I quite agree, therefore, with Lord Iddesleigh as to the charm of desultory reading, but the wider the field the more important that we should benefit by the very best books in each class. Not that we need confine ourselves to them, but that we should commence with them, and they will certainly lead us on to others. There are of course some books which we must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But these are exceptions. As regards by far the larger number, it is probably better to read them quickly, dwelling only on the best and most important passages. In this way, no doubt, we shall lose much, but we gain more by ranging over a wider field. We may, in fact, I think, apply to reading Lord Brougham's wise dictum as regards education, and say that it is well to read everything of something, and something of everything. In this way only we can ascertain the bent of our own tastes, for it is a general, though not of course an invariable, rule, that we profit little by books which we do not enjoy.
Every one, however, may suit himself. The variety is endless.
Not only does a library contain "infinite riches in a little room," [3] but we may sit at home and yet be in all quarters of the earth. We may travel round the world with Captain Cook or Darwin, with Kingsley or Ruskin, who will show us much more perhaps than ever we should see for ourselves. The world itself has no limits for us; Humboldt and Herschel will carry us far away to the mysterious nebulae, beyond the sun and even the stars: time has no more bounds than space; history stretches out behind us, and geology will carry us back for millions of years before the creation of man, even to the origin of the material Universe itself. Nor are we limited to one plane of thought. Aristotle and Plato will transport us into a sphere none the less delightful because we cannot appreciate it without some training.
Comfort and consolation, refreshment and happiness, may indeed be found in his library by any one "who shall bring the golden key that unlocks its silent door." [4] A library is true fairyland, a very palace of delight, a haven of repose from the storms and troubles of the world. Rich and poor can enjoy it equally, for here, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We may make a library, if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth, a garden of Eden without its one drawback; for all is open to us, including, and especially, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for which we are told that our first mother sacrificed all the Pleasures of Paradise. Here we may read the most important histories, the most exciting volumes of travels and adventures, the most interesting stories, the most beautiful poems; we may meet the most eminent statesmen, poets, and philosophers, benefit by the ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy the grandest creations of human genius.
[1] Macaulay.
[2] Address, Liverpool College, 1873.
[3] Marlowe.
[4] Matthews.
"All round the room my silent servants waitMy friends in every season, bright and dim,Angels and SeraphimCome down and murmur to me, sweet and low,And spirits of the skies all come and goEarly and Late."
And yet too often they wait in vain. One reason for this is, I think, that people are overwhelmed by the crowd of books offered to them.
In old days books were rare and dear. Now on the contrary, it may be said with greater truth than ever that
"Words are things, and a small drop of ink,Falling like dew upon a thought, producesThat which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
Our ancestors had a difficulty in procuring them. Our difficulty now is what to select. We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure—not only lest we should even now fall into the error of the Greeks, and suppose that language and definitions can be instruments of investigation as well as of thought, but lest, as too often happens, we should waste time over trash. There are many books to which one may apply, in the sarcastic sense, the ambiguous remark said to have been made to an unfortunate author, "I will lose no time in reading your book."
There are, indeed, books and books, and there are books which, as Lamb said, are not books at all. It is wonderful how much innocent happiness we thoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says that calamities sent by heaven may be avoided, but from those we bring on ourselves there is no escape.
Many, I believe, are deterred from attempting what are called stiff books for fear they should not understand them; but there are few who need complain of the narrowness of their minds, if only they would do their best with them.
In reading, however, it is most important to select subjects in which one is interested. I remember years ago consulting Mr. Darwin as to the selection of a course of study. He asked me what interested me most, and advised me to choose that subject. This, indeed, applies to the work of life generally.
I am sometimes disposed to think that the readers of the next generation will be, not our lawyers and doctors, shopkeepers and manufacturers, but the laborers and mechanics. Does not this seem natural? The former work mainly with their head; when their daily duties are over the brain is often exhausted, and of their leisure time much must be devoted to air and exercise. The laborer and mechanic, on the contrary, besides working often for much shorter hours, have in their work-time taken sufficient bodily exercise, and could therefore give any leisure they might have to reading and study. They have not done so as yet, it is true; but this has been for obvious reasons. Now, however, in the first place, they receive an excellent education in elementary schools, and in the second have more easy access to the best books.
Ruskin has observed that he does not wonder at what men suffer, but he often wonders at what they lose. We suffer much, no doubt, from the faults of others, but we lose much more by our own ignorance.
"If," says Sir John Herschel, "I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious principles—but as a taste, and instrument, and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books."
It is one thing to own a library; it is quite another to use it wisely. I have often been astonished how little care people devote to the selection of what they read. Books, we know, are almost innumerable; our hours for reading are, alas! very few. And yet many people read almost by hazard. They will take any book they chance to find in a room at a friend's house; they will buy a novel at a railway-stall if it has an attractive title; indeed, I believe in some cases even the binding affects their choice. The selection is, no doubt, far from easy. I have often wished some one would recommend a list of a hundred good books. If we had such lists drawn up by a few good guides they would be most useful. I have indeed sometimes heard it said that in reading every one must choose for himself, but this reminds me of the recommendation not to go into the water till you can swim.
In the absence of such lists I have picked out the books most frequently mentioned with approval by those who have referred directly or indirectly to the pleasure of reading, and have ventured to include some which, though less frequently mentioned, are especial favorites of my own. Every one who looks at the list will wish to suggest other books, as indeed I should myself, but in that case the number would soon run up. [1]
I have abstained, for obvious reasons, from mentioning works by living authors, though from many of them—Tennyson, Ruskin, and others—I have myself derived the keenest enjoyment; and I have omitted works on science, with one or two exceptions, because the subject is so progressive.
