15 March :
15 Mar 1894 : Letter to Hales Sisters - I am wearied of lecturing and
all that nonsense. This mixing with hundreds of varieties of the human
animal has disturbed me. I will tell you what is to my taste; I cannot
write, and I cannot speak, but I can think deeply, and when I am heated,
can speak fire. It should be, however, to a select, a very select —
few. Let them, if they will, carry and
scatter my ideas broadcast — not I. This is only a just division of
labour. The same man never succeeded both in thinking and in scattering
his thoughts. A man should be free to think, especially spiritual
thoughts.
Just because this assertion of independence, this proving
that man is not a machine, is the essence of all religious thought, it
is impossible to think it in the routine mechanical way. It is this
tendency to bring everything down to the level of a machine that has
given the West its wonderful prosperity. And it is this which has driven
away all religion from its doors. Even the little that is left, the
West has reduced to a systematic drill.
I am really not "cyclonic"
at all. Far from it. What I want is not here, nor can I longer bear this
"cyclonic" atmosphere. This is the way to perfection, to strive to be
perfect, and to strive to make perfect a few men and women. My idea of
doing good is this: to evolve out a few giants, and not to strew pearls
before swine, and so lose time, health, and energy.
15 Mar 1896 : Eve: Lecture at Temple Beth El, Detroit, MI THE IDEAL OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION (CW 9:488-89) -
15 Mar 1900 : Eve: Second Applied Psychology lecture at SF
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