Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 06 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists by Elbert Hubbard
page 44 of 267 (16%)
page 44 of 267 (16%)
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He is icily regular, splendidly null.
Every man measures others by himself--he has only one standard. When a man ridicules certain traits in other men, he ridicules himself. How would he know that other men were contemptible, did he not look into his own heart and there see the hateful things? Thackeray wrote his book on Snobs, because he was a Snob--which is not to say that he was a Snob all the time. When you recognize a thing, good or bad, in the outside world, it is because it was yours already. "I carry the world in my heart," said the Prophet of old. All the universe you have is the universe you have within. Old Walt Whitman, when he saw the wounded soldier, exclaimed, "I am that man!" And two thousand years before this, Terence said, "I am a man, and nothing that is human is alien to me." I know just why Professor Lautner believes that Rembrandt never could have painted a picture with a deep, tender, subtle and spiritual significance. Professor Lautner averages fairly well, he labors hard to be consistent, but his thought gamut runs just from Bottom the weaver to Dogberry the judge. He is a cauliflower--that is to say, a cabbage with a college education. Yes, I understand him, because for most of the time I myself am supremely dull, childishly dogmatic, beautifully self-complacent. I am Lautner. Lautner says that Rembrandt was "untaught," and Donnelly said the |
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