I feel that the attempt is over bold, and I must beg for indulgence, while hoping for criticism; indeed one object which I have had in view is to stimulate others more competent far than I am to give us the advantage of their opinions.
Moreover, I must repeat that I suggest these works rather as those which, as far as I have seen, have been most frequently recommended, than as suggestions of my own, though I have slipped in a few of my own special favorites.
In any such selection much weight should, I think, be attached to the general verdict of mankind. There is a "struggle for existence" and a "survival of the fittest" among books, as well as among animals and plants. As Alonzo of Aragon said, "Age is a recommendation in four things—old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old books to read." Still, this can not be accepted without important qualifications. The most recent books of history and science contain or ought to contain, the most accurate information and the most trustworthy conclusions. Moreover, while the books of other races and times have an interest from their very distance, it must be admitted that many will still more enjoy, and feel more at home with, those of our own century and people.
Yet the oldest books of the world are remarkable and interesting on account of their very age; and the works which have influenced the opinions, or charmed the leisure hours, of millions of men in distant times and far-away regions are well worth reading on that very account, even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve their reputation. It is true that to many, such works are accessible only in translations; but translations, though they can never perhaps do justice to the original, may yet be admirable in themselves. The Bible itself, which must stand first in the list, is a conclusive case.
At the head of all non-Christian moralists, I must place theEnchiridionof Epictetus, certainly one of the noblest books in the whole of literature; it has, moreover, been admirably translated. With Epictetus, [2] I think must come Marcus Aurelius. TheAnalectsof Confucius will, I believe, prove disappointing to most English readers, but the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men constitutes in itself a peculiar interest. TheEthicsof Aristotle, perhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so profoundly influenced our views of morality. TheKoran, like theAnalectsof Confucius, will to most of us derive its principal interest from the effect it has exercised, and still exercises, on so many millions of our fellow-men. I doubt whether in any other respect it will seem to repay perusal, and to most persons probably certain extracts, not too numerous, would appear sufficient.
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers have been collected in one volume by Wake. It is but a small one, and though I must humbly confess that I was disappointed, they are perhaps all the more curious from the contrast they afford to those of the Apostles themselves. Of the later Fathers I have included only theConfessionsof St. Augustine, which Dr. Pusey selected for the commencement of theLibrary of the Fathers, and which, as he observes, has "been translated again and again into almost every European language, and in all loved;" though Luther was of opinion that St. Augustine "wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith." But then Luther was no great admirer of the Father. St. Jerome, he says, "writes, alas! very coldly;" Chrysostom "digresses from the chief points;" St. Jerome is "very poor;" and in fact, he says, "the more I read the books of the Fathers the more I find myself offended;" while Renan, in his interesting autobiography, compared theology to a Gothic Cathedral, "elle a la grandeur, les vides immenses, et le peu de solidité."
Among other devotional works most frequently recommended are Thomas à Kempis'Imitation of Christ, Pascal'sPensées, Spinoza'sTractatus Theologico-Politicus, Butler'sAnalogy of Religion, Jeremy Taylor'sHoly Living and Dying, Bunyan'sPilgrim's Progress, and last, not least, Keble's beautifulChristian Year.
Aristotle and Plato again stand at the head of another class. ThePoliticsof Aristotle, and Plato'sDialogues, if not the whole, at any rate thePhaedo, theApology, and theRepublic, will be of course read by all who wish to know anything of the history of human thought, though I am heretical enough to doubt whether the latter repays the minute and laborious study often devoted to it.
Aristotle being the father, if not the creator, of the modern scientific method, it has followed naturally—indeed, almost inevitably—that his principles have become part of our very intellectual being, so that they seem now almost self-evident, while his actual observations, though very remarkable—as, for instance, when he observes that bees on one journey confine themselves to one kind of flower—still have been in many cases superseded by others, carried on under more favorable conditions. We must not be ungrateful to the great master, because his lessons have taught us how to advance.
Plato, on the other hand, I say so with all respect, seems to me in some cases to play on words: his arguments are very able, very philosophical, often very noble; but not always conclusive; in a language differently constructed they might sometimes tell in exactly the opposite sense. If this method has proved less fruitful, if in metaphysics we have made but little advance, that very fact in one point of view leaves theDialoguesof Socrates as instructive now as ever they were; while the problems with which they deal will always rouse our interest, as the calm and lofty spirit which inspires them must command our admiration. Of theApologyand thePhaedoespecially it would be impossible to speak too gratefully.
I would also mention Demosthenes'De Coronâ, which Lord Brougham pronounced the greatest oration of the greatest of orators; Lucretius, Plutarch's Lives, Horace, and at least theDe Officiis,De Amicitiâ, andDe Senectuteof Cicero.
The great epics of the world have always constituted one of the most popular branches of literature. Yet how few, comparatively, ever read Homer or Virgil after leaving school.
TheNibelungenlied, our great Anglo-Saxon epic, is perhaps too much neglected, no doubt on account of its painful character. Brunhild and Kriemhild, indeed, are far from perfect, but we meet with few such "live" women in Greek or Roman literature. Nor must I omit to mention Sir T. Malory'sMorte d'Arthur, though I confess I do so mainly in deference to the judgment of others.
