"And what is writ is writ—Would it were worthier."
Herewith I launch the conclusion of my subject. Perhaps I am unwise in publishing a second part. The first was so kindly received that I am running a risk in attempting to add to it.
In the preface, however, to the first part I have expressed the hope that the thoughts and quotations in which I have found most comfort and delight, might be of use to others also.
In this my most sanguine hopes have been more than realized. Not only has the book passed through thirteen editions in less than two years, but the many letters which I have received have been most gratifying.
Two criticisms have been repeated by several of those who have done me the honor of noticing my previous volume. It has been said in the first place that my life has been exceptionally bright and full, and that I cannot therefore judge for others. Nor do I attempt to do so. I do not forget, I hope I am not ungrateful for, all that has been bestowed on me. But if I have been greatly favored, ought I not to be on that very account especially qualified to write on such a theme? Moreover, I have had,—who has not,—my own sorrows.
Again, some have complained that there is too much quotation—too little of my own. This I take to be in reality a great compliment. I have not striven to be original.
If, as I have been assured by many, my book have proved a comfort, and have been able to cheer in the hour of darkness, that is indeed an ample reward, and is the utmost I have ever hoped.
KENT,April 1889.
"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise(That last infirmity of noble minds)To scorn delights and live laborious days."
If fame be the last infirmity of noble minds, ambition is often the first; though, when properly directed, it may be no feeble aid to virtue.
Had not my youthful mind, says Cicero, "from many precepts, from many writings, drunk in this truth, that glory and virtue ought to be the darling, nay, the only wish in life; that, to attain these, the torments of the flesh, with the perils of death and exile, are to be despised; never had I exposed my person in so many encounters, and to these daily conflicts with the worst of men, for your deliverance. But, on this head, books are full; the voice of the wise is full; the examples of antiquity are full: and all these the night of barbarism had still enveloped, had it not been enlightened by the sun of science."
The poet tells us that
"The many fail: the one succeeds." [1]
But this is scarcely true. All succeed who deserve, though not perhaps as they hoped. An honorable defeat is better than a mean victory, and no one is really the worse for being beaten, unless he loses heart. Though we may not be able to attain, that is no reason why we should not aspire.
I know, says Morris,
"How far high failure overleaps the boundOf low successes."
And Bacon assures us that "if a man look sharp and attentively he shall see fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible."
To give ourselves a reasonable prospect of success we must realize what we hope to achieve; and then make the most of our opportunities. Of these the use of time is one of the most important. What have we to do with time, asks Oliver Wendell Holmes, but to fill it up with labor.
"At the battle of Montebello," said Napoleon, "I ordered Kellermann to attack with 800 horse, and with these he separated the 6000 Hungarian grenadiers before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of action; and I have observed that it is always these quarters of an hour that decide the fate of a battle," including, we may add, the battle of life.
Nor must we spare ourselves in other ways, for
"He who thinks in strifeTo earn a deathless fame, must do, nor ever care for life." [2]
In the excitement of the struggle, moreover, he will suffer comparatively little from wounds and blows which would otherwise cause intense suffering.
It is well to weigh scrupulously the object in view, to run as little risk as may be, to count the cost with care.
But when the mind is once made up, there must be no looking back, you must spare yourself no labor, nor shrink from danger.
"He either fears his fate too muchOr his deserts are small,That dares not put it to the touchTo gain or lose it all." [3]
Glory, says Renan, "is after all the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether vanity." But what is glory?
Marcus Aurelius observes that "a spider is proud when it has caught a fly, a man when he has caught a hare, another when he has taken a little fish in a net, another when he has taken wild boars, another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians;" [4] but this, if from one point of view it shows the vanity of fame, also encourages us with the evidence that every one may succeed if his objects are but reasonable.
Alexander may be taken as almost a type of Ambition in its usual form, though carried to an extreme.
His desire was to conquer, not to inherit or to rule. When news was brought that his father Philip had taken some town, or won some battle, instead of appearing delighted with it, he used to say to his companions, "My father will go on conquering, till there be nothing extraordinary left for you and me to do." [5] He is said even to have been mortified at the number of the stars, considering that he had not been able to conquer one world. Such ambition is justly foredoomed to disappointment.
The remarks of Philosophers on the vanity of ambition refer generally to that unworthy form of which Alexander may be taken as the type—the idea of self-exaltation, not only without any reference to the happiness, but even regardless of the sufferings, of others.
"A continual and restless search after fortune," says Bacon, "takes up too much of their time who have nobler things to observe." Indeed he elsewhere extends this, and adds, "No man's private fortune can be an end any way worthy of his existence."
Goethe well observes that man "exists for culture; not for what he can accomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him." [6]
As regards fame we must not confuse name and essence. To be remembered is not necessarily to be famous. There is infamy as well as fame; and unhappily almost as many are remembered for the one as for the other, and not a few for the mixture of both.
