IME has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of Nature,—Lords of the Public Domain of Thought. Posterity shall never question their titles. But those, whose fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of unwise men, must soon be as well forgotten as if they had never been. To this great oblivion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they should soon make up their minds to this: well knowing that, as their bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their graves tell no tales of them, so must their names likewise be utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have no longer an individual being among men; but be resolved and incorporated into the universe of thought.
Yes, it is better that men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive, in what they do, than the approbation of men, which is Fame; namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our imperfection; impossible, perhaps, to achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve much,—at times even this victory over himself; being persuaded that fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance of their age; which is true. There is something equally true, yet not so common; namely, that, of these men of genius, the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot suppose that a period of time will ever arrive, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to comprehend them.
And, oh! how majestically they walk in history! some like the sun, “with all his traveling glories round him;” others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colors, as from the trail of pencils!
And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,—not all happy, in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons. Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;—and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,—and the world talks of them, while they sleep!
It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls! And as in the sun’s eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and forever!
Souvenir of Longfellow