{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7952/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7952","id":"gutenberg_7952","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7952","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Pleasure"],"text":"Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Robert Connal, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF LIFE\n\nSIR JOHN LUBBOCK\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nPART I\n\n\nCHAPTER I\nTHE DUTY OF HAPPINESS\n\nCHAPTER II\nTHE HAPPINESS OF DUTY\n\nCHAPTER III\nA SONG OF BOOKS\n\nCHAPTER IV\nTHE CHOICE OF BOOKS\n\nCHAPTER V\nTHE BLESSING OF FRIENDS\n\nCHAPTER VI\nTHE VALUE OF TIME\n\nCHAPTER VII\nTHE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL\n\nCHAPTER VIII\nTHE PLEASURES OF HOME\n\nCHAPTER IX\nSCIENCE\n\nCHAPTER X\nEDUCATION\n\n\nPART II\n\n\nCHAPTER I\nAMBITION\n\nCHAPTER II\nWEALTH\n\nCHAPTER III\nHEALTH\n\nCHAPTER IV\nLOVE\n\nCHAPTER V\nART\n\nCHAPTER VI\nPOETRY\n\nCHAPTER VII\nMUSIC\n\nCHAPTER VIII\nTHE BEAUTIES OF NATURE\n\nCHAPTER IX\nTHE TROUBLES OF LIFE\n\nCHAPTER X\nLABOR AND REST\n\nCHAPTER XI\nRELIGION\n\nCHAPTER XII\nTHE HOPE OF PROGRESS\n\nCHAPTER XIII\nTHE DESTINY OF MAN\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThose who have the pleasure of attending the opening meetings of schools\nand colleges, and of giving away prizes and certificates, are generally\nexpected at the same time to offer such words of counsel and encouragement\nas the experience of the world might enable them to give to those who are\nentering life.\n\nHaving been myself when young rather prone to suffer from low spirits, I\nhave at several of these gatherings taken the opportunity of dwelling on\nthe privileges and blessings we enjoy, and I reprint here the substance of\nsome of these addresses (omitting what was special to the circumstances of\neach case, and freely making any alterations and additions which have\nsince occurred to me), hoping that the thoughts and quotations in which I\nhave myself found most comfort may perhaps be of use to others also.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to say that I have not by any means referred to all\nthe sources of happiness open to us, some indeed of the greatest pleasures\nand blessings being altogether omitted.\n\nIn reading over the proofs I feel that some sentences may appear too\ndogmatic, but I hope that allowance will be made for the circumstances\nunder which they were delivered.\n\nHIGH ELMS,\n\nDOWN, KENT, _January 1887_.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nTO THE TWENTIETH EDITION.\n\n\nA lecture which I delivered three years ago at the Working Men's College,\nand which forms the fourth chapter of this book, has given rise to a good\ndeal of discussion. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ took up the subject and issued\na circular to many of those best qualified to express an opinion. This\nelicited many interesting replies, and some other lists of books were\ndrawn up. When my book was translated, a similar discussion took place in\nGermany. The result has been very gratifying, and after carefully\nconsidering the suggestions which have been made, I see no reason for any\nmaterial change in the first list. I had not presumed to form a list of my\nown, nor did I profess to give my own favorites. My attempt was to give\nthose most generally recommended by previous writers on the subject. In\nthe various criticisms on my list, while large additions, amounting to\nseveral hundred works in all, have been proposed, very few omissions have\nbeen suggested. As regards those works with reference to which some doubts\nhave been expressed--namely, the few Oriental books, Wake's Apostolic\nFathers etc.--I may observe that I drew up the list, not as that of the\nhundred best books, but, which is very different, of those which have been\nmost frequently recommended as best worth reading.\n\nFor instance as regards the _Sheking_ and the _Analects_ of Confucius, I\nmust humbly confess that I do not greatly admire either; but I recommended\nthem because they are held in the most profound veneration by the Chinese\nrace, containing 400,000,000 of our fellow-men. I may add that both works\nare quite short.\n\nThe _Ramayana_ and _Maha Bharata_ (as epitomized by Wheeler) and St.\nHilaire's _Bouddha_ are not only very interesting in themselves, but very\nimportant in reference to our great oriental Empire.\n\nThe authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very short, being\nindeed comprised in one small volume, and as the only works (which have\ncome down to us) of those who lived with and knew the Apostles, they are\ncertainly well worth reading.\n\nI have been surprised at the great divergence of opinion which has been\nexpressed. Nine lists of some length have been published. These lists\ncontain some three hundred works not mentioned by me (without, however,\nany corresponding omissions), and yet there is not one single book which\noccurs in every list, or even in half of them, and only about half a dozen\nwhich appear in more than one of the nine.