Who would not rather be forgotten, than recollected as Ahab or Jezebel,Nero or Commodus, Messalina or Heliogabalus, King John or Richard III.?
"To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one; and who would not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?" [7]
Kings and Generals are often remembered as much for their deaths as for their lives, for their misfortunes as for their successes. The Hero of Thermopylae was Leonidas, not Xerxes. Alexander's Empire fell to pieces at his death. Napoleon was a great genius, though no Hero. But what came of all his victories? They passed away like the smoke of his guns, and he left France weaker, poorer, and smaller than he found her. The most lasting result of his genius is no military glory, but the Code Napoléon.
A surer and more glorious title to fame is that of those who are remembered for some act of justice or self-devotion: the self-sacrifice of Leonidas, the good faith of Regulus, are the glories of history.
In some cases where men have been called after places, the men are remembered, while the places are forgotten. When we speak of Palestrina or Perugino, of Nelson or Wellington, of Newton or Darwin, who remembers the towns? We think only of the men.
Goethe has been called the soul of his century.
It is true that we have but meagre biographies of Shakespeare or of Plato; yet how much we know about them.
Statesmen and Generals enjoy great celebrity during their lives. The newspapers chronicle every word and movement. But the fame of the Philosopher and Poet is more enduring.
Wordsworth deprecates monuments to Poets, with some exceptions, on this very account. The case of Statesmen, he says, is different. It is right to commemorate them because they might otherwise be forgotten; but Poets live in their books forever.
The real conquerors of the world indeed are not the generals but the thinkers; not Genghis Khan and Akbar, Rameses, or Alexander, but Confucius and Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ. The rulers and kings who reigned over our ancestors have for the most part long since sunk into oblivion—they are forgotten for want of some sacred bard to give them life—or are remembered, like Suddhodana and Pilate, from their association with higher spirits.
Such men's lives cannot be compressed into any biography. They lived not merely in their own generation, but for all time. When we speak of the Elizabethan period we think of Shakespeare and Bacon, Raleigh and Spenser. The ministers and secretaries of state, with one or two exceptions, we scarcely remember, and Bacon himself is recollected less as the Judge than as the Philosopher.
Moreover, to what do Generals and Statesmen owe their fame? They were celebrated for their deeds, but to the Poet and the Historian they owe their fame, and to the Poet and Historian we owe their glorious memories and the example of their virtues.
"Vixere fortes ante AgamemnonaMulti; sed omnes illacrimabilesUrgentur ignotique longâNocte, carent quia vate sacro."
There were many brave men before Agamemnon, but their memory has perished because they were celebrated by no divine Bard. Montrose happily combined the two, when in "My dear and only love" he promises,
"I'll make thee glorious by my pen,And famous by my sword."
It is remarkable, and encouraging, how many of the greatest men have risen from the lowest rank, and triumphed over obstacles which might well have seemed insurmountable; nay, even obscurity itself may be a source of honor. The very doubts as to Homer's birthplace have contributed to this glory, seven cities as we all know laying claim to the great poet—
"Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athenae."
To take men of Science only. Ray was the son of a blacksmith, Watt of a shipwright, Franklin of a tallow-chandler, Dalton of a handloom weaver, Fraünhofer of a glazier, Laplace of a farmer, Linnaeus of a poor curate, Faraday of a blacksmith, Lamarck of a banker's clerk; Davy was an apothecary's assistant, Galileo, Kepler, Sprengel, Cuvier, and Sir W. Herschel were all children of very poor parents.
It is, on the other hand, sad to think how many of our greatest benefactors are unknown even by name. Who discovered the art of procuring fire? Prometheus is merely the personification of forethought. Who invented letters? Cadmus is a mere name.
These inventions, indeed, are lost in the mists of antiquity, but even as regards recent progress the steps are often so gradual, and so numerous, that few inventions can be attributed entirely, or even mainly, to any one person.
Columbus is said, and truly said, to have discovered America, though theNorthmen were there before him.
We Englishmen have every reason to be proud of our fellow-countrymen. To take Philosophers and men of Science only, Bacon and Hobbes' Locke and Berkeley, Hume and Hamilton, will always be associated with the progress of human thought; Newton with gravitation, Adam Smith with Political Economy, Young with the undulatory theory of light, Herschel with the discovery of Uranus and the study of the star depths, Lord Worcester, Trevethick, and Watt with the steam-engine, Wheatstone with the electric telegraph, Jenner with the banishment of smallpox, Simpson with the practical application of anaesthetics, and Darwin with the creation of modern Natural History.
These men, and such as these, have made our history and moulded our opinions; and though during life they may have occupied, comparatively, an insignificant space in the eyes of their countrymen, they became at length an irresistible power, and have now justly grown to a glorious memory.
