An innocent Epicurism, tempered by religious asceticism of a mild
kind--such is the philosophy of _The Task_, and such the ideal embodied
in the portrait of the happy man with which it concludes. Whatever may
be said of the religious asceticism, the Epicurism required a
corrective to redeem it from selfishness and guard it against
self-deceit. This solitary was serving humanity in the best way he
could, not by his prayers, as in one rather fanatical passage he
suggests, but by his literary work; he had need also to remember that
humanity was serving him. The newspaper through which he looks out so
complacently into the great "Babel," has been printed in the great
Babel itself, and brought by the poor postman, with his "spattered
boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks," to the recluse sitting
comfortably by his fireside. The "fragrant lymph" poured by "the fair"
for their companion in his cosy seclusion, has been brought over the
sea by the trader, who must encounter the moral dangers of a trader's
life, as well as the perils of the stormy wave.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124