Among the Greek tragedians I include Aeschylus, if not all his works, at any ratePrometheus, perhaps the sublimest poem in Greek literature, and theTrilogy(Mr. Symonds in hisGreek Poetsspeaks of the "unrivalled majesty" of theAgamemnon, and Mark Pattison considered it "the grandest work of creative genius in the whole range of literature"); or, as Sir M. E. Grant Duff recommends, thePersae; Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus), Euripides (Medea), and Aristophanes (The KnightsandClouds); unfortunately, as Schlegel says, probably even the greatest scholar does not understand half his jokes; and I think most modern readers will prefer our modern poets.
I should like, moreover, to say a word for Eastern poetry, such as portions of theMaha BharataandRamayana(too long probably to be read through, but of which Talboys Wheeler has given a most interesting epitome in the first two volumes of hisHistory of India); theShah-nameh, the work of the great Persian poet Firdusi; Kalidasa'sSakuntala, and the Sheking, the classical collection of ancient Chinese odes. Many I know, will think I ought to have included Omar Khayyam.
In history we are beginning to feel that the vices and vicissitudes of kings and queens, the dates of battles and wars, are far less important than the development of human thought, the progress of art, of science, and of law, and the subject is on that very account even more interesting than ever. I will, however, only mention, and that rather from a literary than a historical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon (theAnabasis), Thucydides, and Tacitus (Germania); and of modern historians, Gibbon'sDecline and Fall("the splendid bridge from the old world to the new"), Hume'sHistory of England, Carlyle'sFrench Revolution, Grote'sHistory of Greece, and Green'sShort History of the English People.
Science is so rapidly progressive that, though to many minds it is the most fruitful and interesting subject of all, I cannot here rest on that agreement which, rather than my own opinion, I take as the basis of my list. I will therefore only mention Bacon'sNovum Organum, Mill'sLogic, and Darwin'sOrigin of Species; in Political Economy, which some of our rulers do not now sufficiently value, Mill, and parts of Smith'sWealth of Nations, for probably those who do not intend to make a special study of political economy would scarcely read the whole.
Among voyages and travels, perhaps those most frequently suggested areCook'sVoyages, Humboldt'sTravels, and Darwin'sNaturalist'sJournal; though I confess I should like to have added many more.
Mr. Bright not long ago specially recommended the less known American poets, but he probably assumed that every one would have read Shakespeare, Milton (Paradise Lost,Lycidas,Comusand minor poems), Chaucer, Dante, Spencer, Dryden, Scott, Wordsworth, Pope, Byron, and others, before embarking on more doubtful adventures.
Among other books most frequently recommended are Goldsmith'sVicar of Wakefield, Swift'sGulliver's Travels, Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe,The Arabian Nights,Don Quixote, Boswell'sLife of Johnson, White'sNatural History of Selborne, Burke's Select Works (Payne), the Essays of Bacon, Addison, Hume, Montaigne, Macaulay, and Emerson, Carlyle'sPast and Present, Smiles'Self-Help, and Goethe'sFaustandAutobiography.
Nor can one go wrong in recommending Berkeley'sHuman Knowledge, Descartes'Discours sur la Méthode, Locke'sConduct of the Understanding, Lewes'History of Philosophy; while, in order to keep within the number one hundred, I can only mention Moliere and Sheridan among dramatists. Macaulay considered Marivaux'sLa Vie de Mariannethe best novel in any language, but my number is so nearly complete that I must content myself with English: and will suggest Thackeray (Vanity FairandPendennis), Dickens (PickwickandDavid Copperfield), G. Eliot (Adam BedeorThe Mill on the Floss), Kingsley (Westward Ho!), Lytton (Last Days of Pompeii), and last, not least, those of Scott, which indeed constitute a library in themselves, but which I must ask, in return for my trouble, to be allowed, as a special favor, to count as one.
To any lover of books the very mention of these names brings back a crowd of delicious memories, grateful recollections of peaceful home hours, after the labors and anxieties of the day. How thankful we ought to be for these inestimable blessings, for this numberless host of friends who never weary, betray, or forsake us!
Works by Living Authors are omitted.
