Is it because
we are better at being common scolds than at being wise advisers
that we prefer little reforms to big ones? Are we to allow the
poor personal habits of other people to absorb and quite use up
all our fine indignation? It will be a bad day for society when
sentimentalists are encouraged to suggest all the measures that
shall be taken for the betterment of the race. I, for one,
sometimes sigh for the generation of "leading people" and of good
people who shall see things steadily and see them whole; who
shall show a handsome justness and a large sanity of view, an
opportune tolerance for details, that happen to be awry, in order
that they may spend their energy, not without self-possession, in
some generous mission which shall make right principles shine
upon the people's life. They would bring with them an age of
large moralities, a spacious time, a day of vision.
Knowledge has come into the world in vain if it is not to
emancipate those who may have it from narrowness, censoriousness,
fussiness, an intemperate zeal for petty things. It would be a
most pleasant, a truly humane world, would we but open our ears
with a more generous welcome to the clear voices that ring in
those writings upon life and affairs which mankind has chosen to
keep.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34