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                            A PERSIAN PEARL
                            AND OTHER ESSAYS

                                   BY
                           CLARENCE S. DARROW

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                                CHICAGO
                             C. L. RICKETTS
                                MDCCCCII

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                               Copyright
                                  1899
                           Clarence S. Darrow

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                                CONTENTS


                  1 A Persian Pearl                 9

                  2 Walt Whitman                   43

                  3 Robert Burns                   77

                  4 Realism in Literature and Art 107

                  5 The Skeleton in the Closet    139




                          A · PERSIAN · PEARL


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                            A PERSIAN PEARL


The reader and observer is constantly reminded that “there is nothing
new under the sun.” We no sooner find some rare gem of thought or
expression than we discover that it is only an old diamond, polished
anew, perhaps, and offered as an original stone. Neither the reader nor
the writer is always aware that the gem is antique and the setting alone
is new.

The rich mine where the treasure was first found was exhausted in a few
brief years, and then became like all the dust of all the worlds; but
the gem polished and worn by time and use, ever sparkles and shines,
regardless of the fact that the miner’s name is forgotten and his work
alone remains. Thus Nature, the great communist, provides that the
treasures of genius, like her own bountiful gifts of sunlight, rain and
air, shall remain the common property of all her children while any
dwell upon the earth.

Current literature seems to point to the ascendancy of what is often
termed the “pessimistic school.” In one sense this philosophy uncrowns
man and places him in his proper relation to the great universe, of
which he is so small a part; but while it makes less of man, it expects
less from him, and covers his deeds with that cloak of charity, which is
the legitimate garment of the great Unknown. But these modern
reflections on life and its problems, its purposes and lessons, are far
from new. Without venturing a guess as to their origin or age, we take
up that old Persian Pearl,—the “Rubaiyat,” and find on its musty pages
the great thoughts and searching questions, which have ever returned to
man since the intellect was born, and which will still remain unanswered
when the last word shall have been spoken, and the race have run its
course.

It is nearly eight hundred years since Omar Khayyam, the Persian
astronomer, philosopher, and poet, mused and wrote upon the uncertainty
of life, the eternity of time and the mutability of human things. Since
the rose bush was planted above his grave, the material world has been
almost made anew. Art and literature have given countless treasures to
the earth, and science has solved its mysteries without end. But the
riddles of existence—the problems of life, the deep heart of the
universe, the cause and purpose and end of all, are mysteries as dark
and inscrutable as they were eight centuries ago. To quote from the
Rubaiyat:

            There was the Door to which I found no Key;
            There was the Veil thro’ which I could not see:
              Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
            There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.

As Egypt is the newest country visited by the traveler, so this old
book, burnished by the genius of FitzGerald, comes to us as the latest
and profoundest word upon the infinite mysteries which over-shadow human
life. It seems to be the last word, rather than one of the first, spoken
to the perplexed soul of man, calling him from the vain pursuit of
vanities, and asking what all of it is about.

To an egoistic, boasting age and nation, this message, coming from a far
off time and a distant land, reminds us that all wisdom is garnered
neither now nor here. This Persian Pearl remained unpolished for more
than seven hundred years. It was left for Edward FitzGerald carefully
and patiently to burnish up the gem, and make it the thing of beauty
that we know.

It may be that research and study would reveal much of the personal
traits and private life of the great Persian philosopher, whose fame has
so outlived his clay, but with these we can have no concern. It is not
important to know his parents, or whether he had a wife or children, or
cattle or lands. All of these are gone and only his work remains. True,
we cannot but reflect on the personality of the poet in whose brain
these great thoughts were born, but we can know the man only by knowing
his works. Some there are who stand at a distance and view the acts of
the imperfect beings, who at the best stumble and grope along the
uncertain path between the cradle and