[1] Tennyson.
[2] Beowulf.
[3] Montrose.
[4] He is referring here to one of his expeditions.
[5] Plutarch.
[6] Emerson.
[7] Sir J. Browne.
"The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all."—PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
Ambition often takes the form of a love of money. There are many who have never attempted Art or Music, Poetry or Science; but most people do something for a livelihood, and consequently an increase of income is not only acceptable in itself, but gives a pleasant feeling of success.
Doubt is often expressed whether wealth is any advantage. I do not myself believe that those who are born, as the saying is, with a silver spoon in their mouth, are necessarily any the happier for it. No doubt wealth entails almost more labor than poverty, and certainly more anxiety. Still it must, I think, be confessed that the possession of an income, whatever it may be, which increases somewhat as the years roll on, does add to the comfort of life.
Unquestionably the possession of wealth is by no means unattended by drawbacks. Money and the love of money often go together. The poor man, as Emerson says, is the man who wishes to be rich; and the more a man has, the more he often longs to be richer. Just as drinking often does but increase thirst; so in many cases the craving for riches does grow with wealth.
This is, of course, especially the case when money is sought for its own sake. Moreover, it is often easier to make money than to keep or to enjoy it. Keeping it is dull and anxious drudgery. The dread of loss may hang like a dark cloud over life. Apicius, when he squandered most of his patrimony, but had still 250,000 crowns left, committed suicide, as Seneca tells us, for fear he should die of hunger.
Wealth is certainly no sinecure. Moreover, the value of money depends partly on knowing what to do with it, partly on the manner in which it is acquired.
"Acquire money, thy friends say, that we also may have some. If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest, and faithful, and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it. But if you ask me to love the things which are good and my own, in order that you may gain things that are not good, see how unfair and unwise you are. For which would you rather have? Money, or a faithful and modest friend….
"What hinders a man, who has clearly comprehended these things, from living with a light heart, and bearing easily the reins, quietly expecting everything which can happen, and enduring that which has already happened? Would you have me to bear poverty? Come, and you will know what poverty is when it has found one who can act well the part of a poor man." [1]
We must bear in mind Solon's answer to Croesus, "Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold."
Midas is another case in point. He prayed that everything he touched might be turned into gold, and this prayer was granted. His wine turned to gold, his bread turned to gold, his clothes, his very bed.
"Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,Effugere optat opes, et quae modo voverat, odit."
He is by no means the only man who has suffered from too much gold.
The real truth I take to be that wealth is not necessarily an advantage, but that whether it is so or not depends on the use we make of it. The same, however, might be said of most other opportunities and privileges; Knowledge and Strength, Beauty and Skill, may all be abused; if we neglect or misuse them we are worse off than if we had never had them. Wealth is only a disadvantage in the hands of those who do not know how to use it. It gives the command of so many other things—leisure, the power of helping friends, books, works of art, opportunities and means of travel.
It would, however, be easy to exaggerate the advantages of money. It is well worth having, and worth working for, but it does not requite too great a sacrifice; not indeed so great as is often offered up to it. A wise proverb tells us that gold may be bought too dear. If wealth is to be valued because it gives leisure, clearly it would be a mistake to sacrifice leisure in the struggle for wealth. Money has no doubt also a tendency to make men poor in spirit. But, on the other hand, what gift is there which is without danger?
Euripides said that money finds friends for men, and has great (he said the greatest) power among Mankind, cynically adding, "A mighty person indeed is a rich man, especially if his heir be unknown."
Bossuet tells us that "he had no attachment to riches, still if he had only what was barely necessary, he felt himself narrowed, and would lose more than half his talents."
Shelley was certainly not an avaricious man, and yet "I desire money," he said, "because I think I know the use of it. It commands labor, it gives leisure; and to give leisure to those who will employ it in the forwarding of truth is the noblest present an individual can make to the whole."
Many will have felt with Pepys when he quaintly and piously says, "Abroad with my wife, the first time that ever I rode in my own coach; which do make my heart rejoice and praise God, and pray him to bless it to me, and continue it."
This, indeed, was a somewhat selfish satisfaction. Yet the merchant need not quit nor be ashamed of his profession, bearing in mind only the inscription on the Church of St. Giacomo de Rialto at Venice: "Around this temple let the merchant's law be just, his weight true, and his covenants faithful." [2]
If life has been sacrificed to the rolling up of money for its own sake, the very means by which it was acquired will prevent its being enjoyed; the chill of poverty will have entered into the very bones. The term Miser was happily chosen for such persons; they are essentially miserable.
