A Twentieth Century Idealist

The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Twentieth Century Idealist, by Henry Pettit
View from Pinnacle on Roof of Cathedral—the Delectable Mountains beyond. Among the Himalayas. Supposed highest summits on the earth’s surface. Elevation, 29,000 feet. From near Sundookphoo, 1885.
HENRY PETTIT
Under the Surface of the Ordinary Life Lie Great Mysteries— The Real Part of Man Is in His Ideals
THE GRAFTON PRESS
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1905, BY HENRY PETTIT
“Nature herself is an idea of the mind and is never presented to the senses. She lies under the veil of appearances, but is herself never apparent. To the art of the ideal is lent, or, rather, absolutely given, the privilege to grasp the spirit of all, and bind it in a corporeal form.”
“Art has for its object not merely to afford a transient pleasure, to excite to a momentary dream of liberty; its aim is to make us absolutely free. And this is accomplished by awakening, exercising, and perfecting in us a power to remove to an objective distance the sensible world (which otherwise only burdens us as rugged matter, and presses us down with a brute influence); to transform it into the free working of our spirit, and thus acquire a dominion over the material by means of ideas. For the very reason also that true art requires somewhat of the objective and real, it is not satisfied with a show of truth: it rears its ideal edifice on truth itself—on the solid and deep foundation of Nature.”
—From Schiller’s The Use of the Chorus in Tragedy .
A TWENTIETH CENTURY IDEALIST
THERE certainly is a subtle charm from personal intercourse with those who seek a comprehensive view of life, and strive to live according to their own ideals. People who live upon broader lines than their neighbors are apt to be interesting from that fact alone, and the charm becomes quite fascinating when these ideals take form and they practice what they profess. Even if they do not succeed according to our notions, and fail to grasp until late in life some of the profound concepts which underlie the manifest workings of the mind of nature, the effort on their part counts in their favor—their actions speak louder than words.