There is a prevalent feeling that the nineteenth century,
which was ushered in to the sound of Napoleon's cannon and is now going
rather tamely out in a discussion of the laws of economics, has not more
than half accomplished the work that was assigned it. There is
everywhere among thinking men a feeling of distrust and half
disappointment. Lowell felt it here, George Eliot in England; and Herman
Grimm in Germany, a sanguine man, speaks of the deep-seated unrest which
almost drives us to despair.
As I turn from my desk to the morning's newspaper I find in it the
following extract from one of Emerson's earlier essays:
"Trust the time. What a fatal prodigality to condemn our age--we cannot
overvalue it--it is our all. As the wandering sea-bird which, crossing
the ocean, alights on some rock or islet to rest for a moment its wings,
and to look back on the wilderness of waves behind, and onward to the
wilderness of waters before--so stand we perched on this rock or shoal
of time, arrived out of the immensity of the past, bound and road-ready
to plunge into immensity again. Not for nothing it dawns out of
everlasting peace, this great discontent, this self-accusing reflection.
The very time sees for us, thinks for us. It is a microscope such as
philosophy never had. Insight is for us which was never for any, and
doubt not, the moment and the opportunity are divine.
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