ingersoll.

***

THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS, 1891.—It is beautiful to give one day to the
ideal—to have one day apart; one day for generous deeds, for good will,
for gladness; one day to forget the shadows, the rains, the storms of
life; to remember the sunshine, the happiness of youth and health; one
day to forget the briers and thorns of the winding path, to remember the
fruits and flowers; one day in which to feed the hungry, to salute
the poor and lowly; one day to feel the brotherhood of man; one day
to remember the heroic and loving deeds of the dead; one day to get
acquainted with children, to remember the old, the unfortunate and the
imprisoned; one day in which to forget yourself and think lovingly of
others; one day for the family, for the fireside, for wife and children,
for the love and laughter, the joy and rapture, of home; one day in
which bonds and stocks and deeds and notes and interest and mortgages
and all kinds of business and trade are forgotten, and all stores and
shops and factories and offices and banks and ledgers and accounts and
lawsuits are cast aside, put away and locked up, and the weary heart and
brain are given a voyage to fairyland.

Let us hope that such a day is a prophecy of what all days will be.
  • THE ORTHODOX PREACHERS are several centuries in the rear. They all love
the absurd, and glory in believing the impossible. They are also as
conservative as though they were dead—good people—the leaders of those
who are going backward.
  • The Man who builds a home erects a temple.
    The flame upon the hearth is the sacred fire.
    He who loves wife and children is the true worshiper.
    Forms and ceremonies, kneelings and fastings are born of selfish fear.
    A good deed is the best prayer.
    A loving life is the best religion.
    No one knows whether the Unknown is worthy of worship or not.
  • WE TWO, THE DOUBTING BRAIN AND HOPING HEART, with somber thought and
radiant wish, in dusk and dawn, in light and shade 'neath star and
sun, together journeying toward the night. And then the end, sighs the
doubting brain—but there is no end, says the hoping heart. O Brain! if
you knew, you would not doubt. O Heart! if you knew, you would not hope.
  • RIGHTS AND DUTIES spring from the same source. He who has no rights
has no duties. Without liberty there can be no responsibility and no
conscience. Man calls himself to an account for the use of his power,
and passes judgment upon himself. The standard of such judgment we call
conscience. In the proportion that man uses his liberty, his power, for
the good of all, he advances, becomes civilized. Civilization does not
consist merely in invention, discovery, material advancement, but
in doing justice. By civilization is meant all discoveries, facts,
theories, agencies, that add to the happiness of man.
  • AT BAY.—Sometimes in the darkness of night I feel as though surrounded
by the great armies of effacement—that the horizon is growing
smaller every moment—that the final surrender is only postponed—that
everything is taking something from me—that Nature robs me with her
countless hands—that my heart grows weaker with every beat—that even
kisses wear me away, and that every thought takes toll of my brief life.

***

THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.*—One year of perfect health—of countless
smiles—of wonder and surprise—of growing thought and love—was duly
celebrated on this day, and all paid tribute to the infant queen. There
were whirling things that scattered music as they turned—and boxes
filled with tunes—and curious animals of whittled wood—and ivory rings
with tinkling bells—and little dishes for a fairy-feast—horses that
rocked, and bleating sheep and monstrous elephants of painted tin. A
baby-tender, for a tender babe, garments of silk and cushions wrought
with flowers, and pictures of her mother when a babe—and silver dishes
for another year—and coach and four and train of cars—and bric-a-brac
for a baby's house—and last of all, a pearl, to mark her first round
year of life and love.
  • Written on the first anniversary of his grandchild, Eva
    Ingersoll-Brown, August 27, 1892.

