While we sat thus conversing, our boatmen went down along the beach,
and around a little point that ran out into the lake, to bathe. They
were jolly, but uncultivated men, given to rudeness and profanity of
speech when out of our immediate presence, and by themselves, and we
heard from them, while they were splashing and struggling in the
water, expressions somewhat inelegant as well as profane.
"I have often thought," said Spalding, as we listened to the rude and
sometimes profane speech of our men, "how vast the influence which
circumstances or accident, over which men have no control, have upon
their conduct and destiny in this world, if not in the next. The poet
has well said,
'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean bear;
And many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'
"These rude men are but testifying to the great truth, that man is the
creature, in a greater or less degree, of circumstances; that he is
great or small, polished or rude, wise or simple, according to the
accident of his birth, or the surroundings in the midst of which his
journey of life lays. True, there _are_ intellects that will work
themselves into position, men who will hew their way upward in spite
of the difficulties which beset them, as there are others who will
plunge down to degradation and dishonor, in defiance of tender
rearing, of education, of association, and all the allurements to an
upward career that can be presented to the human understanding.
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