LIFE:

THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL.*

GENTLEMEN OF THE LITERARY SOCIETIES:

I have heard it said that of all hearers college students are the most critical; and I believe it is true that of all classes they are the most pitilessly criticised. I have no alma mater to worship, and I do not come to tell you how much wiser and better is mature manhood than youth. Let us rather be mutually generous, for the greatest miracle to man is man.

It is but too common to make college commencements seasons of humiliation to students. Speakers often come to repress your inspirations, to cloud or dissipate your dreams, and to picture to you a life that has no actual type among mortals. They bring the uneasy dreams of the closet to crush the buoyant, blissful dreams of boyhood, and to erect a standard of perfection that weak humanity has never approached. They mercilessly portray youthful follies, as if there had never been boys or follies before; and declare that you must become different from all you are or have been. Fine theories of life, sustained by apparently irresistible logic, demand of you new departures, new ideas, new purposes and new actions, as you assume the new and responsible duties of the transformed existence that is set before you; and almost impassable gulfs are pictured as opposing your advancement to the full stature of useful manhood.

You have often heard of the perfect man. He has been the theme of many eloquent orations to students, but

* Delivered before the Literary Societies of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Penna., August 3, 1870.

unfortunately he has never lived. You have been gravely told of the many obstacles to be overcome to effect successfully the transition from student-life to perfect manlife. The obstacles have never been exaggerated; but it is equally true that your teachers, faultless and reverend as they may seem, have never mastered them, and never will. All the forgotten and unforgotten millions of the past were allied to frailty from their birth; so of all the great, progressive present; and so it will be of all the countless throngs yet to follow us. All have been, are, or will be what those here to-day are-from your honored president to the feeblest freshman-but children of a varied growth.

I come not to complain of your dream-life. When you go hence to begin the battle of the world it must go with you. I know how you would blush to own the ideal achievements with which it brightens your lives, and how pedantic orators affect to despise it. But let me assure you that it is a part of every life—of childhood, of manhood, of ripened years, of withered age; and it is life's crowning mercy to them all. The unlettered heathen bows before its altar, and the most learned are its worshipers. It is the perpetual sunshine of youth. It is the softened bow of promise that ever appears as the wild dreams of youth have vanished; and when childhood kindly comes again to lead the tottering frame gently to the shore it is an unfailing well-spring of happiness. When the ideal ceases to be worshiped life ceases to be tolerable. We read each day the sad story of those from whom hope has fled. Their ideal life was ended-that is all. Their actual life, brought face to face with sin or disappointment—and no angel-dream of a better day-could not be borne, and they passed from among us.

I shall disturb your college dreams somewhat, but it is best that I should. It will be but a passing cloud, and you will welcome your dreams again. I would not have

you cherish the ideal any less, but remember the actual will at times confront you, and dissipate your fondest hopes. Such is the story of every life, and it must be yours. Most of you hope, sooner or later, to be enrolled in the alumni of the college. It is a sweet word to lisp, for it marks an important epoch in each individual history. You will go forth into the world with every avenue to usefulness and distinction open to you. Life will seem long and bright before you. Its prizes will glitter in your dreams. Its ideal flowers will bloom along your ideal pathway. Fame will point to the multitude of names engraven indelibly upon her scroll, and beckon you onward. Illustrious deeds, which are household words, will challenge imitation. Future executives, senators, and commoners must take the places of the present great representative men, and the world must have its line of heroes unbroken. This is the field the ideal brings before you. It is yours to explore. Go gather its laurels, and make new names immortal.

The

But, ere you start, pause with me for a moment. weary traveler in the waste of the burning desert, parched by thirst, is often gladdened by beholding what seems to be a clear, blue lake of water in the distance. Its banks are studded with green verdure, in delightful contrast with the arid plain about him; and its surface broken by refreshing life and beauty. Wild flowers, decked in Nature's most gorgeous hues, fringe its inviting shores. The scene breaks upon the despairing wanderer like some enchantment. Cool shades, fresh waters and fragrant blossoms seem to be but a little in advance of him, and within his reach. His dying courage revives. Hope springs up afresh and reanimates him. Strength takes the place of weakness; his step is quickened, and he presses onward to grasp the priceless boon. He knows that it may be the mirage of the desert-that it may be a cruel delusion, mocking him in his misery-that it may

recede from him as he advances, until finally it takes the wings of solitude and leaves him to despair and death. It may be but the reflected beauties of some far-off, unattainable blessing; but hope reigns in the sweet delusion, and it is joyously welcomed. It may, by the superhuman energy it inspires, carry the dreamer safely across the weird and trackless valley, or it may but lengthen a little the little span of life.

The mirage of life is ever around us all. It paints the bright prospective that crowds before you. It is the happy creation of the ideal; the unfailing source of hopeful effort, and blissful dreams of bountiful rewards. There is no fountain of happiness it cannot make to flow to quicken you. There is no measure of success or distinction it cannot present as attainable. What you most wish it freely offers you, and presses you on to grasp it. And you will go onward, every hoping, ever striving, ever dreaming, until, in the calm evening of your dreams, hope will gently point to the better life beyond.

Think not that the ideal life is to be shunned as a delusion and a snare. Delusive it may be in its promises you cherish most; but it will, nevertheless, be the parent of your sweetest hours. It will lead you to your noblest and best endeavors. It will arm you for the incalculable disappointments and sorrows which beset the most successful lives; for no life escapes the common inheritance of grief. In each some rain must fall; " and those most envied must point to pathways strewn with blasted hopes. Were I empowered to paint your lives before you as they will be, not one of all those present could face the picture, and go hence to battle hopefully. Could I even tell you that you will win high attainments in usefulness and honor; that your lives will be free from marked affliction and adversity, and that the world will wonder at the fullness of your cups of human happiness, the faithful picture would be none the less unwelcome. Could I reach out

into the curtained future, and present before you the wisely hidden panorama of your actual lives; dispel all your bright dreams never to be realized; banish the sunny ideal from your destiny, and send your face to the known, inexorable actual-even those of you to whom fate has been most indulgent would be stricken with despair. Infinite wisdom has given us the ideal to be ever present, as the angel of mercy; and the actual is shut out in the veiled hereafter, until the true life is reached in immortality.

Look back on those who have gone before you, and who, as the world judges, have achieved greatness; what strange lessons the inner history of human achievements teaches! We learn that one Cæsar lives, a thousand are forgot." Again, we see fame cruelly mocking her chosen favorites, and painful wrecks marking the path of distinction. Look how wearily and laboriously names have been made memorable. Dream as you will, none are born to greatness. They may inherit crowns and titles and estates, but true greatness is not the birthright of any one. The ideal tells us pleasing stories of such destinies, but they are unknown in the stubborn actual. Those who have become great have found life well-nigh too short to achieve it.

We have all read and re-read "Gray's Elegy." Its sublimity has made us dwell upon each line to gather the fullness of its beauty. It made one name immortal; but think what long months and years of ceaseless thought were devoted to the work. To mould a single line was at times the task of restless nights and weary days. Decades were numbered between its inception and completion-seven years elapsed after its actual commencement before it was finished; and, when finished, the ideal creation of the author was not realized. He wrote much more, but what of it is remembered? The bitter school of adversity gave to the world the Goldsmith we know.