Wednesday, February 08, 2023
Enlightening the World
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), "Earth's Holocaust," Mosses from an Old Manse (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin Company, 1882), pp. 430-456 (at 445):
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"See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!" cried a fellow, who did not seem to be a lover of literature. "Now we shall have a glorious blaze!"
"That's just the thing!" said a modern philosopher. "Now we shall get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world indeed!"
