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- 8705
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 8667
- text
- be but a cheat and a dream."
"You a little surprise me," answered the cosmopolitan; "for, from an
occasional profundity in you, and also from your allusions to a profound
work on the theology of Plato, it would seem but natural to surmise
that, if you are the originator of any philosophy, it must needs so
partake of the abstruse, as to exalt it above the comparatively vile
uses of life."
"No uncommon mistake with regard to me," rejoined the other. Then meekly
standing like a Raphael: "If still in golden accents old Memnon murmurs
his riddle, none the less does the balance-sheet of every man's ledger
unriddle the profit or loss of life. Sir," with calm energy, "man came
into this world, not to sit down and muse, not to befog himself with
vain subtleties, but to gird up his loins and to work. Mystery is in the
morning, and mystery in the night, and the beauty of mystery is
everywhere; but still the plain truth remains, that mouth and purse must
be filled. If, hitherto, you have supposed me a visionary, be
undeceived. I am no one-ideaed one, either; no more than the seers
before me. Was not Seneca a usurer? Bacon a courtier? and Swedenborg,
though with one eye on the invisible, did he not keep the other on the
main chance? Along with whatever else it may be given me to be, I am a
man of serviceable knowledge, and a man of the world. Know me for such.
And as for my disciple here," turning towards him, "if you look to find
any soft Utopianisms and last year's sunsets in him, I smile to think
how he will set you right. The doctrines I have taught him will, I
trust, lead him neither to the mad-house nor the poor-house, as so many
other doctrines have served credulous sticklers. Furthermore," glancing
upon him paternally, "Egbert is both my disciple and my poet. For poetry
is not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act, and, in the
latter way, is by any one to be found anywhere, when in useful action
sought. In a word, my disciple here is a thriving young merchant, a
practical poet in the West India trade. There," presenting Egbert's hand
to the cosmopolitan, "I join you, and leave you." With which words, and
without bowing, the master withdrew.
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