The BibleThe Meditations of Marcus AureliusEpictetusAristotle's EthicsAnalects of ConfuciusSt. Hilaire's "Le Bouddha et sa religion"Wake's Apostolic FathersThos. à Kempis' Imitation of ChristConfessions of St. Augustine (Dr. Pusey)The Koran (portions of)Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-PoliticusComte's Catechism of Positive PhilosophyPascal's PenséesButler's Analogy of ReligionTaylor's Holy Living and DyingBunyan's Pilgrim's ProgressKeble's Christian Year
* * * * *
Plato's Dialogues; at any rate, the Apology, Crito, and PhaedoXenophon's MemorabiliaAristotle's PoliticsDemosthenes' De Corona.Cicero's De Officiis, De Amicitia, and De SenectutePlutarch's LivesBerkeley's Human KnowledgeDescartes' Discours sur la MethodeLocke's On the Conduct of the Understanding
* * * * *
HomerHesiodVirgilMaha Bharata |Epitomized in Talboys Wheeler'sRamayana |History of India, vols. i. and ii.The ShahnamehThe NibelungenliedMalory's Morte d'Arthur
* * * * *
The ShekingKalidasa's Sakuntala or The Lost RingAeschylus' PrometheusTrilogy of OrestesSophocles' OEdipusEuripides' MedeaAristophanes' The Knights and CloudsHorace
* * * * *
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (perhaps in Morris' edition; or, ifexpurgated, in C. Clarke's, or Mrs. Haweis')ShakespeareMilton's Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus, and the shorter poemsDante's Divina CommediaSpenser's Fairie QueenDryden's PoemsScott's PoemsWordsworth (Mr. Arnold's selection)Pope's Essay on CriticismEssay on ManRape of the LockBurnsByron's Childe HaroldGray
* * * * *
HerodotusXenophon's Anabasis and MemorabiliaThucydidesTacitus' GermaniaLivyGibbon's Decline and FallHume's History of EnglandGrote's History of GreeceCarlyle's French RevolutionGreen's Short History of EnglandLewes' History of Philosophy
* * * * *
Arabian NightsSwift's Gulliver's TravelsDefoe's Robinson CrusoeGoldsmith's Vicar of WakefieldCervantes' Don QuixoteBoswell's Life of JohnsonMolièreSchiller's William TellSheridan's The Critic, School for Scandal, and The RivalsCarlyle's Past and Present
* * * * *
Bacon's Novum OrganumSmith's Wealth of Nations (part of)Mill's Political EconomyCook's VoyagesHumboldt's TravelsWhite's Natural History of SelborneDarwin's Origin of SpeciesNaturalist's VoyageMill's Logic
* * * * *
Bacon's EssaysMontaigne's EssaysHume's EssaysMacaulay's EssaysAddison's EssaysEmerson's EssaysBurke's Select WorksSmiles' Self-Help
* * * * *
Voltaire's Zadig and MicromegasGoethe's Faust, and AutobiographyThackeray's Vanity FairPendennisDickens' PickwickDavid CopperfieldLytton's Last Days of PompeiiGeorge Eliot's Adam BedeKingsley's Westward Ho!Scott's Novels
[1] Several longer lists have been given; for instance, by Comte,Catechism, of Positive Philosophy; Pycroft,Course of English Reading; Baldwin,The Book Lover; Perkins,The Best Reading; and by Mr. Ireland,Books for General Readers.
[2] It is much to be desired that some one would publish a selection from the works of Seneca.
"They seem to take away the sun from the world who withdraw friendship from life; for we have received nothing better from the Immortal Gods, nothing more delightful."—CICERO.
Most of those who have written in praise of books have thought they could say nothing more conclusive than to compare them to friends.
"All men," said Socrates, "have their different objects of ambition—horses, dogs, money, honor, as the case may be; but for his own part he would rather have a good friend than all these put together." And again, men know "the number of their other possessions, although they might be very numerous, but of their friends, though but few, they were not only ignorant of the number, but even when they attempted to reckon it to such as asked them, they set aside again some that they had previously counted among their friends; so little did they allow their friends to occupy their thoughts. Yet in comparison with what possession, of all others, would not a good friend appear far more valuable?"
"As to the value of other things," says Cicero, "most men differ; concerning friendship all have the same opinion. What can be more foolish than, when men are possessed of great influence by their wealth, power, and resources, to procure other things which are bought by money—horses, slaves, rich apparel, costly vases—and not to procure friends, the most valuable and fairest furniture of life?" And yet, he continues, "every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends." In the choice, moreover, of a dog or of a horse, we exercise the greatest care: we inquire into its pedigree, its training and character, and yet we too often leave the selection of our friends, which is of infinitely greater importance—by whom our whole life will be more or less influenced either for good or evil—almost to chance.
It is no doubt true, as theAutocrat of the Breakfast Tablesays, that all men are bores except when we want them. And Sir Thomas Browne quaintly observes that "unthinking heads who have not learnt to be alone, are a prison to themselves if they be not with others; whereas, on the contrary, those whose thoughts are in a fair and hurry within, are sometimes fain to retire into company to be out of the crowd of themselves." Still I do not quite understand Emerson's idea that "men descend to meet." In another place, indeed, he qualifies the statement, and says, "Almost all people descend to meet." Even so I should venture to question it, especially considering the context. "All association," he adds, "must be a compromise, and, what is worse, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other." What a sad thought! Is it really so; need it be so? And if it were, would friends be any real advantage? I should have thought that the influence of friends was exactly the reverse: that the flower of a beautiful nature would expand, and the colors grow brighter, when stimulated by the warmth and sunshine of friendship.
It has been said that it is wise always to treat a friend, remembering that he may become an enemy, and an enemy, remembering that he may become a friend; and whatever may be thought of the first part of the adage, there is certainly much wisdom in the latter. Many people seem to take more pains and more pleasure in making enemies, than in making friends. Plutarch, indeed, quotes with approbation the advice of Pythagoras "not to shake hands with too many," but as long as friends are well chosen, it is true rather that
"He who has a thousand friends,Has never a one to spare,And he who has one enemy,Will meet him everywhere,"
and unfortunately, while there are few great friends there is no little enemy.
I guard myself, however, by saying again—As long as they are well chosen. One is thrown in life with a great many people who, though not actively bad, though they may not wilfully lead us astray, yet take no pains with themselves, neglect their own minds, and direct the conversation to petty puerilities or mere gossip; who do not seem to realize that conversation may by a little effort be made most instructive and delightful, without being in any way pedantic; or, on the other hand, may be allowed to drift into a mere morass of muddy thought and weedy words. There is hardly anyone from whom we may not learn much, if only they will trouble themselves to tell us. Nay, even if they teach us nothing, they may help us by the stimulus of intelligent questions, or the warmth of sympathy. But if they do neither, then indeed their companionship, if companionship it can be called, is mere waste of time, and of such we may well say, "I do desire that we be better strangers."
Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our making a wise choice of our companions and friends. If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us down; if well they will raise us up. Yet many people seem to trust in this matter to the chapter of accident. It is well and right, indeed, to be courteous and considerate to every one with whom we are brought into contact, but to choose them as real friends is another matter. Some seem to make a man a friend, or try to do so, because he lives near, because he is in the same business, travels on the same line of railway, or for some other trivial reason. There cannot be a greater mistake. These are only, in the words of Plutarch, "the idols and images of friendship."
To be friendly with every one is another matter; we must remember that there is no little enemy, and those who have ever really loved any one will have some tenderness for all. There is indeed some good in most men. "I have heard much," says Mr. Nasmyth in his charming autobiography, "about the ingratitude and selfishness of the world. It may have been my good fortune, but I have never experienced either of these unfeeling conditions." Such also has been my own experience.
"Men talk of unkind hearts, kind deedsWith coldness still returning.Alas! the gratitude of menHas oftener left me mourning."
I cannot, then, agree with Emerson that "we walk alone in the world. Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere in other regions of the universal power souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and which we can love."
No doubt, much as worthy friends add to the happiness and value of life, we must in the main depend on ourselves, and every one is his own best friend or worst enemy.
Sad, indeed, is Bacon's assertion that "there is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals, which was wont to be magnified. That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may comprehend the one to the other." But this can hardly be taken as his deliberate opinion, for he elsewhere says, "but we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness." Not only, he adds, does friendship introduce "daylight in the understanding out of darkness and confusion of thoughts;" it "maketh a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests:" in consultation with a friend a man "tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation."… "But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth, for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love."
With this last assertion I cannot altogether concur. Surely even strangers may be most interesting! and many will agree with Dr. Johnson when, describing a pleasant evening, he summed it up—"Sir, we had a good talk."
Epictetus gives excellent advice when he dissuades from conversation on the very subjects most commonly chosen, and advises that it should be on "none of the common subjects—not about gladiators, nor horse-races, nor about athletes, nor about eating or drinking, which are the usual subjects; and especially not about men, as blaming them;" but when he adds, "or praising them," the injunction seems to me of doubtful value. Surely Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that "when thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth. For nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are exhibited in the morals of those who live with us and present themselves in abundance, as far as is possible. Wherefore we must keep them before us." Yet how often we know merely the sight of those we call our friends, or the sound of their voices, but nothing whatever of their mind or soul.
We must, moreover, be as careful to keep friends as to make them. If every one knew what one said of the other, Pascal assures us that "there would not be four friends in the world." This I hope and think is too strong, but at any rate try to be one of the four. And when you have made a friend, keep him. Hast thou a friend, says an Eastern proverb, "visit him often, for thorns and brushwood obstruct the road which no one treads." The affections should not be mere "tents of a night."
Still less does Friendship confer any privilege to make ourselves disagreeable. Some people never seem to appreciate their friends till they have lost them. Anaxagoras described the Mausoleum as the ghost of wealth turned into stone.
"But he who has once stood beside the grave to look back on the companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotentthenare the wild love and the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust." [1]
Death, indeed, cannot sever friendship. "Friends," says Cicero, "though absent, are still present; though in poverty they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead they are alive." This seems a paradox, yet it there not much truth in his explanation? "To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and will always live; for I love the virtue of that man, and that worth is not yet extinguished…. Assuredly of all things that either fortune or time has bestowed on me, I have none which I can compare with the friendship of Scipio."
If, then, we choose our friends for what they are, not for what they have, and if we deserve so great a blessing, then they will be always with us, preserved in absence, and even after death, in the "amber of memory."
[1] Ruskin.
Each day is a little life.
All other good gifts depend on time for their value. What are friends, books, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we have not time for their enjoyment? Time is often said to be money, but it is more-it is life; and yet many who would cling desperately to life, think nothing of wasting time.
Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord Sherbrooke's translation,
"The moments we foregoEternity itself cannot retrieve."
And, in the words of Dante,
"For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves."
Not that a life of drudgery should be our ideal. Far from it. Time spent in innocent and rational enjoyments, in healthy games, in social and family intercourse, is well and wisely spent. Games not only keep the body in health, but give a command over the muscles and limbs which cannot be overvalued. Moreover, there are temptations which strong exercise best enables us to resist.
It is the idle who complain they cannot find time to do that which they fancy they wish. In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is wanting: and the advantage of leisure is mainly that we may have the power of choosing our own work, not certainly that it confers any privilege of idleness.
"Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal." [1]
For it is not so much the hours that tell, as the way we use them.
"Circles are praised, not that excelIn largeness, but th'exactly framed;So life we praise, that doth excelNot in much time, but acting well." [2]
"Idleness," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the greatest prodigality in the world; it throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of art or nature."
Life must be measured rather by depth than by length, by thought and action rather than by time. "A counted number of pulses only," says Pater, "is given to us of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to form habits, for habit is relation to a stereotyped world:… while all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge, that seems, by a lifted horizon, to set the spirit free for a moment."
I would not quote Lord Chesterfield as generally a safe guide, but there is certainly much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his son with reference to time. "Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost; as, on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest."
And again, "It is astonishing that any one can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that small portion of time which is allotted to us in the world … Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it."
"Are you in earnest? seize this very minute,What you can do, or think you can, begin it." [3]
There is a Turkish proverb that the Devil tempts the Idle man, but the Idle man tempts the Devil. I remember, says Hilliard, "a satirical poem, in which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his bait to the tastes and temperaments of his prey; but the idlers were the easiest victims, for they swallowed even the naked hook."
