Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1886)
THE II ESI' ER I AX ;Hi Hi. gun" policy is the highest standard for literary men. Killing a nmn if you don't like him is an easy, way of getting rid of what is disagrcablc, but is not exactly in accordance with the moral sensibilities. Literature would not be greatly injured if authors cultivated more extensively, manliness, forbearance and generosity. V If a man desires to achieve any degree of renown as a "literary feller" he must prepare for poverty. The small brained, sensational story-writer who furnishes unlimited trash for unlimited trashy papers will perhaps, make more money than, a Homer or a Dante, but his fame will scarcely equal theirs. The best is the poorest paid and this is but nat ural. The great majority of men are not competent to thor oughly enjoy the best. So, indisputably, the majority of men will pass out their dollars for what is within their comprehension and to their liking, and mediocrity will hold its own against superiority. Ask any ncws-dcalcr whether he sells as many Centuries as Fireside Companions. He will answer withjan emphatic "No." More money is made on the Police Gazette than on all the "Reviews" in America. This, then is the difficulty which faces a young man who would gladly try his powers in the field of good litcra. ture. Even if he succeeds he will be poor. Now all of us like Death, "love a shining mark" or rather we would if we were Germans; in this country they call it "a quarter" and it is not pleasant to look forward to a life of cramped poverty and hac pretended that they really rather liked it. On the whole this view is the most comfortable we can take, if we are not to be dissuaded from plunging into the broad surf of literature "But worse than the harping on one string, Nature has secured individualism, by giving the private person a high conceit of his weight in the system. The pest of society is egotists. 'Tis a disease that, like influenza, falls on all con stitutions. In the distemper known to physicians as chorea, the patient sometimes turns around, and continues to spin slowly on one spot. Is egotism a metaphysical variety of this malady? The man runs around the ring formed by his own talent, falls into an admiration of it, ai'J loses relation to the world. It is a tendency in all minds. One of its annoy ing forms is a craving for sympathy. The sufferers parade their miseries, tear the lint from their bruises, reveal their indictable crimes, that you may pity them. They like sick ness, because physical pain will extort some show of interest from the bystanders, as we have seen children who finding themselves of no account when grown people come in, will cough till they choke, to draw attention." College life and training seems to unfit some lor business. The student is shut up for six of seven years to the life of a recluse. If he is somewhat sensitive by nature, and inclined to shrink from contact with the world, he is not to be cured of it by' giving the tendency full sway. lie may become more refined by such a course, but that refinement which makes one miserable unless he has elegant apartments, suited to the most luxurious taste, with none but congenial companions sur rounding him, and causes him to dread going out into the world experiencing its disagreeable, annoying things, is a detriment rather than a gain. Any course, which isolates a man from his fellows, making the harmony of his existence depend on avoiding what falls to the common lot of human ity, cannot be counted beneficial. An over-wrought sensi bility is a poor equipment for a struggle in the world. A man ought to take pleasure in the contest with his fellows, and go into it with zest. Hut when he docs it from sheer desperation shutting his teeth and stiffening his muscles as if undergoing an amputation, he is not likely to secure any large amount of happiness. Perhaps men of such temperaments ought to be born and reared in wealth and luxury so they would not have to sacrifice their feelings; but providence has a way of scat tering them about so that often they arc placed in circum stances where their sensitive nature is constantly tortured. Of course it is a weakness to be so constituted, but one is not to blame for what he had nothing to do with. We do not have control over our parentage. When evils are inherited it is only left to check them as far as possible. This dislike of the practical world is not so serious for a literary man; but all have not capacity for this line of work. The great mass whether they wish or not, arc compelled to "rough it," work ing at what they have a positive distaste for. But geniuses are born, not made. Mediocrity is destined to remain such. The best thing we can do is to get used to it, good humoredly accepting the fate. There is only one niche a man can fill and he mnst get himself fitted to it somehow, lie ought to take care that he developcs himself for this, so that he will not have to be bent when he is put in. Every man is conscious that he leads two lives, the one trivial and ordinary, the other sacred and recluse; one which he carries to society and the dinner-table, the other in which his youth and aspiration survive for him, and which is a con fidence between himself and God. Both may be equally sin cere, and there need be no contradiction between them, any more than a healthy man between soul and body. If the higher life be real and earnest, its result, whether in litera ture or affairs, will be real and earnest too. But no man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealin with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who docs not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself foi it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender. The sentimentalist does not think of what he does so much as what the world will think of what he docs. He translates should into would, looks upon the spheres of duty and beauty as alien to each other, and can never learn how life rounds itself to a noble completeness between these two opposite but mutually sustaining poles of what we long for and what we must. Lowell Geo. McLainc, so well known to all University people be tween 1870 and 1882 has returned to settle permanently in Lincoln. He has purchased a five acre tract east of the city and next season will improve the same. John Green is undoubtedly a truthful man when'truth is re quired of him, but there are times when he can tell the most liquid lies of any man in Lincoln. The other day a white stone mason and a colored assistant were at work near the boiler room, and John would vary the monotony of vacation life by going out and scaring the darkey. John is a natural orator, and when he winked at the white man and began a tirade against the medics, His Highness, the Son of Ham, was all attention. At intervals during the entire day the poor wretch listened to tales of murder, grave robbing and dissection, horrible enough to lift the scalp from the head of a wooden Indian; and to make matters worse was obliged to refuse several urgent invitations to "come in side and see the three'eoons' killed last night while crossing the campus." John' is willing to stake his reputation for verac ity plus three month's wages that the darkey will never ven ture within half a mile of the campus after nightfall. i