Describing a man met on a boat.
“...He was one of those people who, as their
life's treasure, carry an ideal in their heart and would not let it be robbed
by the sophistication and tension of a desperate time, who would not let
themselves be deprived of their faith in the present, of the possibility of a
better present. Because of their ideals, these same people carry an
immeasurable pain in their breast, because it is clear to them in every
situation what it could be like, what it should be like, and what profoundly
grievous contrast the ideal presents to what the situation really is. Unknown,
ignored and lonesome, they walk this earth. Nobody suspects the pain and nobody
suspects the bliss that lies in their warmly beating hearts. Narrow-minded pity
shrugs its shoulders about the kind-hearted romantic who does not know how to
fit into today's situation. 'Look here, look at the fools of the past,' the
clever people of the present say. And they do not know how precisely those that
they call the fools of the past are truly men of the future.”
Vol. VIII, p. 677.
Reprinted with the kind permission of
Feldheim Publishers.
(Thank you, yay Feldheim, everyone support
this great publishing company, no they didn’t ask me to say that.)
In case any other sentimentalists are secretly wondering: this was not Ruskin. For one thing, the rest of the description does not sound like him. But just to put a cap on it, this essay is from an 1855 Jeschurun and Ruskin did not leave England all that year. So you are free to imagine with pleasure just how many 19th century people – and how many in our own time – meet this description.
ReplyDelete(Many thanks to ---- for the date and source. This is not why I asked for it.)