The mind of the idler indeed preys upon itself. "The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on—and grinds itself away." [4]
It is not work, but care, that kills, and it is in this sense, I suppose, that we are told to "take no thought for the morrow." To "consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" It would indeed be a mistake to suppose that lilies are idle or imprudent. On the contrary, plants are most industrious, and lilies store up in their complex bulbs a great part of the nourishment of one year to quicken the growth of the next. Care, on the other hand, they certainly know not. [5]
"Hours have wings, fly up to the author of time, and carry news of our usage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or slacken his pace. The misspents of every minute are a new record against us in heaven. Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them with better reports, and not suffer them to fly away empty, or laden with dangerous intelligence. How happy is it when they carry up not only the messages, but the fruits of good, and stay with the Ancient of Days to speak for us before His glorious throne!" [6]
Time is often said to fly; but it is not so much the time that flies; as we that waste it, and wasted time is worse than no time at all; "I wasted time," Shakespeare makes Richard II. say, "and now doth time waste me."
"He that is choice of his time," says Jeremy Taylor, "will also be choice of his company, and choice of his actions; lest the first engage him in vanity and loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be a throwing his time and himself away, and a going back in the accounts of eternity."
The life of man is seventy years, but how little of this is actually our own. We must deduct the time required for sleep, for meals, for dressing and undressing, for exercise, etc., and then how little remains really at our own disposal!
"I have lived," said Lamb, "nominally fifty years, but deduct from them the hours I have lived for other people, and not for myself, and you will find me still a young fellow."
The hours we live for other people, however, are not those that should be deducted, but rather those which benefit neither oneself nor any one else; and these, alas! are often very numerous.
"There are some hours which are taken from us, some which are stolen from us, and some which slip from us." [7] But however we may lose them, we can never get them back. It is wonderful, indeed, how much innocent happiness we thoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says that calamities sent by heaven may be avoided, but from those we bring on ourselves there is no escape.
Some years ago I paid a visit to the principal lake villages of Switzerland in company with a distinguished archaeologist, M. Morlot. To my surprise I found that his whole income was £100 a year, part of which, moreover, he spent in making a small museum. I asked him whether he contemplated accepting any post or office, but he said certainly not. He valued his leisure and opportunities as priceless possessions far more than silver or gold, and would not waste any of his time in making money.
Time indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little life. Just think of our advantages here in London! We have access to the whole literature of the world; we may see in our National Gallery the most beautiful productions of former generations, and in the Royal Academy and other galleries the works of the greatest living artists. Perhaps there is no one who has ever found time to see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet consider what it contains; or rather, what does it not contain? The most gigantic of living and extinct animals; the marvellous monsters of geological ages; the most beautiful birds, shells, and minerals; precious stones and fragments from other worlds; the most interesting antiquities; curious and fantastic specimens illustrating different races of men; exquisite gems, coins, glass, and china; the Elgin marbles; the remains of the Mausoleum; of the temple of Diana of Ephesus; ancient monuments of Egypt and Assyria; the rude implements of our predecessors in England, who were coeval with the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, the musk-ox, and the mammoth; and beautiful specimens of Greek and Roman art.
Suffering may be unavoidable, but no one has any excuse for being dull. And yet some peoplearedull. They talk of a better world to come, while whatever dulness there may be here is all their own. Sir Arthur Helps has well said: "What! dull, when you do not know what gives its loveliness of form to the lily, its depth of color to the violet, its fragrance to the rose; when you do not know in what consists the venom of the adder, any more than you can imitate the glad movements of the dove. What! dull, when earth, air, and water are all alike mysteries to you, and when as you stretch out your hand you do not touch anything the properties of which you have mastered; while all the time Nature is inviting you to talk earnestly with her, to understand her, to subdue her, and to be blessed by her! Go away, man; learn something, do something, understand something, and let me hear no more of your dulness."
[1] Shakespeare.
[2] Waller.
[3]Faust.
[4] Luther.
[5] The word used [Greek: merimnaesaete] is translated in Liddell and Scott "to be anxious about, to be distressed in mind, to be cumbered with many cares."
[6] Milton.
[7] Seneca.
"I am a part of all that I have seen."—TENNYSON.
I am sometimes disposed to think that there are few things in which we of this generation enjoy greater advantages over our ancestors than in the increased facilities of travel; but I hesitate to say this, not because our advantages are not great, but because I have already made the same remark with reference to several other aspects of life.
The very word "travel" is suggestive. It is a form of "travail"—excessive labor; and, as Skeat observes, it forcibly recalls the toil of travel in olden days. How different things are now!
It is sometimes said that every one should travel on foot "like Thales, Plato, and Pythagoras"; we are told that in these days of railroads people rush through countries and see nothing. It may be so, but that is not the fault of the railways. They confer upon us the inestimable advantage of being able, so rapidly and with so little fatigue, to visit countries which were much less accessible to our ancestors. What a blessing it is that not our own islands only—our smiling fields and rich woods, the mountains that are full of peace and the rivers of joy, the lakes and heaths and hills, castles and cathedrals, and many a spot immortalized in the history of our country:—not these only, but the sun and scenery of the South, the Alps the palaces of Nature, the blue Mediterranean, and the cities of Europe, with all their memories and treasures, are now brought within a few hours of us.
Surely no one who has the opportunity should omit to travel. The world belongs to him who has seen it. "But he that would make his travels delightful must first make himself delightful." [1]
According to the old proverb, "the fool wanders, the wise man travels." Bacon tells us that "the things to be seen and observed are the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of justice while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures, when any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go."
