The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine online

X SOME METHODS OF ATTAINMENT

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When the mental beauties of life, when the spiritual verities are sacrificed by self-surrender to and domination by the material, one of the heavy penalties that inexorable law imposes is the drying up, so to speak, of the finer human perceptions--the very faculties of enjoyment. It presents to the world many times, and all unconscious to himself, a stunted, shrivelled human being--that eternal type that the Master had in mind when he said: "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee." He whose sole employment or even whose primary employment becomes the building of bigger and still bigger barns to take care of his accumulated grain, becomes incapable of realising that life and the things that pertain to it are of infinitely more value than barns, or houses, or acres, or stocks, or bonds, or railroad ties. These all have their place, all are of value; but they can never be made the life. A recent poem by James Oppenheim presents a type that is known to nearly every one:[B]

I heard the preacher preaching at the funeral:
He moved the relatives to tears telling them of
the father, husband, and friend that was dead:
Of the sweet memories left behind him:
Of a life that was good and kind.

I happened to know the man,
And I wondered whether the relatives would
have wept if the preacher had told the truth:
Let us say like this:

"The only good thing this man ever did in his life,
Was day before yesterday:
_He died_....
But he didn't even do that of his own volition....
He was the meanest man in business on Manhattan Island,
The most treacherous friend, the crudest and stingiest husband,
And a father so hard that his children left home as soon as they were old enough....
Of course he had divinity: everything human has:
But he kept it so carefully hidden away that he might just as well not have had it....

"Wife! good cheer! now you can go your own way and live your own life!
Children, give praise! you have his money: the only good thing he ever gave you....
Friends! you have one less traitor to deal with....
This is indeed a day of rejoicing and exultation!
Thank God this man is dead!"

An unknown enjoyment and profit to him is the world's great field of literature, the world's great thinkers, the inspirers of so many through all the ages. That splendid verse by Emily Dickinson means as much to him as it would to a dumb stolid ox:

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust,
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust;
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book! What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

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