"A collector peeps into all the picture shops of Europe for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St. Jerome, and what are as transcendent as these, are on the walls of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre, where every footman may see them: to say nothing of Nature's pictures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every day, and the sculpture of the human body never absent. A collector recently bought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare: but for nothing a schoolboy can read Hamlet, and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein." [3] And yet "What hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes." [4]
We are really richer than we think. We often hear of Earth hunger. People envy a great Landlord, and fancy how delightful it must be to possess a large estate. But, as Emerson says, "if you own land, the land owns you." Moreover, have we not all, in a better sense—have we not all thousands of acres of our own? The commons, and roads, and footpaths, and the seashore, our grand and varied coast—these are all ours. The sea-coast has, moreover, two great advantages. In the first place, it is for the most part but little interfered with by man, and in the second it exhibits most instructively the forces of Nature. We are all great landed proprietors, if we only knew it. What we lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it. Moreover, this great inheritance has the additional advantage that it entails no labor, requires no management. The landlord has the trouble, but the landscape belongs to every one who has eyes to see it. Thus Kingsley called the heaths round Eversley his "winter garden;" not because they were his in the eye of the law, but in that higher sense in which ten thousand persons may own the same thing.
[1] Epictetus.
[2] Ruskin.
[3] Emerson.
[4] Solomon.
"Health is best for mortal man; next beauty; thirdly, well gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasures of youth among friends."
But if there has been some difference of opinion as to the advantage of wealth, with reference to health all are agreed.
"Health," said Simonides long ago, "is best for mortal man; next beauty; thirdly, well gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasure of youth among friends." "Life," says Longfellow, "without health is a burden, with health is a joy and gladness." Empedocles delivered the people of Selinus from a pestilence by draining a marsh, and was hailed as a Demigod. We are told that a coin was struck in his honor, representing the Philosopher in the act of staying the hand of Phoebus.
We scarcely realize, I think, how much we owe to Doctors. Our system of Medicine seems so natural and obvious that it hardly occurs to us as somewhat new and exceptional. When we are ill we send for a Physician; he prescribes some medicine; we take it, and pay his fee. But among the lower races of men pain and illness are often attributed to the presence of evil spirits. The Medicine Man is a Priest, or rather a Sorcerer, more than a true Doctor, and his effort is to exorcise the evil spirit.
In other countries where some advance has been made, a charm is written on a board, washed off, and drunk. In some cases the medicine is taken, not by the patient, but by the Doctor. Such a system, however, is generally transient; it is naturally discouraged by the Profession, and is indeed incompatible with a large practice. Even as regards the payment we find very different systems. The Chinese pay their medical man as long as they are well, and stop his salary as soon as they are ill. In ancient Egypt we are told that the patient feed the Doctor for the first few days, after which the Doctor paid the patient until he made him well. This is a fascinating system, but might afford too much temptation to heroic remedies.
On the whole our plan seems the best, though it does not offer adequate encouragement to discovery and research. We do not appreciate how much we owe to the discoveries of such men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and Lister. And yet in the matter of health we can generally do more for ourselves than the greatest Doctors can for us.
But if all are agreed as to the blessing of health, there are many who will not take the little trouble, or submit to the slight sacrifices, necessary to maintain it. Many, indeed, deliberately ruin their own health, and incur the certainty of an early grave, or an old age of suffering.
No doubt some inherit a constitution which renders health almost unattainable. Pope spoke of that long disease, his life. Many indeed may say, "I suffer, therefore I am." But happily these cases are exceptional. Most of us might be well, if we would. It is very much our own fault that we are ill. We do those things which we ought not to do, and we leave undone those things which we ought to have done, and then we wonder there is no health in us.
We all know that we can make ourselves ill, but few perhaps realize how much we can do to keep ourselves well. Much of our suffering is self-inflicted. It has been observed that among the ancient Egyptians the chief aim of life seemed to be to be well buried. Many, however, live even now as if this were the principal object of their existence.
Like Naaman, we expect our health to be the subject of some miraculous interference, and neglect the homely precautions by which it might be secured.
I am inclined to doubt whether the study of health is sufficiently impressed on the minds of those entering life. Not that it is desirable to potter over minor ailments, to con over books on illnesses, or experiment on ourselves with medicine. Far from it. The less we fancy ourselves ill, or bother about little bodily discomforts, the more likely perhaps we are to preserve our health.
It is, however, a different matter to study the general conditions of health. A well-known proverb tells us that every one is a fool or a physician at forty. Unfortunately, however, many persons are invalids at forty as well as physicians.
Ill-health, however, is no excuse for moroseness. If we have one disease we may at least congratulate ourselves that we are escaping all the rest. Sydney Smith, ever ready to look on the bright side of things, once, when borne down by suffering, wrote to a friend that he had gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but was "otherwise very well;" and many of the greatest invalids have borne their sufferings with cheerfulness and good spirits.
It is said that the celebrated physiognomist, Campanella, could so abstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was even able to endure the rack without much pain; and whoever has the power of concentrating his attention and controlling his will, can emancipate himself from most of the minor miseries of life. He may have much cause for anxiety, his body may be the seat of severe suffering, and yet his mind will remain serene and unaffected; he may triumph over care and pain.
