how is your journey going?

I heard a quote while watching The National Parks: Americas Best Idea.  This PBS series is sublime.  During the manic expansion and development of the U.S. in the late 1800’s  James Bryce made the following observations.

“Gentlemen, why in heaven’s name this haste? You have time enough. [...] Ages and ages lie before you. Why sacrifice the present to the future, fancying that you will be happier when your fields teem with wealth and your cities with people? In Europe we have cities wealthier and more populous than yours, and we are not happy. You dream of your posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age, and envy those who first burst into this silent, splendid nature, who first lifted up their axes upon these tall trees, and lined these waters with busy wharves. Why, then, seek to complete in a few decades what the other nations of the world took thousands of years over in the older continents? [...] Why, in your hurry to subdue and utilize nature, squander her splendid gifts? [...] Why hasten the advent of that threatening day when the vacant spaces of the continent shall all have been filled, and the poverty or discontent of the older States shall find no outlet? You have opportunities such as mankind has never had before, and may never have again. Your work is great and noble; it is done for a future longer and vaster than our conceptions can embrace. Why not make its outlines and beginnings worthy of these destinies, the thought of which gilds your hopes and elevates your purposes?”

The full text is below in context of the whole chapter.

chapter 121: The Temper of the West – Viscount James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, vol. 2 [1888]

March 24th, 2010 | filed in Inspiration, Musings, Uncategorized
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