Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS
WALT WHITMAN : THE POET OF JOY
A spirit of melancholy pervades modern society. It
is not superficial or ephemeral. It has got into the blood
and penetrated to the bones and marrow. The modern
man habilitates himself in black, and hates gay colours
as the owl hates the light of the sun.
There is an almost complete absence of joyfulness in
our literature. What do our books tell of life ? Do they
represent existence as a boon ? Do they bless the world
and declare it a good thing to be alive ? No. Our
intellectual masters and pastors take a lugubrious view
of the situation. They are overwhelmed with a sense
either of the nothingness of things, or of the vastness of
the weight which destiny has laid on our shoulders.
What light-hearted but imaginative and intelligent person
can read Carlyle or Ruskin without rejecting all gaietd
de cceur as a sin and disgrace in this world of awful eternal
verities. These doleful prophets, with minds so
constituted that in the broad sunshine they must see
darkness, are our accepted teachers. Once a person
accustoms himself to the reflection that in all beauty
something ugly lies hidden, the thought of ugliness
will be presented every day and every moment. Ruskin
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