But this depends on the time at our disposal, and the object with which we travel. If we can stay long in any one place Bacon's advice is no doubt excellent; but for the moment I am thinking rather of an annual holiday, taken for the sake of rest and health; for fresh air and exercise rather than for study. Yet even so, if we have eyes to see we cannot fail to lay in a stock of new ideas as well as a store of health.
We may have read the most vivid and accurate description, we may have pored over maps and plans and pictures, and yet the reality will burst on us like a revelation. This is true not only of mountains and glaciers, of palaces and cathedrals, but even of the simplest examples.
For instance, like every one else, I had read descriptions and seen photographs and pictures of the Pyramids. Their form is simplicity itself. I do not know that I could put into words any characteristic of the original for which I was not prepared. It was not that they were larger; it was not that they differed in form, in color, or situation. And yet, the moment I saw them, I felt that my previous impression had been but a faint shadow of the reality. The actual sight seemed to give life to the idea.
Every one who has been in the East will agree that a week of oriental travel brings out, with more than stereoscopic effect, the pictures of patriarchal life as given us in the Old Testament. And what is true of the Old Testament is true of history generally. To those who have been in Athens or Rome, the history of Greece or Italy becomes far more interesting; while, on the other hand, some knowledge of the history and literature enormously enhances the interest of the scenes themselves.
Good descriptions and pictures, however, help us to see much more than we should perhaps perceive for ourselves. It may even be doubted whether some persons do not derive a more correct impression from a good drawing or description, which brings out the salient points, than they would from actual, but unaided, inspection. The idea may gain in accuracy, in character, and even in detail, more than it misses in vividness. But, however this may be, for those who cannot travel, descriptions and pictures have an immense interest; while to those whohavetraveled, they will afford an inexhaustible delight in reviving the memories of beautiful scenes and interesting expeditions.
It is really astonishing how little most of us see of the beautiful world in which we live. Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me that while traveling on a scientific mission in the Rocky Mountains, he was astonished to meet an aged French Abbé, and could not help showing his surprise. The Abbé observed this, and in the course of conversation explained his presence in that distant region.
"You were," he said, "I easily saw, surprised to find me here. The fact is, that some months ago I was very ill. My physicians gave me up: one morning I seemed to faint and thought that I was already in the arms of the Bon Dieu. I fancied one of the angels came and asked me, 'Well, M. l'Abbé how did you like the beautiful world you have just left?' And then it occurred to me that I who had been all my life preaching about heaven, had seen almost nothing of the world in which I was living. I determined therefore, if it pleased Providence to spare me, to see something of this world; and so here I am."
Few of us are free, however much we might wish it, to follow the example of the worthy Abbé. But although it may not be possible for us to reach the Rocky Mountains, there are other countries nearer home which most of us might find time to visit.
Though it is true that no descriptions can come near the reality, they may at least persuade us to give ourselves this great advantage. Let me then try to illustrate this by pictures in words, as realized by one of our most illustrious countrymen; I will select references to foreign countries only, not that we have not equal beauties here, but because everywhere in England one feels oneself at home.
The following passage fromTyndall's Hours of Exercise in the Alps, is almost as good as an hour in the Alps themselves:
"I looked over this wondrous scene toward Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin, the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, the Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks which seem to join in the celebration of the risen day. I asked myself, as on previous occasions, How was this colossal work performed? Who chiselled these mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of the earth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, ever mighty-with the vigor of a thousand worlds still within him-the real sculptor was even then climbing up the eastern sky. It was he who raised aloft the waters which cut out these ravines; it was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain slopes, thus giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is he who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty monuments, rolling them gradually seaward, sowing the seeds of continents to be; so that the people of an older earth may see mould spread, and corn wave over the hidden rocks which at this moment bear the weight of the Jungfrau." And the Alps lie within twenty-four hours of London!
Tyndall's writings also contain many vivid descriptions of glaciers; those "silent and solemn causeways … broad enough for the march of an army in line of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in a buried city." [2] I do not, however, borrow from him or from any one else any description of glaciers, for they are so unlike anything else, that no one who has not seen, can possibly visualize them.
The history of European rivers yet remains to be written, and is most interesting. They did not always run in their present courses. The Rhone, for instance, appears to have been itself a great traveler. At least there seems reasons to believe that the upper waters of the Valais fell at first into the Danube, and so into the Black Sea; subsequently joined the Rhine and the Thames, and so ran far north over the plains which once connected the mountains of Scotland and of Norway—to the Arctic Ocean; and to have only comparatively of late years adopted their present course into the Mediterranean.
But, however this may be, the Rhine of Germany and the Rhine of Switzerland are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaffhausen seems to alter the whole character of the river, and no wonder. "Stand for half an hour," says Ruskin, "beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star;… and how ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless crushing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud; … their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away."
But much as we may admire the majestic grandeur of a mighty river, either in its eager rush or its calmer moments, there is something which fascinates even more in the free life, the young energy, the sparkling transparence, and merry music of smaller streams.
"The upper Swiss valleys," as the same great Seer says, "are sweet with perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steepest places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the winds take them, with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of fountains … until at last … they find their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently; with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass blades, and looking only like their shadow, but presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the day was too short for them to get down the hill."
How vividly does Symonds bring before us the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, which he loves so well, and the contrast between the scenery of the North and the South.