\n\nIf these authorities, or even a majority of them, had concurred in their\nrecommendations, I would have availed myself of them; but as they differ\nso greatly I will allow my list to remain almost as I first proposed it. I\nhave, however, added Kalidasa's _Sakuntala_ or _The Lost Ring_, and\nSchiller's _William Tell_, omitting, in consequence, Lucretius and Miss\nAusten: Lucretius because though his work is most remarkable, it is\nperhaps less generally suitable than most of the others in the list; and\nMiss Austen because English novelists were somewhat over-represented.\n\nHIGH ELMS,\n\nDOWN, KENT, _August 1890_.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF LIFE\n\nPART I\n\n\n    \"All places that the eye of Heaven visits\n    Are to the wise man ports and happy havens.\"\n\n    SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n    \"Some murmur, when their sky is clear\n      And wholly bright to view,\n    If one small speck of dark appear\n      In their great heaven of blue.\n    And some with thankful love are fill'd\n      If but one streak of light,\n    One ray of God's good mercy gild\n      The darkness of their night.\n\n    \"In palaces are hearts that ask,\n      In discontent and pride,\n    Why life is such a dreary task,\n      And all good things denied.\n    And hearts in poorest huts admire\n      How love has in their aid\n    (Love that not ever seems to tire)\n      Such rich provision made.\"\n\n    TRENCH.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE DUTY OF HAPPINESS.\n\n\n    \"If a man is unhappy, this must be his own fault; for\n    God made all men to be happy.\"--EPICTETUS.\n\n\nLife is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, we most of us\nnaturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence.\nEven those who do not accept \"the greatest good of the greatest number\" as\nan absolute rule, will yet admit that we should all endeavor to contribute\nas far as we may to the happiness of our fellow-creatures. There are many,\nhowever, who seem to doubt whether it is right that we should try to be\nhappy ourselves. Our own happiness ought not, of course, to be our main\nobject, nor indeed will it ever be secured if selfishly sought. We may\nhave many pleasures in life, but must not let them have rule over us, or\nthey will soon hand us over to sorrow; and \"into what dangerous and\nmiserable servitude doth he fall who suffereth pleasures and sorrows (two\nunfaithful and cruel commanders) to possess him successively?\" [1]\n\nI cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter\nif our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as on the\nHappiness of Duty, for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only\nbecause to be happy ourselves, is a most effectual contribution to the\nhappiness of others.\n\nEvery one must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which\nsheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make\nof this world either a palace or a prison.\n\nThere is no doubt some selfish satisfaction in yielding to melancholy, and\nfancying that we are victims of fate; in brooding over grievances,\nespecially if more or less imaginary. To be bright and cheerful often\nrequires an effort; there is a certain art in keeping ourselves happy; and\nin this respect, as in others, we require to watch over and manage\nourselves, almost as if we were somebody else.\n\nSorrow and joy, indeed, are strangely interwoven. Too often\n\n    \"We look before and after,\n      And pine for what is not:\n    Our sincerest laughter\n      With some pain is fraught;\n  Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.\" [2]\n\nAs a nation we are prone to melancholy. It has been said of our countrymen\nthat they take even their pleasures sadly. But this, if it be true at all,\nwill, I hope, prove a transitory characteristic. \"Merry England\" was the\nold saying, let us hope it may become true again. We must look to the East\nfor real melancholy. What can be sadder than the lines with which Omar\nKhayyam opens his quatrains: [3]\n\n  \"We sojourn here for one short day or two,\n  And all the gain we get is grief and woe;\n  And then, leaving life's problems all unsolved\n  And harassed by regrets, we have to go;\"\n\nor the Devas' song to Prince Sidd\u00e2rtha, in Edwin Arnold's beautiful\nversion:\n\n  \"We are the voices of the wandering wind,\n  Which moan for rest, and rest can never find.\n  Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life--\n  A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.\"\n\nIf indeed this be true, if mortal life be so sad and full of suffering, no\nwonder that Nirv\u00e2na--the cessation of sorrow--should be welcomed even at\nthe sacrifice of consciousness.\n\nBut ought we not to place before ourselves a very different ideal--a\nhealthier, manlier, and nobler hope?\n\nLife is not to live merely, but to live well. There are some \"who live\nwithout any design at all, and only pass in the world like straws on a\nriver: they do not go; they are carried,\" [4]--but as Homer makes Ulysses\nsay, \"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rest unburnished; not to\nshine in use--as though to breathe were life!\"\n\nGoethe tells us that at thirty he resolved \"to work out life no longer by\nhalves, but in all its beauty and totality.