Spake at last that strange sage whose eyes are as starlight to the darkness of common minds, and whose vision seeks the abode of Tau. “Since we but dream we live,” said Wing, “let us live to dream well. In reason are the pillars of our temple; in imagination is its worship. Happy are ye who, out of the toils of vain science and hard action, take rest in the bower of fancy, the pavilion of dreams, the garden of poetry, or roam the royal hunting-grounds of imagination to capture logic in the chase of pleasure, and find wisdom by seeking delight. Thrice fortunate ye,” continued the star-eyed Wing, taking another whiff from his pipe of opium, “who, when the caprices of power have driven you from doctrine, can retreat upon your dreams. Life is a fiction; let us dream that it is the truth.” Such was the curious doctrine of that wonderful man, whose visions of demons and the powers of the air have so often filled the imperial stage, and who died in the frenzy of his powerful mind.
The refined mandarin Bo—he who, for his reticence, had been entrusted with so many affairs of state—heard all these words of the learned, and spoke not. “All men and things,” he said to himself, “serve him who listens, and resist him who talks. Shrewd is he who gains without giving.” Immersed in these thoughts, the silent mandarin could only nod his head to a remark of the mandarin Sho, that life was a business of profit and loss, and the best speculations were always practical. What man can foretell his fate? The frank and candid Sho, whose manners concealed his purpose, lost his head for speculating with the king's money. The secret Bo, through his love of silence, forgot to send his kinsman Bang a physician who would have saved his life, and so was disinherited, and died a beggar.
The thinkers of Lo-Tea, having taken the measure of these and other events subsequent to the great dialogue of the Dragon's Bower, could not avoid the boast that their humble philosophy was better than a proud one; whereupon the infuriated statesman Kung sent a number of them into exile.
When the old philosopher of Chow heard of these sayings and doings, he murmured: “Half-truths are contradicted, whole truths are verified. There is no courage without right fear; no good silence without true speech; no aspiration without reverence; no dignity without humility; no good without affection; and philosophy has no room for a cold heart and a vain mind. But life is not contradicted, though lives are slain. Tau reigns.”
O sages! how by thinking shall ye add a foot to your stature? And how shall it avail ye when a brick, as it were, dropped down by a tornado centre-wise, so to speak, on a shaven head, shall fracture your systems of philosophy? What withstands the accidents of fate save the divine Truth, which is no accident?
New Publications.
Life and Doctrine of S. Catherine of Genoa. Translated from the Italian. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 418.
The Catherines are a wonderful group among the female saints. The one of Genoa was a married lady, and this circumstance will undoubtedly make her Life doubly interesting to those who are in the same condition, and sometimes are tempted to envy those who live in the cloister. The remarkable Life of this saint, accompanied by her Spiritual Dialogues, now first published in English, will have an additional interest, in the eyes of all its readers, on account of the introduction by F. Hecker, which is dated Annecy, Oct. 7, 1873. The translation was made several years ago, and left, in the state of a rough draught, by a lady well known for her high culture and virtues—the late Mrs. Ripley. It has been lately revised with care, and made as accurate as possible.
The work itself has long been very famous, and ranks next to the writings of S. Teresa among the spiritual treatises of female authors. Its spirituality is of a very high order, suited for those who, either from necessity or by their own free choice, are trying to climb the rugged heights of Mount Carmel.