Nautilus V6 N4 Feb 1904

THE NAUTILUS. Build thee more stately temples, oh, my soul, As the swift seasons roll. Leave thy low vaulted past. Devoted to the Art and Science of Self-Expression. Entered at the Holyoke Post Office Let each new temple, nobler than the last, as second class matter. Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free; leaving thine out-grown shell By life’s unresting sea.— Holmesy “ The Nautilus/’ j MONTHLY. f ELIZABETH TOWNE, ) V ol. VI. I Fifty Cents a Year. FEBRUARY, 1904. } H o l y o k e , M assachusetts , f No. 4 “BE STILL.” relationship. Inheritance by blood tie is not a the third earl of Normandy; which means that his stream the outlet of which can rise no higher grandfather was an ordinary every day scrub who Thank God for silence, and a quiet hour than its source. It is a sort of hydraulic ram probably murdered somebody particularly ob Wherein to meditate on larger themes through which life may be coaxed to almost any noxious to the king and was rewarded with an Than those that fill and fret the common mind; height of culture and refinement. earldom. Did he bequeath “the soul of knowledge, To have an interval of stillness, rare the essence of right living,” to William the Con And all pervading as the darkness was The writer of the above letter intimates that cul querer and his exclusive progeny? If so, where Upon that old Mosaic night which wrapped ture is “the soul of knowledge—the essence of right living” inherited from our ancestors. did he get it? His own grandfather and the an The Lotus-land of Egypt in its folds, IVhere I will tell you where; cestors of the poor miller’s daughter roamed the And could be felt. To shut away the world,— did they get it? they got it same woods, fought the same battles, hunted the To be at peace, and thus, in harmony by persistence in the same sort of practices which —by “wresting, by force,” the same beasts and men, and gnawed the same bones. With Nature’s law, receptive of all good. this man decrys knowledge, wealth and dominion of others; by Where did the ancestors of Robert the Devil pick Then, to repose within the spacious arms generations of “monastic seclusion,” much of it en up the “soul of knowledge” ? And what were the O f thought, with soul intent, and ear awake forced by others whose turn it was to “wrest by miller’s ancestors doing whilst Robert’s grandfath To catch the unrhymed music of the spheres, force” ; by generations of “rigid self-control” ; by ers cornered the “essence of right living” ? For I Exultant with the morning song of stars; hours and days and years of prayer, w h ich is warrant you that William’s miller’s-daughter- Is Joy that lifts the earth-bound feet from out simply a phase of “going into the silence” ; and, mother was less of a stranger to the “soul of The slough of sordid-self, and lends them wings. yes, and even by “breathing like a filthy, crazy knowledge, the essence of right living” than was G eorge W . S h i p m a n . Yoga”—though much of the breathing was forced that devil of a Robert. by strenuous endeavors to get away from the rag Yes there are many people who are educated but A LOOK AT HERIDITY. ing hordes whose wealth or daughters they were not cultured. But their progeny will brag of their ■—“All through your words it seems to me you stealing. The Spirit of Evolution which is run culture. For what is in one generation mere edu overlook inheritance, hereditary. It seems to me ning this universe is very cunning in devices for cation, or “monastic seclusion,” or “rigid self-con that you underestimate culture. Now understand inducing self-culture. trol,” or “going into the silence,” or “breathing like me—I am certain education is common where Full breathing, going into the silence, affirma a filthy crazy Yoga,” is by time and unconscious culture is wanting. This is my understanding of culture: Its possessor has not wrested it by force tions, etc., are not new methods of self-culture. cerebration transmuted into pure “culture.” And and does not possess it by a monastic seclusion nor They are as old and their practice as universal as if any of us lack culture you may depend upon it rigid self-control, nor going into the ‘silence’, or life itself. But heretofore their practice has been our ancestors, by blood and spirit, are numbered breathing like a filthy, crazy Yoga. Culture! why among those who failed to “wrest by force” the it’s the soul of knowledge—the essence of right in the main compulsory. Humanity had to be per secuted, starved, .hupti»rl .ih3 o breathhig, ,gxercE-, very things this writer, “W. T.,” decries as un No evolutionist can overlook heredity, nor un ing, praying—had to be forced to develop body, cultured. derestimate it. He believes that every generation soul and wits by using them. All life is education; and time transmutes edu comes in on the shoulders of its predecessors, and The present generation inherits the wisdom cation into culture, “the soul of knowledge, the he fully appreciates the value of good predeces gained through their efforts. Not the least of its essence of right living.” sors. The world’s pride of ancestry is not so inheritance lies in its wits developed to the point Not a human effort but is necessary to the de foolish as it might appear. The more intelligence of seeing that for self-development ten minutes of velopment of the soul of knowledge. Not a Yoga and culture my forbears had the greater my pos voluntary deep breathing is preferable to an all breath, not an hour of silence, not a moment of sibilities. There are no breaks in the law of day chase to save one’s neck; that a half hour of rigid self-control, not a day of hard labor, not a growth or evolution or heredity, though the casual intelligent silence is worth more than the three sound or movement or cry of joy or sorrow or observer often fancies there are. and four hour “wrestlings with the Lord” such rage or despair,—not one but has helped to free Every human being comes into the world as an as our great-grandfather John Wesley—and many the soul of knowledge. Not one could have been “acme of things accomplished” by his ancestors, of his inheritors—practiced regularly. dispensed with without leaving culture less cul and he is an " encloser of things to be" accom Herein lies the great difference between our an tured than it is. plished by himself and his progenitors. cestors and us: They were by conditions com The difference between education and culture But who are my ancestors? Let me tell you pelled to self-culture; whilst we, their inheritors, is the difference between the daily drill at the piano that Ralph W aldo Emerson and Jesus of Nazareth are making intelligent use of it. and the finished musical expression of a Pader are more directly my ancestors than many of those Through evolution we are learning to conserve ewski. Education comes first and without it there whom the world calls my great-grandfathers. energy. Our ancestors spent all their time—per can be no culture. Education is the work of There is a spiritual and mental kinship through force—in half-unconscious physical exercise and TO D A Y ; whilst culture is the soul of well used which we inherit. There are spiritual and mental breathings; we spend a few minutes a day in yesterdays: Why exalt the well used yesterdays relationships to which we all owe far more of our intelligent exercise and breathing, and conserve to the disparagement of Today’s opportunities? goodness and greatness than can be traced to those our forces for mental and spiritual uses. Inheritance is wealth left us by sanguine and of blood tie. In rare instances only do these And without them we should be minus the in spiritual relations gone before. It is capital left spiritual and mental relationships exist within the telligence to do this. Humanity is a solidarity— us, to be increased by just such “wresting by force” line of blood relationship. on the square; and without the work of his an as “W. T.” contemns. W ho is the more valuable The world does well to be proud of its ancestry; cestors none shall be made perfect. to the human race:—he who parades his inherit but it does better when it appreciates its spiritual B ut it is by the work of his ancestors that man ance as he received it or he who adds to it his ancestry. Think you that the poor little waif owes stands on today’s pinnacle. What they learned to own efforts at self-culture? a larger inheritance to the woman who bore it do by labored effort and mainly under compul Don’t be a Chinaman and kow-tow eternally to and deserted it, than to the foster parents who sion, we do by instinct. heredity. Be an Individual and improve heredity. nurtured it in love and wisdom? And it is by man’s work today on this pinnacle, If your inheritance was poor make it better; Our blood relations are not the only relations that his great-grandchildren shall be brought forth if it was good MAKE IT BETTER.

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