***

SHELLEY.—The light of morn beyond the purple hills—a palm that lifts
its coronet of leaves above the desert's sands—an isle of green in some
far sea—a spring that waits for lips of thirst—a strain of music heard
within some palace wrought of dreams—a cloud of gold above a setting
sun—a fragrance wafted from some unseen shore.
  • FATE.—Never hurried, never delayed, passionless, pitiless, patient,
keeping the tryst—neither early nor late—there, on the very stroke and
center of the instant fixed.
  • QUIET, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. Toward evening
the mind grows satisfied and still. The flare and flicker of youth are
gone, and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where the air is at rest.
Age discards the superfluous, the immaterial, the straw and chaff, and
hoards the golden grain. The highway is known, and the paths no longer
mislead. Clouds are not mistaken for mountains.
  • THE OLD MAN has been long at the fair. He is acquainted with the
jugglers at the booths. His curiosity has been satisfied. He no longer
cares for the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and deformed. He
looks through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and gloss, not only
of things, but of conduct, of manners, theories, religions and
philosophies. He sees clearer. The light no longer shines in his eyes.
  • The time will come when even selfishness will be charitable for its own
sake, because at that time the man will have grown and developed to that
degree that selfishness demands generosity and kindness and justice. The
self becomes so noble that selfishness is a virtue. The lowest form of
selfishness is when one is willing to be happy, or wishes to be happy,
at the expense or the misery of another. The highest form of selfishness
is when a man becomes so noble that he finds his happiness in making
others so. This is the nobility of selfishness.
  • CUBA fell upon her knees—stretched her thin hands toward the great
Republic. We saw her tear-filled eyes—her withered breasts—her dead
babes—her dying—her buried and unburied dead. We heard her voice, and
pity, roused to action by her grief, became as stern as justice, and
the great Republic cried to Spain: "Sheathe the dagger of assassination;
take your bloody hand from the throat of the helpless; and take your
flag from the heaven of the Western World."
  • Perhaps I have reached the years of discretion. But it may be that
discretion is the enemy of happiness. If the buds had discretion there
might be no fruit. So it may be that the follies committed in the spring
give autumn the harvest.—August 11,1892.
  • Dickens wrote for homes—Thackeray for clubs. Byron did not care for the
fireside—for the prattle of babes—for the smiles and tears of humble
life. He was touched by grandeur rather than goodness,—loved storm and
crag and the wild sea. But Burns lived in the valley, touched by the
joys and griefs of lowly lives.

Imagine amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals mingled as
liquids—then imagine these marvelous glories of light and color changed
to a tone, and you have the wondrous, the incomparable voice of Scalchi.
  • THE ORGAN.—The beginnings—the timidities—the half
thoughts—blushes—suggestions—a phrase of grace and feeling—a
sustained note—the wing on the wind—confidence—the flight—rising
with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous swell—in the
passionate tremor—rising still higher—flooding the great dome with the
soul of enraptured sound.
  • NEW MEXICO is a most wonderful country. It is a ragged miser with
billions of buried treasure. It looks as if Nature had guarded her
silver and gold with enough desolation to deter all but the brave.
  • WHY SHOULD THE INDIAN SUMMER of a life be lost—the long, serene, and
tender days when earth and sky are friends? The falling leaves disclose
the ripened fruit—and so the flight of youth with dreams and fancies
should show the wealth of bending bough.
  • Give milk to babes, and wine to youth. But for old age, when ghosts
of more than two-score years are wandering on the traveled road, the
fragrant tea, that loosens gossip's tongue, is best.—December 25,1892.
    [From a letter thanking a friend for a Christmas present of
    a chest of tea.]
  • ON MEMORIAL DAY our hearts blossom in gratitude as we lovingly remember
the brave men upon whose brows Death, with fleshless hands, placed the
laurel wreath of fame.
  • THE SOUL IS AN ARCHITECt—it builds a habitation for itself—and as the
soul is, is the habitation. Some live in dens and caves, and some in
lowly homes made rich with love, and overrun with vine and flower.
  • SCIENCE at last holds with honest hand the scales wherein are weighed
the facts and fictions of the world. She neither kneels nor prays, she
stands erect and thinks. Her tongue is not a traitor to her brain. Her
thought and speech agree.
  • THE NEGRO who can pass me in the race of life will receive my
admiration, and he can count on my friendship. No man ever lived who
proved his superiority by trampling on the weak.
  • RELIGION is like a palm tree—it grows at the top. The dead leaves are
all orthodox, while the new ones and the buds are all heretics.
  • MEMORY is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift.
  • HOPE is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
  • THE FIRES OF THE NEXT WORLD sustain the same relation to churches that
those in this world sustain to insurance companies.
  • Now and then there arises a man who on peril's edge draws from the
scabbard of despair the sword of victory.
  • The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a
prophecy of spring.
  • Vice lives either before Love is born, or after Love is dead.
  • Intellectual freedom is only the right to be honest.
  • I believe that finally man will go through the phase of religion before
birth.
  • When shrill chanticleer pierces the dull ear of morn.
  • Orthodoxy is the refuge of mediocrity.
  • The ocean is the womb of all that will be, the tomb of all that has
been.
  • Jealousy never knows the value of a fact.

Envy cannot reason, malice cannot prophesy.
  • Love has a kind of second sight.

***

I have never given to any one a sketch of my life. According to my idea
a life should not be written until it has been lived.—July 1, 1888.
