The North Carolina Historical Review

The North Carolina Historical Review Volume XXII July, 1945 Dumber 3 WHITE UNTO HARVEST 1 By Hubeet McNeill Poteat We may be very sure that there are in North Carolina many solid, substantial citizens who when they note in their newspapers the announcement of the annual meeting of the State Literary and Historical Association will be moved to satirical reflection and utterance. They will remark with fine scorn that the highbrows are at it again, that the professors have escaped from their cages, that the lobby of the Sir Walter is sizzling with four- dollar words, that Fayetteville Street is no place for ordinary folks, that there's an exhibit of bald domes in Raleigh, that Wake County air seems unusually stuffy, that such a gathering entails a scandalous waste of time and money, and so forth and so forth and so forth. The wretched professor, indeed, has long been a particular and favorite target of editors, cartoonists, and wags. He is habitually presented as a sort of vague and ineffectual booby, wandering abstractedly about, with glasses perched pre- cariously on the end of his nose and a mortarboard teetering on his head ; or as an absent-minded and wholly unrealistic imbecile, utterly unconcerned with actual life; or as a sort of wretched mole, burrowing about in his musty books and never coming up into the light of day. His title, too, is often an object of mirth—only partly because it has been borrowed by astrologers, ventriloquists, and performers upon the xylophone. Whether we like to do so or not, we may as well admit frankly that this sarcasm, directed at us as an Association or as indi- vidual professors and devotees of culture, is not without founda- tion. I therefore choose to depart this evening from the mos maiorum—the precedent set by my predecessors—and to address you very practically, on the subject, "White Unto Harvest." 1 Presidential address delivered at the annual session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, Raleigh, December 7, 1944. [ 263 ] 264 The North Carolina Historical Review A year ago, when you did me the high honor of electing me to the presidency of this Association, the distinguished editor of The News and Observer graciously invited me to make that journal the organ of the Association. I thanked him, period; there was nothing further I could do. During the year I have suggested to our able secretary and to the members of the execu- tive committee that in my opinion this Association and its affili- ated societies ought to exert a more active and positive influence upon the life of our great state ; that we should not content ourselves with an annual meeting, no matter how learned or bril- liant the papers presented for our edification may be ; that it is high time for us to descend from the remote and inaccessible Everests of our alleged intellectual aristocracy, that we may walk the streets and the byways and minister to the needs of men. In 44 B.C. Marcus Tullius Cicero published his essay On the Nature of the Gods. In the introduction he writes thus : "If any- body would like to know what consideration impelled me to literary tasks of this sort so late in life, I can explain the matter to him with the greatest ease. ... I decided that for the good of the state, philosophy ought to be presented to our citizens, for I felt that the honor and reputation of our city were vitally con- cerned in having matters at once so important and so stimulating set forth in the Latin language." Late in the same year he published his De Officiis, character- ized by Frederick the Great as "the finest work on morals which ever has been or ever can be written," and recently described by President Butler as "the best textbook for the statesman of to- day and tomorrow." I quote a striking passage: "Let us agree, therefore, that those duties which arise out of fellowship are in more intimate accord with nature than those that owe their origin to cognition. This can be proved as follows : if it should fall to the lot of the wise man to live, in affluence, a life of leis- urely contemplation of things thoroughly worthy of his pains- taking consideration, but if, meanwhile, he were absolutely de- nied the society of his fellow men, he would perish. That wisdom, then, which I have called the highest wisdom is the knowledge of things human and divine, in which is included ; White Unto Harvest 265 the apprehension of the fellowship of gods and men and the ties which unite man to man. If these ties are strong, and their strength cannot be questioned, then those duties which spring from fellowship must be loftiest of all. For the contemplation and comprehension of nature, if one's life be destitute of action, is, as it were, defective and inchoate. Now the fairest consummation of action is attained in the bringing of happiness to mankind; it is therefore vitally connected with the bonds of fellowship which unite the human race. Ergo, communitas must be placed on a higher level than cognitio. Every good man be- lieves this and proves his belief by his deeds. For there is nobody so strenuously occupied in the investigation and observation of nature but that, in the midst of his reflections upon matters in the highest degree worthy of his thoughtful attention, if tidings were suddenly brought him of some impending national disaster, or of the need or danger of a relative or a friend, he would put down and cast from him all those intellectual exercises, even though he fancied he was numbering the stars or calculating the magnitude of the universe." But, say some of us in reply to Cicero, we love the gracious domains of art and literature, of music and history and philosophy, and we would walk therein undisturbed by the howling world and its demands ; we would slake our thirst at quiet, brim- ming fountains, for we believe with Keats that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty/ -that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know we find the ways of men filled with unseemly din and strife, and our spirits are disquieted within us; we much prefer the lovely gardens where the great minds of all the ages pour out their treasures upon us and we are at peace. So, precisely, said the Epicureans—whom Cicero heartily despised for their categorical and dogmatic egocentrism, their ataraxia—complete and utter freedom from care and worry and from the importunate claims of altruism and patriotism alike. Those erudite pundits who write fat books on the history of philosophy are fond of setting Epicureans against Stoics, like two opposing football lines, usually to the great advantage of the Stoics. But whereas the Epicureans, strangely enough, displayed genuine missionary zeal in the propagation of their system, the 266 The North Carolina Historical Review Stoics were content to discuss virtue, the supremacy of the will, obedience to the inner voice, within their own learned societies, with little or no interest in Fayetteville Street. Thus all their eloquent diatribes against slavery got the slaves exactly nowhere, for, following time-honored philosophical precedent, they began at the top and stayed at the top. Compare that procedure with t{ie method of the Man of Nazareth who went straight to the oppressed, exploited dregs and pariahs of humanity with the sublime doctrine of the brotherhood of man. We need not won- der that, as St. Mark tells us, "the common people heard him gladly/' Moreover, His example and His teaching are still, after the passage of the long centuries, the hope and inspiration of our wretched, war-racked world, while Zeno and Chrysippus and Cleanthes and Epicurus are names in textbooks. Well, here we are in this pleasant room. We have come from homes of culture, blessed with carefully chosen libraries; from college and university campuses, where we revel in stimulating intellectual fellowship; from the secluded sanctum of the his- torian, the poet, the novelist, the playwright, the philosopher, where Pallas Athene, Apollo, and the Muses speak softly and persuasively to our eager ears. Presently we shall return to our ivory (or Gothic) towers, grateful for the blessing of com- munion with kindred spirits, and happily immerse ourselves once more in nirvana—like the gods in Tennyson's Lucretius, who dwell in The lucid interspace of world and world, Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar Their sacred, everlasting calm! Pray do not misunderstand me : I revere as profoundly as you those towering souls who have forsaken the joys of human society in their utter devotion to scientific research; to their sacrifices at the fragrant altars of literary and artistic inspiration ; to patient, self-obliterating meditation upon the high mys- teries that lie beyond the reach of our human vision. I am trying to say to you that we who know and love these giants who, in Lucretius's great phrase, have ranged "far beyond the flaming White Unto Harvest 267 bastions of the universe," must acknowledge and strive more fully to discharge the inescapable obligation that is ours to medi- ate to our less fortunate brothers and sisters the priceless treasures which have stirred and warmed, inspired and guided our own minds and hearts.

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