Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1913 — REFUGE FOR THE SCHOLAR [ARTICLE]

REFUGE FOR THE SCHOLAR

In the Classics, Writer Asserts, One May Commune With the High Thoughts of the Past I advocate the classics because they constitute a retreat, in which the spirit may commune with the high thoughts of the past. Modern literature is modern; it concerns itself with actual life, with our distractions, our trivialities, our romance, our getting on in the world, with all our coarser appetites; but in the remote classics, in that cool, tranquil, distant world, we can surrender ourselves to contemplation, to meditation, to the high influences that always stoop to the soul’s call. This rempteness of the classics affects me as my remembrance of gracious figures in my childhood. The people there seem to have a nobler aspect, a more goodly presence, larger sympathies, a wiser and a kinder attitude. We fio not apply the lessons we learned from them directly to life, but we know that somehow the most valuable lessons in our Ilves came from them. We cannot say just what we learned, but we possess a memory of quietness, or ripeness, of wisdom of life, and we feel that tc them is due whatever gain we have made in grace and moral stature. Greek literature has a like effect upon us. —The Atlantic.