From of old, a thousand
thoughts, in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man: What
am I? What _is_ this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men name
Universe? What is Life; what is Death? What am I to believe? What am I
to do? The grim rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy
solitudes answered not. The great Heaven rolling silent overhead, with
its blue-glancing stars, answered not. There was no answer. The man's
own soul, and what of God's inspiration dwelt there, had to answer!
It is the thing which all men have to ask themselves; which we too have
to ask, and answer. This wild man felt it to be of _infinite_ moment;
all other things of no moment whatever in comparison. The jargon of
argumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine
of Arab Idolatry: there was no answer in these. A Hero, as I repeat, has
this first distinction, which indeed we may call first and last, the
Alpha and Omega of his whole Heroism, that he looks through the shows of
things into _things_. Use and wont, respectable hearsay, respectable
formula: all these are good, or are not good. There is something behind
and beyond all these, which all these must correspond with, be the image
of, or they are--_Idolatries_; "bits of black wood pretending to be
God"; to the earnest soul a mockery and abomination. Idolatries never so
gilded waited on by heads of the Koreish, will do nothing for this man.
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