This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ... They have no opportunity of developing their minds; and their hearts are like untapped wells whose waters never feel the warmth of the sunshine or catch a glimpse of flowers dancing in the wind. They know nothing of poetry, music and art. To them these things are as if they did not exist. They live and die without ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ... They have no opportunity of developing their minds; and their hearts are like untapped wells whose waters never feel the warmth of the sunshine or catch a glimpse of flowers dancing in the wind. They know nothing of poetry, music and art. To them these things are as if they did not exist. They live and die without knowing what they mean. Their artistic faculties lie buried like diamonds in an unworked mine. In field, factory and mine, men exhaust themselves in physical effort and sink almost to the level of beasts. There is little in their lives to differentiate them from beasts. They are like caged larks that cannot sing, and painters who have become blind in youth. In childhood, Beauty, like a silver moon, unveils her face for a moment and then is lost to sight forevermore. In Burns, the creative force of poetry was too strong to be crushed by toil, but the price had to be paid. In giving poetry its wings he drove prosperity from his fields. The poet in him lived but the farmer died. His farm was too unfruitful to nourish both. He tried to burn the candle at both ends and failed. Poverty took him for her own, and he began to be in want. While poetry, by its exceptional force, survived in Burns, it has been utterly crushed in hosts of others, and they have died with all their music in them. They were exhausted with toil and could not bring poetry to the birth. Their souls had to die to save their bodies. The men bowed their heads, like oxen, to the yoke of labour; and became as beasts of burden. They looked up at the stars no more but kept their eyes on the mud at their feet. I have known miners live a week without seeing the sun. It was winter, and they went to work in the dark and came out of the coal-pits after the sun had set. Only when they worked at...
Read Less