\"\n\n  \"Im Ganzen, Guten, Sch\u00f6nen\n  Resolut zu leben.\"\n\nLife indeed must be measured by thought and action, not by time. It\ncertainly may be, and ought to be, bright, interesting, and happy; and,\naccording to the Italian proverb, \"if all cannot live on the Piazza, every\none may feel the sun.\"\n\nIf we do our best; if we do not magnify trifling troubles; if we look\nresolutely, I do not say at the bright side of things, but at things as\nthey really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which\nsurround us; we cannot but feel that life is indeed a glorious\ninheritance.\n\n    \"More servants wait on man\n  Than he'll take notice of. In every path\n    He treads down that which doth befriend him\n    When sickness makes him pale and wan\n  Oh mighty Love! Man is one world, and hath\n    Another to attend him.\" [5]\n\nFew of us, however, realize the wonderful privilege of living, or the\nblessings we inherit; the glories and beauties of the Universe, which is\nour own if we choose to have it so; the extent to which we can make\nourselves what we wish to be; or the power we possess of securing peace,\nof triumphing over pain and sorrow.\n\nDante pointed to the neglect of opportunities as a serious fault:\n\n                       \"Man can do violence\n  To himself and his own blessings, and for this\n  He, in the second round, must aye deplore,\n  With unavailing penitence, his crime.\n  Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light\n  In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,\n  And sorrows then when he should dwell in joy.\"\n\nRuskin has expressed this with special allusion to the marvellous beauty\nof this glorious world, too often taken as a matter of course, and\nremembered, if at all, almost without gratitude. \"Holy men,\" he complains,\n\"in the recommending of the love of God to us, refer but seldom to those\nthings in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown; though they\ninsist much on His giving of bread, and raiment, and health (which He\ngives to all inferior creatures): they require us not to thank Him for\nthat glory of His works which He has permitted us alone to perceive: they\ntell us often to meditate in the closet, but they send us not, like Isaac,\ninto the fields at even: they dwell on the duty of self denial, but they\nexhibit not the duty of delight:\" and yet, as he justly says elsewhere,\n\"each of us, as we travel the way of life, has the choice, according to\nour working, of turning all the voices of Nature into one song of\nrejoicing; or of withering and quenching her sympathy into a fearful\nwithdrawn silence of condemnation,--into a crying out of her stones and a\nshaking of her dust against us.\"\n\nMust we not all admit, with Sir Henry Taylor, that \"the retrospect of life\nswarms with lost opportunities\"? \"Whoever enjoys not life,\" says Sir T.\nBrowne, \"I count him but an apparition, though he wears about him the\nvisible affections of flesh.\"\n\nSt. Bernard, indeed, goes so far as to maintain that \"nothing can work me\ndamage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and\nnever am a real sufferer but by my own fault.\"\n\nSome Heathen moralists also have taught very much the same lesson. \"The\ngods,\" says Marcus Aurelius, \"have put all the means in man's power to\nenable him not to fall into real evils. Now that which does not make a man\nworse, how can it make his life worse?\"\n\nEpictetus takes the same line: \"If a man is unhappy, remember that his\nunhappiness is his own fault; for God has made all men to be happy.\" \"I\nam,\" he elsewhere says, \"always content with that which happens; for I\nthink that what God chooses is better than what I choose.\" And again:\n\"Seek not that things should happen as you wish; but wish the things which\nhappen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.... If\nyou wish for anything which belongs to another, you lose that which is\nyour own.\"\n\nFew, however, if any, can I think go as far as St. Bernard. We cannot but\nsuffer from pain, sickness, and anxiety; from the loss, the unkindness,\nthe faults, even the coldness of those we love. How many a day has been\ndamped and darkened by an angry word!\n\nHegel is said to have calmly finished his _Phaenomenologie des Geistes_ at\nJena, on the 14th October 1806, not knowing anything whatever of the\nbattle that was raging round him.\n\nMatthew Arnold has suggested that we might take a lesson from the heavenly\nbodies.\n\n \"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,\n    Undistracted by the sights they see,\n  These demand not the things without them\n    Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.\n\n \"Bounded by themselves, and unobservant\n    In what state God's other works may be,\n  In their own tasks all their powers pouring,\n    These attain the mighty life you see.\"\n\nIt is true that\n\n  \"A man is his own star;\n  Our acts our angels are\n  For good or ill,\"\n\nand that \"rather than follow a multitude to do evil,\" one should \"stand\nlike Pompey's pillar, conspicuous by oneself, and single in\nintegrity.\" [6] But to many this isolation would be itself most painful,\nfor the heart is \"no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that\njoins to them.