"In northern landscapes the eye travels through vistas of leafy boughs to still, secluded crofts and pastures, where slow-moving oxen graze. The mystery of dreams and the repose of meditation haunt our massive bowers. But in the South, the lattice-work of olive boughs and foliage scarcely veils the laughing sea and bright blue sky, while the hues of the landscape find their climax in the dazzling radiance of the sun upon the waves, and the pure light of the horizon. There is no concealment and no melancholy here. Nature seems to hold a never-ending festival and dance, in which the waves and sunbeams and shadows join. Again, in northern scenery, the rounded forms of full-foliaged trees suit the undulating country, with its gentle hills and brooding clouds; but in the South the spiky leaves and sharp branches of the olive carry out the defined outlines which are everywhere observable through the broader beauties of mountain and valley and sea-shore. Serenity and intelligence characterize this southern landscape, in which a race of splendid men and women lived beneath the pure light of Phoebus, their ancestral god. Pallas protected them, and golden Aphrodite favored them with beauty. Olives are not, however, by any means the only trees which play a part in idyllic scenery. The tall stone pine is even more important…. Near Massa, by Sorrento, there are two gigantic pines so placed that, lying on the grass beneath them, one looks on Capri rising from the sea, Baiae, and all the bay of Naples sweeping round to the base of Vesuvius. Tangled growths of olives, and rose-trees fill the garden-ground along the shore, while far away in the distance pale Inarime sleeps, with her exquisite Greek name, a virgin island on the deep.
"On the wilder hills you find patches of ilex and arbutus glowing with crimson berries and white waxen bells, sweet myrtle rods and shafts of bay, frail tamarisk and tall tree-heaths that wave their frosted boughs above your head. Nearer the shore the lentisk grows, a savory shrub, with cytisus and aromatic rosemary. Clematis and polished garlands of tough sarsaparilla wed the shrubs with clinging, climbing arms; and here and there in sheltered nooks the vine shoots forth luxuriant tendrils bowed with grapes, stretching from branch to branch of mulberry or elm, flinging festoons on which young loves might sit and swing, or weaving a lattice-work of leaves across the open shed. Nor must the sounds of this landscape be forgotten,—sounds of bleating flocks, and murmuring bees, and nightingales, and doves that moan, and running streams, and shrill cicadas, and hoarse frogs, and whispering pines. There is not a single detail which a patient student may not verify from Theocritus.
"Then too it is a landscape in which sea and country are never sundered. The higher we climb upon the mountain-side the more marvellous is the beauty of the sea, which seems to rise as we ascend, and stretch into the sky. Sometimes a little flake of blue is framed by olive boughs, sometimes a turning in the road reveals the whole broad azure calm below. Or, after toiling up a steep ascent we fall upon the undergrowth of juniper, and lo! a double sea, this way and that, divided by the sharp spine of the jutting hill, jewelled with villages along its shore, and smiling with fair islands and silver sails."
To many of us the mere warmth of the South is a blessing and a delight.The very thought of it is delicious. I have read over again and againWallace's graphic description of a tropical sunrise—of the "sun of theearly morning that turneth all into gold." [3]
"Up to about a quarter past five o'clock," he says, "the darkness is complete; but about that time a few cries of birds begin to break the silence of night, perhaps indicating that signs of dawn are perceptible in the eastern horizon. A little later the melancholy voices of the goatsuckers are heard, varied croakings of frogs, the plaintive whistle of mountain thrushes, and strange cries of birds or mammals peculiar to each locality. About half-past five the first glimmer of light becomes perceptible; it slowly becomes lighter, and then increases so rapidly that at about a quarter to six it seems full daylight. For the next quarter of an hour this changes very little in character; when, suddenly, the sun's rim appears above the horizon, decking the dew-laden foliage with glittering gems sending gleams of golden light far into the woods, and waking up all nature to life and activity. Birds chirp and flutter about, parrots scream, monkeys chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and gorgeous butterflies flutter lazily along or sit with full expanded wings exposed to the warm and invigorating rays. The first hour of morning in the equatorial regions possesses a charm and a beauty that can never be forgotten. All nature seems refreshed and strengthened by the coolness and moisture of the past night, new leaves and buds unfold almost before the eye, and fresh shoots may often be observed to have grown many inches since the preceding day. The temperature is the most delicious conceivable. The slight chill of early dawn, which was itself agreeable, is succeeded by an invigorating warmth; and the intense sunshine lights up the glorious vegetation of the tropics, and realizes all that the magic art of the painter or the glowing words of the poet have pictured as their ideals of terrestrial beauty."
Or take Dean Stanley's description of the colossal statues of Amenophis III., the Memnon of the Greeks, at Thebes—"The sun was setting, the African range glowed red behind them; the green plain was dyed with a deeper green beneath them, and the shades of evening veiled the vast rents and fissures in their aged frames. As I looked back at them in the sunset, and they rose up in front of the background of the mountain, they seemed, indeed, as if they were part of it,—as if they belonged to some natural creation."
But I must not indulge myself in more quotations, though it is difficult to stop. Such extracts recall the memory of many glorious days: for the advantages of travel last through life; and often, as we sit at home, "some bright and perfect view of Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes back on you, as full of repose as a day wisely spent in travel." [4]
So far is a thorough love and enjoyment of travel from interfering with the love of home, that perhaps no one can thoroughly enjoy his home who does not sometimes wander away. They are like exertion and rest, each the complement of the other; so that, though it may seem paradoxical, one of the greatest pleasures of travel is the return; and no one who has not roamed abroad, can realize the devotion which the wanderer feels for Domiduca—the sweet and gentle goddess who watches over our coming home.
[1] Seneca.
[2] Ruskin.
[3] Morris.
[4] Helps.