The world has talked the same nonsense of the duty of children to parents. It has taught this, because parents are larger, and have the brute power to compel obedience to their demands. All the duties are from parents to children,—from those who thoughtlessly, wantonly, to satisfy their own desires, call into conscious being a human life,—send another soul with all its responsibilities out on the great, wide sea, to be tossed and buffeted and torn, until, mangled and dead, it is thrown out upon the sands to bleach.
But after all, whether it was wise or unwise, just or unjust, we have been placed upon the earth as sentient beings and charged with the responsibilities of life; and practical philosophy asks the question, what does it mean, and how shall we take the journey which a higher power has decreed that we shall make?
The poet and the dreamer and the copy book have told us much of the meaning of life. We often repeat these lessons to make ourselves believe them true. When we feel a doubt casting its shadow across our path, we read them once again to drive the doubt away; and yet, in spite of all, we know absolutely nothing of the scheme, or whether there is any kind of plan. We are only whistlers passing through a graveyard, with our ears tied close and our eyes shut fast. It would surely be as well to step boldly up and read the inscription on the marble tomb and then walk round and look at the vacant, grinning space upon the other side, calmly waiting to record our name.
Measured by the philosophy of to-day, Omar Khayyam was a pessimist; he was not gifted with second sight. He saw no spooks and ghosts, and he would not look out into the midnight, and declare that his eyes discerned a glorious rainbow, bright with fresh colors and unbounded hopes. All the proud promises and brave assumptions and false theories of the world were to him a mockery and a sham. The mysticisms of religion and philosophy alike were hollow and bare. The “jarring sects” and quibbling doctors, with their fine-spun webs, were worthy the attention only of children and professors. This is the way he put them down:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same door wherein I went.
While it is true that in the common meaning Omar was a pessimist, still this word, like many others, is rarely well defined. All men understand the uncertainties of life, the disappointments and troubles of existence, and the infinitesimal time that is reluctantly parceled out to each mortal from the eternity that had no beginning and will have no end. The pessimist looks at all the hurry and rush, the torment and strife, the ambitions and disappointments that are the common lot, and can see no prizes so tempting as rest and peace. He makes the most of what he has, and looks contentedly forward to the long sleep that brings relief at last.
Omar Khayyam was not deceived by all the glitter and bustle of the world. He saw the stage from behind the curtain, as well as from the circle before the scenes. He looked on the great surging mass of men, ever pulling and pushing, striving and trying, working and fighting, as if all eternity was theirs in which to build, and all unmindful of the silent bookkeeper, who could be deceived by no false entries, and ever remembered to demand his dues. Of life he said: