The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 37

To him all miracles were mistakes, whose parents were cunning and credulity. He knew that miracles were not, because they are not.

He believed in the sublime, unbroken, and eternal march of causes and effects--denying the chaos of chance, and the caprice of power.

He tested the past by the now, and judged of all the men and races of the world by those he knew.

He believed in the religion of free thought and good deed--of character, of sincerity, of honest endeavor, of cheerful help--and above all, in the religion of love and liberty--in a religion for every day--for the world in which we live--for the present--the religion of roof and raiment, of food, of intelligence, of intellectual hospitality--the religion that gives health and happiness, freedom and content--in the religion of work, and in the ceremonies of honest labor.

He lived for this world; if there be another, he will live for that.

He did what he could for the destruction of fear--the destruction of the imaginary monster who rewards the few in heaven--the monster who tortures the many in perdition.

He was a friend of all the world, and sought to civilize the human race.

For more than fifty years he labored to free the bodies and the souls of men--and many thousands have read his words with joy. He sought the suffering and oppressed. He sat by those in pain--and his helping hand was laid in pity on the brow of death.

He asked only to be treated as he treated others. He asked for only what he earned, and had the manhood cheerfully to accept the consequences of his actions. He expected no reward for the goodness of another.

But he has lived his life. We should shed no tears except the tears of grat.i.tude. We should rejoice that he lived so long.

In Nature's course, his time had come. The four seasons were complete in him. The Spring could never come again. The measure of his years was full.

When the day is done--when the work of a life is finished--when the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the tired laborer should fall asleep. To outlive usefulness is a double death.

"Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits."

When the old oak is visited in vain by Spring--when light and rain no longer thrill--it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone. It is better far to fall where Nature softly covers all with woven moss and creeping vine.

How little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! How little of this wondrous stream of cataracts and pools--this stream of life, that rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose sh.o.r.e the foot of one who comes has never pressed! How little of this life we know--this struggling ray of light 'twixt gloom and gloom--this strip of land by verdure clad, between the unknown wastes--this throbbing moment filled with love and pain--this dream that lies between the shadowy sh.o.r.es of sleep and death!

We stand upon this verge of crumbling time. We love, we hope, we disappear. Again we mingle with the dust, and the "knot intrinsicate"

forever falls apart.

But this we know: A n.o.ble life enriches all the world.

Horace Seaver lived for others. He accepted toil and hope deferred.

Poverty was his portion. Like Socrates, he did not seek to adorn his body, but rather his soul with the jewels of charity, modesty, courage, and above all, with a love of liberty.

Farewell, O brave and modest man!

Your lips, between which truths burst into blossom, are forever closed.

Your loving heart has ceased to beat. Your busy brain is still, and from your hand has dropped the sacred torch.

Your n.o.ble, self-denying life has honored us, and we will honor you.

You were my friend, and I was yours. Above your silent clay I pay this tribute to your worth.

Farewell!

A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT.

At the Broadway Theatre, New York, March 22, 1891.

MY heart tells me that on the threshold of my address it will be appropriate for me to say a few words about the great actor who has just fallen into that sleep that we call death. Lawrence Barrett was my friend, and I was his. He was an interpreter of Shakespeare, to whose creations he gave flesh and blood. He began at the foundation of his profession, and rose until he stood next to his friend--next to one who is regarded as the greatest tragedian of our time--next to Edwin Booth.

The life of Lawrence Barrett was a success, because he honored himself and added glory to the stage.

He did not seek for gain by pandering to the thoughtless, ignorant or base. He gave the drama in its highest and most serious form. He shunned the questionable, the vulgar and impure, and gave the intellectual, the pathetic, the manly and the tragic. He did not stoop to conquer--he soared. He was fitted for the stage. He had a thoughtful face, a vibrant voice and the pose of chivalry, and besides he had patience, industry, courage and the genius of success.

He was a graceful and striking Ba.s.sanio, a thoughtful Hamlet, an intense Oth.e.l.lo, a marvelous Harebell, and the best Ca.s.sius of his century.

In the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part.

In this great play the scenes are s.h.i.+fted by unknown forces, and the commencement, plot and end are still unknown--are still unguessed. One by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places. There is no pause--the play goes on. No prompter's voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be.

Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain fall at last? Will it rise again upon some other stage? Reason says perhaps, and Hope still whispers yes. Sadly I bid my friend farewell, I admired the actor, and I loved the man.

A TRIBUTE TO WALT WHITMAN.

Camden, N. J., March 30, 1892.

MY FRIENDS: Again we, in the mystery of Life, are brought face to face with the mystery of Death. A great man, a great American, the most eminent citizen of this Republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay a tribute to his greatness and his worth.

I know he needs no words of mine. His fame is secure. He laid the foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. He was, above all I have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. He was so great that he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He never claimed to be lower or greater than any of the sous of men.

He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy for all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick. He sympathized with the imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy.

One of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is great enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived.

He said, speaking of an outcast: "Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you."

His charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as the firmament bends above the earth.

He was built on a broad and splendid plan--ample, without appearing to have limitations--pa.s.sing easily for a brother of mountains and seas and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts with which timid pilots hug the sh.o.r.e, but giving himself freely with recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing as long as the stars were above him. He walked among men, among writers, among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary milliners and tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique G.o.d.

He was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to all the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American voice; uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. No man ever said more for the rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, of real justice. He neither scorned nor cringed, was neither tyrant nor slave.

He asked only to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the great flag of nature, the blue and stars.

He was the poet of Life. It was a joy simply to breathe. He loved the clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects of the earth.

He not only saw these objects, but understood their meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his fellow-men.

He was the poet of Love. He was not ashamed of that divine pa.s.sion that has built every home in the world; that divine pa.s.sion that has painted every picture and given us every real work of art; that divine pa.s.sion that has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human life.

He was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of that which is natural. He was not only the poet of democracy, not only the poet of the great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race. He was not confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth.

He stretched out his hand and felt himself the equal of all kings and of all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no matter how low.