Burns is the best corrective of this
that I know--the best, that is, outside of the Bible itself.
Indeed the more one thinks about it the clearer it is that we might
throw away all other books but the Bible, and still have all our
mental and moral needs ministered to by those who through all time
have thought and felt most highly; for the Bible is the record of the
loftiest of all human expression, not to mention its divine origin.
Put your Bible, your Shakespeare, your Burns in your bundle when you
go for a journey, and you are intellectually and spiritually equipped.
Let a man have the courage of his thought--I repeat it. Courage is
where we fail, not intellect. We hear much about intellect, about
"brains," as the rather coarse expression is. It is not that which is
needed; it is courage.
Enter into conversation the next time you are at the club, or in a
hotel, or restaurant, or wherever you meet men in intellectual
hospitality, on almost any subject you may choose, you will be amazed
at the information, the original thought, the keen analysis, even the
constructive ideas of most of the men there.
One of the most fertile minds I have ever known is nothing but an
unsuccessful lawyer in a country town; yet his intellect is as
tropical, and as accurate, too, as was Napoleon's, or Gould's.
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