with
a fine assortment of harmless superstitions of his own manufacture. He
was vain, frivolous, self-absorbed, but he had an eye for the subtleties
of existence that quite escape the average individual. He lived in a
world of mind--alert, active, receptive mind--with a rapid-fire gun in
way of a caustic, biting, scathing vocabulary at his command.

The test of every literary work is time. The trite, the commonplace, and
the irrelevant die and turn to dust. The vital lives. Schopenhauer began
writing in his youth. Neglect, indifference and contempt were his
portion until he was over fifty years of age. His passion for truth was
so repelling that the Mutual Admiration Society refused to record his
name even on its waiting-list. He was of that elect few who early in
life succeed in ridding themselves of the friendship of the many. His
enemies discovered him first, and gave him to the world, and after they
had launched his fame with their charges of plagiarism, pretense,
bombast, insincerity and fraud, he has never been out of the limelight,
and in favor he has steadily grown.

No man was ever more thoroughly denounced than Schopenhauer, but even
his most rabid foe never accused him of buying his way into popular
favor, or bribing the judges who sit on the bookcase.

We admire the man because he is such a sublime egotist--he is so
fearfully honest. We love him because he is so often wrong in his
conclusions: he gives us the joy of putting him straight.

Schopenhauer's writing is never the product of a tired pen and ink
unstirred by the spirit. With him we lose our self-consciousness.

And the man who can make other men forget themselves has conferred upon
the world a priceless boon. Introspection is insanity--to open the
windows and look out is health.

HENRY D. THOREAU

Seeing how all the world's ways came to nought,
And how Death's one decree merged all degrees,
He chose to pass his time with birds and trees,
Reduced his life to sane necessities:
Plain meat and drink and sleep and noble thought.
And the plump kine which waded to the knees
Through the lush grass, knowing the luxuries
Of succulent mouthfuls, had our gold-disease
As much as he, who only Nature sought.

Who gives up much the gods give more in turn:
The music of the spheres for dross of gold;
For o'er-officious cares, flame-songs that burn
Their pathway through the years and never old.
And he w