But many have undergone much unnecessary suffering, and valuable lives have often been lost, through ignorance or carelessness. We cannot but fancy that the lives of many great men might have been much prolonged by the exercise of a little ordinary care.
If we take musicians only, what a grievous loss to the world it is that Pergolesi should have died at twenty-six, Schubert at thirty-one, Mozart at thirty-five, Purcell at thirty-seven, and Mendelssohn at thirty-eight.
In the old Greek myth the life of Meleager was indissolubly connected by fate with the existence of a particular log of wood. As long as this was kept safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore a charmed life. It seems wonderful that we do not watch with equal care over our body, on the state of which happiness so much depends.
The requisites of health are plain enough; regular habits, daily exercise, cleanliness, and moderation in all things—in eating as well as in drinking—would keep most people well.
I need not here dwell on the evils of drinking, but we perhaps scarcely realize how much of the suffering and ill-humor of life is due to over-eating. Dyspepsia, for instance, from which so many suffer, is in nine cases out of ten their own fault, and arises from the combination of too much food with too little exercise. To lengthen your life, says an old proverb, shorten your meals. Plain living and high thinking will secure health for most of us, though it matters, perhaps, comparatively little what a healthy man eats, so long as he does not eat too much.
Mr. Gladstone has told us that the splendid health he enjoys is greatly due to his having early learnt one simple physiological maxim, and laid it down as a rule for himself always to make twenty-five bites at every bit of meat.
"Go to your banquet then, but use delight,So as to rise still with an appetite." [1]
No doubt, however, though the rule not to eat or drink too much is simple enough in theory, it is not quite so easy in application. There have been many Esaus who sold their birthright of health for a mess of pottage.
Moreover, it may seem paradoxical, but it is certainly true, that in the long run the moderate man will derive more enjoyment even from eating and drinking, than the glutton or the drunkard will ever obtain. They know not what it is to enjoy "the exquisite taste of common dry bread." [2]
And yet even if we were to consider merely the pleasure to be derived from eating and drinking, the same rule would hold good. A lunch of bread and cheese after a good walk is more enjoyable than a Lord Mayor's feast. Without wishing, like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so that he might enjoy his dinner longer, we must not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we derive from eating and drinking, even though they be amongst the least aesthetic of our pleasures. They are homely, no doubt, but they come morning, noon, and night, and are not the less real because they have reference to the body rather than the soul.
We speak truly of a healthy appetite, for it is a good test of our bodily condition; and indeed in some cases of our mental state also. That
"There cometh no good thingApart from toil to mortals,"
is especially true with reference to appetite; to sit down to a dinner, however simple, after a walk with a friend among the mountains or along the shore, is no insignificant pleasure.
Cheerfulness and good humor, moreover, during meals are not only pleasant in themselves, but conduce greatly to health.
It has been said that hunger is the best sauce, but most would prefer some good stories at a feast even to a good appetite; and who would not like to have it said of him, as of Biron by Rosaline—
"A merrier manWithin the limit of becoming mirthI never spent an hour's talk withal."
In the three great "Banquets" of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food is not even mentioned.
In the words of the old Lambeth adage—
"What is a merry man?Let him do what he canTo entertain his guestsWith wine and pleasant jests,Yet if his wife do frownAll merryment goes down."
What salt is to food, wit and humor are to conversation and literature. "You do not," an amusing writer in theCornhillhas said, "expect humor in Thomas à Kempis or Hebrew Prophets;" but we have Solomon's authority that there is a time to laugh, as well as to weep.
"To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, when the best things are said, and the most amusing things happen." [3]
It is not without reason that every one resents the imputation of being unable to see a joke.
Laughter appears to be the special prerogative of man. The higher animals present us with proof of evident, if not highly developed reasoning power, but it is more than doubtful whether they are capable of appreciating a joke.
Wit, moreover, has solved many difficulties and decided many controversies.
"Ridicule shall frequently prevail,And cut the knot when graver reasons fail." [4]
A careless song, says Walpole, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch, but it is difficult now to realize that James I. should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of bishops and privy councillors.
The most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not laughed.
It is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous. "You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they should laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all…. If we think we must not laugh, this makes our temptation to laugh the greater." [5] Humor is, moreover, contagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of himself, "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men."
But one may paraphrase the well-known remark about port wine and say that some jokes may be better than others, but anything which makes one laugh is good. "After all," says Dryden, "it is a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness," and I may add, of health.
I have been told that in omitting any mention of smoking I was overlooking one of the real pleasures of life. Not being a smoker myself I cannot perhaps judge; much must depend on the individual temperament; to some nervous natures it certainly appears to be a great comfort; but I have my doubts whether smoking, as a general rule, does add to the pleasures of life. It must, moreover, detract somewhat from the sensitiveness of taste and of smell.
