_[Greek: phusis bebion ou ta chraematatheoi reia xoontes][1]_
[Footnote 1: Odyssey IV., 805.]
Look on these two pictures--the life of the masses, one long, dull
record of struggle and effort entirely devoted to the petty interests
of personal welfare, to misery in all its forms, a life beset by
intolerable boredom as soon as ever those aims are satisfied and the
man is thrown back upon himself, whence he can be roused again to some
sort of movement only by the wild fire of passion. On the other side
you have a man endowed with a high degree of mental power, leading an
existence rich in thought and full of life and meaning, occupied by
worthy and interesting objects as soon as ever he is free to give
himself to them, bearing in himself a source of the noblest pleasure.
What external promptings he wants come from the works of nature, and
from the contemplation of human affairs and the achievements of the
great of all ages and countries, which are thoroughly appreciated by a
man of this type alone, as being the only one who can quite understand
and feel with them. And so it is for him alone that those great ones
have really lived; it is to him that they make their appeal; the rest
are but casual hearers who only half understand either them or their
followers. Of course, this characteristic of the intellectual man
implies that he has one more need than the others, the need of
reading, observing, studying, meditating, practising, the need, in
short, of undisturbed leisure.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53