\" [7]\n\nIf we separate ourselves so much from the interests of those around us\nthat we do not sympathize with them in their sufferings, we shut ourselves\nout from sharing their happiness, and lose far more than we gain. If we\navoid sympathy and wrap ourselves round in a cold chain armor of\nselfishness, we exclude ourselves from many of the greatest and purest\njoys of life. To render ourselves insensible to pain we must forfeit also\nthe possibility of happiness.\n\nMoreover, much of what we call evil is really good in disguise, and we\nshould not \"quarrel rashly with adversities not yet understood, nor\noverlook the mercies often bound up in them.\" [8] Pleasure and pain are,\nas Plutarch says, the nails which fasten body and soul together. Pain is a\nwarning of danger, a very necessity of existence. But for it, but for the\nwarnings which our feelings give us, the very blessings by which we are\nsurrounded would soon and inevitably prove fatal. Many of those who have\nnot studied the question are under the impression that the more\ndeeply-seated portions of the body must be most sensitive. The very\nreverse is the case. The skin is a continuous and ever-watchful sentinel,\nalways on guard to give us notice of any approaching danger; while the\nflesh and inner organs, where pain would be without purpose, are, so long\nas they are in health, comparatively without sensation.\n\n\"We talk,\" says Helps, \"of the origin of evil;... but what is evil? We\nmostly speak of sufferings and trials as good, perhaps, in their result;\nbut we hardly admit that they may be good in themselves. Yet they are\nknowledge--how else to be acquired, unless by making men as gods, enabling\nthem to understand without experience. All that men go through may be\nabsolutely the best for them--no such thing as evil, at least in our\ncustomary meaning of the word.\"\n\nIndeed, \"the vale best discovereth the hill,\" [9] and \"pour sentir les\ngrands biens, il faut qu'il connoisse les petits maux.\" [10]\n\nBut even if we do not seem to get all that we should wish, many will feel,\nas in Leigh Hunt's beautiful translation of Filicaja's sonnet, that--\n\n  \"So Providence for us, high, infinite,\n  Makes our necessities its watchful task.\n  Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,\n  And e'en if it denies what seems our right,\n  Either denies because 'twould have us ask,\n  Or seems but to deny, and in denying grants.\"\n\nThose on the other hand who do not accept the idea of continual\ninterferences, will rejoice in the belief that on the whole the laws of\nthe Universe work out for the general happiness.\n\nAnd if it does come--\n\n                     \"Grief should be\n  Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,\n  Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free:\n  Strong to consume small troubles; to commend\n  Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.\" [11]\n\nIf, however, we cannot hope that life will be all happiness, we may at\nleast secure a heavy balance on the right side; and even events which look\nlike misfortune, if boldly faced, may often be turned to good. Oftentimes,\nsays Seneca, \"calamity turns to our advantage; and great ruins make way\nfor greater glories.\" Helmholtz dates his start in science to an attack of\nillness. This led to his acquisition of a microscope, which he was enabled\nto purchase, owing to his having spent his autumn vacation of 1841 in the\nhospital, prostrated by typhoid fever; being a pupil, he was nursed\nwithout expense, and on his recovery he found himself in possession of the\nsavings of his small resources.\n\n\"Savonarola,\" says Castelar, \"would, under different circumstances,\nundoubtedly have been a good husband, a tender father; a man unknown to\nhistory, utterly powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon the\nhuman soul the deep trace which he has left; but misfortune came to visit\nhim, to crush his heart, and to impart that marked melancholy which\ncharacterizes a soul in grief; and the grief that circled his brows with a\ncrown of thorns was also that which wreathed them with the splendor of\nimmortality. His hopes were centered in the woman he loved, his life was\nset upon the possession of her, and when her family finally rejected him,\npartly on account of his profession, and partly on account of his person,\nbelieved that it was death that had come upon him, when in truth it was\nimmortality.\"\n\nIt is however, impossible to deny the existence of evil, and the reason\nfor it has long exercised the human intellect. The Savage solves it by the\nsupposition of evil Spirits. The Greeks attributed the misfortunes of men\nin great measure to the antipathies and jealousies of gods and goddesses.\nOthers have imagined two divine principles, opposite and antagonistic--the\none friendly, the other hostile, to men.\n\nFreedom of action, however, seems to involve the existence of evil. If any\npower of selection be left us, much must depend on the choice we make. In\nthe very nature of things, two and two cannot make five. Epictetus\nimagines Jupiter addressing man as follows: \"If it had been possible to\nmake your body and your property free from liability to injury, I would\nhave done so. As this could not be, I have given you a small portion of\nmyself.