Those who live in cities may almost lay it down as a rule that no time spent out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is a cordial of incredible virtue; old families are in all senses county families, not town families; and those who prefer Homer and Plato and Shakespeare to hares and partridges and foxes must beware that they are not tempted to neglect this great requisite of our nature.
Most Englishmen, however, love open air, and it is probably true that most of us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more than looking at any of the old masters. The love of sport is engraven in the English character. As was said of William Rufus, "he loves the tall deer as he had been their father."
An Oriental traveler is said to have watched a game of cricket and been much astonished at hearing that many of those playing were rich men. He asked why they did not pay some poor people to do it for them.
Wordsworth made it a rule to go out every day, and he used to say that as he never consulted the weather, he never had to consult the physicians.
It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at the weather through the window. Even in winter, though the landscape often seems cheerless and bare enough when you look at it from the fireside, still it is far better to go out, even if you have to brave the storm: when you are once out of doors the touch of earth and the breath of the fresh air gives you fresh life and energy. Men, like trees, live in great part on air.
After a gallop over the downs, a row on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by the seashore or in the woods
"The blue above, the music in the air,The flowers upon the ground," [6]
one feels as if one could say with Henry IV., "Je me porte comme le Ponte Neuf."
The Roman proverb that a child should be taught nothing which he cannot learn standing up, went no doubt into an extreme, but surely we fall into another when we act as if games were the only thing which boys could learn upon their feet.
The love of games among boys is certainly a healthy instinct, and though carried too far in some of our great schools, there can be no question that cricket and football, boating and hockey, bathing and birdnesting, are not only the greatest pleasures, but the best medicines for boys.
We cannot always secure sleep. When important decisions have to be taken, the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep us awake. Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthy sleep than plenty of open air. Then indeed we can enjoy the fresh life of the early morning: "the breezy call of incense-bearing morn." [7]
"At morn the Blackcock trims his jetty wing,'Tis morning tempts the linnet's blithest lay,All nature's children feel the matin springOf life reviving with reviving day."
Epictetus described himself as "a spirit bearing about a corpse." That seems to me an ungrateful description. Surely we ought to cherish the body, even if it be but a frail and humble companion. Do we not own to the eye our enjoyment of the beauties of this world and the glories of the Heavens; to the ear the voices of friends and all the delights of music; are not the hands most faithful and invaluable instruments, ever ready in case of need, ever willing to do our bidding; and even the feet bear us without a murmur along the roughest and stoniest paths of life.
With reasonable care, then, most of us may hope to enjoy good health. And yet what a marvellous and complex organization we have!
We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. It is
"Strange that a harp of a thousand strings,Should keep in tune so long."
When we consider the marvellous complexity of our bodily organization, it seems a miracle that we should live at all; much more that the innumerable organs and processes should continue day after day and year after year with so much regularity and so little friction that we are sometimes scarcely conscious of having a body at all.
And yet in that body we have more than 200 bones, of complex and varied forms, any irregularity in, or injury to, which would of course grievously interfere with our movements.
We have over 500 muscles; each nourished by almost innumerable blood vessels, and regulated by nerves. One of our muscles, the heart, beats over 30,000,000 times in a year, and if it once stops, all is over.
In the skin are wonderfully varied and complex organs—for instance, over 2,000,000 perspiration glands, which regulate the temperature and communicate with the surface by ducts, which have a total length of some ten miles.
Think of the miles of arteries and veins, of capillaries and nerves; of the blood, with the millions of millions of blood corpuscles, each a microcosm in itself.
Think of the organs of sense,—the eye with its cornea and lens, vitreous humor, aqueous humor, and choroid, culminating in the retina, no thicker than a sheet of paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct layers, the innermost composed of rods and cones, supposed to be the immediate recipients of the undulations of light, and so numerous that in each eye the cones are estimated at over 3,000,000, the rods at over 30,000,000.
Above all, and most wonderful of all, the brain itself. Meinert has calculated that the gray matter of the convolutions alone contains no less than 600,000,000 cells; each cell consists of several thousand visible atoms, and each atom again of many millions of molecules.
And yet with reasonable care we can most of us keep this wonderful organization in health; so that it will work without causing us pain, or even discomfort, for many years; and we may hope that even when old age comes
"Time may lay his handUpon your heart gently, not smiting itBut as a harper lays his open palmUpon his harp, to deaden its vibrations."
[1] Herrick.
[2] Hamerton.
[3] Hazlitt.
[4] Francis.
[5] Hazlitt.
[6] Trench.
[7] Gray.
"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,And men below and saints above;For love is heaven and heaven is love."
Love is the light and sunshine of life. We are so constituted that we cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love enjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope of sharing it hereafter with those we love.
Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance; in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends. The strength of friendship is indeed proverbial, and in some cases, as in that of David and Jonathan, is described as surpassing the love of women. But I need not now refer to it, having spoken already of what we owe to friends.
The goodness of Providence to man has been often compared to that of fathers and mothers for their children.
"Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,Yearns toward her little children from her seat,Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,She learns their feelings and their various will,To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;—So Providence for us, high, infinite,Makes our necessities its watchful task,Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,And e'en if it denies what seems our right,Either denies because 'twould have us ask,Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants." [1]
Sir Walter Scott well says—
"And if there be on Earth a tearFrom passion's dross [2] refined and clear,'Tis that which pious fathers shedUpon a duteous daughter's head."
Epaminondas is said to have given as his main reason for rejoicing at the victory of Leuctra, that it would give so much pleasure to his father and mother.
Nor must the love of animals be altogether omitted. It is impossible not to sympathize with the Savage when he believes in their immortality, and thinks that after death
"Admitted to that equal skyHis faithful dog shall bear him company." [3]
In theMahabharata, the great Indian Epic, when the family of Pandavas, the heroes, at length reach the gates of heaven, they are welcomed themselves, but are told that their dog cannot come in. Having pleaded in vain, they turn to depart, as they say they can never leave their faithful companion. Then at the last moment the Angel at the door relents, and their Dog is allowed to enter with them.
We may hope the time will come when we shall learn
"Never to blend our pleasures or our pride,With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." [4]
But at the present moment I am speaking rather of the love which leads to marriage. Such love is the music of life, nay, "there is music in the beauty, and the silver note of love, far sweeter than the sound of any instrument." [5]
The Symposium of Plato contains an interesting and amusing disquisition onLove.
"Love," Phaedrus is made to say, "will make men dare to die for their beloved—love alone: and women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would, although he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their own son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of hers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom they have granted the privilege of returning to earth, in admiration of her virtue; such exceeding honor is paid by them to the devotion and virtue of love."
Agathon is even more eloquent—
Love "fills men with affection, and takes away their disaffection, making them meet together at such banquets as these. In sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord—supplying kindness and banishing unkindness, giving friendship and forgiving anmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods, desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful of the good, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear—pilot, comrade, helper, savior; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honor that sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men."
No doubt, even so there are two Loves, "one, the daughter of Uranus, who has no mother, and is the elder and wiser goddess; and the other, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and common,"—but let us not examine too closely. Charity tells us even of Guinevere, "that while she lived, she was a good lover and therefore she had a good end." [6]
The origin of love has exercised philosophers almost as much as the origin of evil. The Symposium continues with a speech which Plato attributes in joke to Aristophanes, and of which Jowett observes that nothing in Aristophanes is more truly Aristophanic.
The original human nature, he says, was not like the present. The Primeval Man was round, [7] his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike. He could walk upright as men now do, backward or forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great rate, whirling round on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes, who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said; "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and mend their manners; they shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two, which will have a double advantage, for it will halve their strength and we shall have twice as many sacrifices. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, "as you might split an egg with a hair."… After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together…. So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only, like a flat-fish and he is always looking for his other half.
And when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a minute: they will pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation. It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.
"But to see her were to love her,Love but her, and love for ever." [8]
Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a warm love has been won by faithful devotion.
Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love, for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9]
Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10]
Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished
"O that the desert were my dwelling-place,With one fair Spirit for my minister,That I might all forget the human race,And, hating no one, love but only her."
And many will doubtless have felt
"O Love! what hours were thine and mineIn lands of Palm and Southern Pine,In lands of Palm, of Orange blossom,Of Olive, Aloe, and Maize and Vine."
What is true of space holds good equally of time.
"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed.In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;In halls, in gay attire is seen;In hamlets, dances on the green.Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,And men below, and saints above;For love is heaven, and heaven is love." [11]
Even when, as among some Eastern races, Religion and Philosophy have combined to depress Love, truth reasserts itself in popular sayings, as for instance in the Turkish proverb, "All women are perfection, especially she who loves you."
A French lady having once quoted to Abd-el-Kader the Polish proverb, "A woman draws more with a hair of her head than a pair of oxen well harnessed;" he answered with a smile, "The hair is unnecessary, woman is powerful as fate."
But we like to think of Love rather as the Angel of Happiness than as a ruling force: of the joy of home when "hearts are of each other sure."
"It is the secret sympathy,The silver link, the silken tie,Which heart to heart, and mind to mindIn body and in soul can bind." [12]
What Bacon says of a friend is even truer of a wife; there is "no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less."
Let some one we love come near us and
"At once it seems that something new or strangeHas passed upon the flowers, the trees, the ground;Some slight but unintelligible changeOn everything around." [13]
We might, I think, apply to love what Homer says of Fate:
"Her feet are tender, for she sets her stepsNot on the ground, but on the heads of men."
