LITTLE 



JOURNEYS 



I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and 



self-contain'd. 

 I stand and look at them long and long. 



They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 

 They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 

 They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. 

 Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of own- 

 ing things, 

 Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of 



years ago, 

 Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. 



But we should note this : Whitman merely wanted to 

 live with animals, he did not desire to become one. 

 He was n't willing to forfeit knowledge ; and a part of 

 that knowledge was that man has some things yet to 

 learn from the patient brute. 



Much of man's misery has come from his persistent 

 questioning. 



The book of Genesis is certainly right when it tells us 

 that man's troubles came from a desire to know. The 

 fruit of the tree of knowledge is bitter, and man's di- 

 gestive apparatus has been ill-conditioned to digest it. 

 But still we are grateful, and good men never forget 

 that it was woman who gave the fruit to man men 

 learn nothing alone. In the Garden of Eden, with every- 

 thing supplied, man was an animal, but when he was 

 turned out and had to work, strive, struggle and suffer, 

 he began to grow. 



The Volunteers of the Far East have told us that man's 

 deliverance from the evils of life must come through 

 killing desire ; we will reach Nirvana rest through 

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