Energetic beauty is a necessity to the man who is under the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of refinement he is only too much disposed to make light of the strength that he retained in his state of rude savagism.
Thus the spirit of the time is seen to waver between perversion and savagism, between what is unnatural and mere nature, between superstition and moral unbelief, and it is often nothing but the equilibrium of evils that sets bounds to it. Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times? I do not anticipate this stricture, but rather another that I have proved too much by it.
President Jefferson once wrote to John Adams as follows: "I thought there was little danger in his making proselytes from the habits and comforts they had learned from the whites, to the hardships and privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did. But his followers increased until the British thought him worth corrupting, and found him corruptible."
The great extent of her two continents gave the freest scope for the complete development of whatever capacity for civilization her people had; and yet savagism continued here for many centuries after it had ceased in Europe.
Upon the slain beasts, wild fruits and grains they existed. They hunted and fished, and although the passions of friendship, love and ambition implanted in their souls by their Creator shone out at times, at other times they quarrelled like the brutes they slaughtered. This state of crude society is named savagism.
Energetic beauty is a necessity to the man who is under the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of refinement he is only too much disposed to make light of the strength that he retained in his state of rude savagism.
Of the legends, many are far from answering to their reputed Oriental source; their barbarism and indelicacy represent the state of Europe. The outrage of Kronos on his father Uranos speaks of the savagism of the times; the story of Dionysos tells of man-stealing and piracy; the rapes of Europa and Helen, of the abduction of women.
Energetic beauty is a necessity to the man who is under the indulgent sway of taste, for in his state of refinement he is only too much disposed to make light of the strength that he retained in his state of rude savagism.
Thus the spirit of the time is seen to waver between perversion and savagism, between what is unnatural and mere nature, between superstition and moral unbelief, and it is often nothing but the equilibrium of evils that sets bounds to it. Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times? I do not anticipate this stricture, but rather another that I have proved too much by it.
I concluded, from all this, that he was a visionary, enveloped in their antiquities, and vainly endeavoring to lead back his brethren to the fancied beatitudes of their golden age. I thought there was little danger of his making many proselytes from the habits and comforts they had learned from the whites, to the hardships and privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did.
Word Of The Day