Love and Reason divide the life of man. We must give to each its due. If it is impossible to attain to virtue by the aid of Reason without Love, neither can we do so by means of Love alone without Reason.
Love, said Melanippides, "sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of desire, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together."
No one indeed could complain now, with Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, that Love has had no worshippers among the Poets. On the contrary, Love has brought them many of their sweetest inspirations; none perhaps nobler or more beautiful than Milton's description of Paradise:
"With thee conversing, I forget all time,All seasons, and their change, all please alike.Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweetWith charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sunWhen first on this delightful land he spreadsHis orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flowerGlistering with dew, fragrant the fertile earthAfter soft showers; and sweet the coming onOf grateful evening mild; then silent nightWith this her solemn bird and this fair moon,And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:But neither breath of morn when she ascendsWith charm of earliest birds, nor rising sunOn this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flowerGlistering with dew, nor fragrance after showers,Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent nightWith this her solemn bird, nor walk by moonOr glittering starlight, without thee is sweet."
Moreover, no one need despair of an ideal marriage. We unfortunately differ so much in our tastes; love does so much to create love, that even the humblest may hope for the happiest marriage if only he deserves it; and Shakespeare speaks, as he does so often, for thousands when he says
"She is mine own,And I as rich in having such a jewelAs twenty seas, if all their sands were pearls,The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold."
True love indeed will not be unreasonable or exacting.
"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkindThat from the nurseryOf thy chaste breast and quiet mindTo war and arms I fly.True! a new mistress now I chase,The first foe in the field,And with a stronger faith embraceA sword, a horse, a shield.Yet this inconstancy is suchAs you too shall adore,I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not honor more." [14]
And yet
"Alas! how light a cause may moveDissension between hearts that love!Hearts that the world in vain had tried,And sorrow but more closely tied,That stood the storm, when waves were rough,Yet in a sunny hour fall off,Like ships that have gone down at sea,When heaven was all tranquillity." [15]
For love is brittle. Do not risk even any little jar; it may be
"The little rift within the lute,That by and by will make the music mute,And ever widening slowly silence all." [16]
Love is delicate; "Love is hurt with jar and fret," and you might as well expect a violin to remain in tune if roughly used, as Love to survive if chilled or driven into itself. But what a pleasure to keep it alive by
"Little, nameless, unremembered actsOf kindness and of love." [17]
"She whom you loved and chose," says Bondi,
"Is now your bride,The gift of heaven, and to your trust consigned;Honor her still, though not with passion blind;And in her virtue, though you watch, confide.Be to her youth a comfort, guardian, guide,In whose experience she may safety find;And whether sweet or bitter be assigned,The joy with her, as well as pain divide.Yield not too much if reason disapprove;Nor too much force; the partner of your lifeShould neither victim be, nor tyrant prove.Thus shall that rein, which often mars the blissOf wedlock, scarce be felt; and thus your wifeNe'er in the husband shall the lover miss." [18]
Every one is ennobled by true love—
"Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all." [19]
Perhaps no one ever praised a woman more gracefully in a sentence than Steele when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that "to know her was a liberal education;" but every woman may feel as she improves herself that she is not only laying in a store of happiness for herself, but also raising and blessing him whom she would most wish to see happy and good.
Love, true love, grows and deepens with time. Husband and wife, who are married indeed, live
"By each other, till to love and liveBe one." [20]
For does it end with life. A mother's love knows no bounds.
"They err who tell us Love can die,With life all other passions fly,All others are but vanity.In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;Earthly these passions of the Earth;They perish where they have their birth,But Love is indestructible;Its holy flame forever burneth,From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,At times deceived, at times opprest,It here is tried and purified,Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:It soweth here with toil and care,But the harvest time of Love is there.
"The mother when she meets on highThe Babe she lost in infancy,Hath she not then, for pains and fears,The day of woe, the watchful night,For all her sorrow, all her tears,An over-payment of delight?" [21]
As life wears on the love of husband or wife, of friends and of children, becomes the great solace and delight of age. The one recalls the past, the other gives interest to the future; and in our children, it has been truly said, we live our lives again.
[1]Filicaja. Translated by Leigh Hunt.
[2] Not from passion itself.
[3] Pope.
[4] Wordsworth.
[5] Browne.
[6] Malory,Morte d' Arthur.
[7] I avail myself of Dr. Jowett's translation.
[8] Burns.
[9] Malory,Morte d' Arthur.
[10] Symonds.
[11] Scott.
[12] Scott.
[13] Trench.
[14] Lovelace.
[15] Moore.
[16] Tennyson.
[17] Wordsworth.
[18] Bondi. Tr. by Glassfors.
[19] Tennyson.
[20] Swinburne.
[21] Southey.