The missionary must be carried by
it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in
these things? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but
perhaps that is only optical; for Nature is always equal to herself,
and there are as good pairs of eyes and ears now in the planet as
ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a
few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a
Bible.
These are a few of the books which the old and the later times have
yielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing
the number of good books with the shortness of life, many might well
be read by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for
sincere young men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the
British Association, and, as they divide the whole body into sections,
each of which sit upon and report of certain matters confided to them,
so let each scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely
on, in a literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work
or series for which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is
the whole literature of the "Roman de la Rose," the "Fabliaux," and
the _gai science_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has
time for that? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall
study and master it, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall
give us the sincere result, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing,
keeping nothing back.
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