\"\n\nThis divine gift it is for us to use wisely. It is, in fact, our most\nvaluable treasure. \"The soul is a much better thing than all the others\nwhich you possess. Can you then show me in what way you have taken care of\nit? For it is not likely that you, who are so wise a man, inconsiderately\nand carelessly allow the most valuable thing that you possess to be\nneglected and to perish.\" [12]\n\nMoreover, even if evil cannot be altogether avoided, it is no doubt true\nthat not only whether the life we lead be good and useful, or evil and\nuseless, but also whether it be happy or unhappy, is very much in our own\npower, and depends greatly on ourselves. \"Time alone relieves the foolish\nfrom sorrow, but reason the wise.\" [13] and no one was ever yet made\nutterly miserable excepting by himself. We are, if not the masters, at any\nrate almost the creators of ourselves.\n\nWith most of us it is not so much great sorrows, disease, or death, but\nrather the little \"daily dyings\" which cloud over the sunshine of life.\nMany of our troubles are insignificant in themselves, and might easily be\navoided!\n\nHow happy home might generally be made but for foolish quarrels, or\nmisunderstandings, as they are well named! It is our own fault if we are\nquerulous or ill-humored; nor need we, though this is less easy, allow\nourselves to be made unhappy by the querulousness or ill-humors of others.\n\nMuch of what we suffer we have brought on ourselves, if not by actual\nfault, at least by ignorance or thoughtlessness. Too often we think only\nof the happiness of the moment, and sacrifice that of the life. Troubles\ncomparatively seldom come to us, it is we who go to them. Many of us\nfritter our life away. La Bruy\u00e8re says that \"most men spend much of their\nlives in making the rest miserable;\" or, as Goethe puts it:\n\n  \"Careworn man has, in all ages,\n  Sown vanity to reap despair.\"\n\nNot only do we suffer much in the anticipation of evil, as \"Noah lived\nmany years under the affliction of a flood, and Jerusalem was taken unto\nJeremy before it was besieged,\" but we often distress ourselves greatly in\nthe apprehension of misfortunes which after all never happen at all. We\nshould do our best and wait calmly the result. We often hear of people\nbreaking down from overwork, but in nine cases out of ten they are really\nsuffering from worry or anxiety.\n\n\"Nos maux moraux,\" says Rousseau, \"sont tous dans l'opinion, hors un seul,\nqui est le crime; et celui-la d\u00e9pend de nous: nos maux physiques nous\nd\u00e9truisent, ou se d\u00e9truisent. Le temps, ou la mort, sont nos rem\u00e8des.\"\n\n  \"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,\n  Which we ascribe to heaven.\" [14]\n\nThis, however, applies to the grown up. With children of course it is\ndifferent. It is customary, but I think it is a mistake, to speak of happy\nchildhood. Children, however, are often over-anxious and acutely\nsensitive. Man ought to be man and master of his fate; but children are at\nthe mercy of those around them. Mr. Rarey, the great horse-tamer, has told\nus that he has known an angry word raise the pulse of a horse ten beats in\na minute. Think then how it must affect a child!\n\nIt is small blame to the young if they are over-anxious; but it is a\ndanger to be striven against. \"The terrors of the storm are chiefly felt\nin the parlor or the cabin.\" [15]\n\nTo save ourselves from imaginary, or at any rate problematical, evils, we\noften incur real suffering. \"The man,\" said Epicurus, \"who is not content\nwith little is content with nothing.\" How often do we \"labor for that\nwhich satisfieth not.\" More than we use is more than we need, and only a\nburden to the bearer. [16] We most of us give ourselves an immense amount\nof useless trouble; encumber ourselves, as it were, on the journey of life\nwith a dead weight of unnecessary baggage; and as \"a man maketh his train\nlonger, he makes his wings shorter.\" [17] In that delightful fairy tale,\n_Alice through the Looking-Glass_, the \"White Knight\" is described as\nhaving loaded himself on starting for a journey with a variety of odds and\nends, including a mousetrap, in case he was troubled by mice at night, and\na beehive in case he came across a swarm of bees.\n\nHearne, in his _Journey to the Mouth of the Coppermine River_ tells us\nthat a few days after starting on his expedition he met a party of\nIndians, who annexed a great deal of his property, and all Hearne says is,\n\"The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day's journey\nwas much pleasanter.\" I ought, however, to add that the Indians broke up\nthe philosophical instruments, which, no doubt, were rather an\nencumbrance.\n\nWhen troubles do come, Marcus Aurelius wisely tells us to \"remember on\nevery occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle, that\nthis is not a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.\" Our\nown anger indeed does us more harm than the thing which makes us angry;\nand we suffer much more from the anger and vexation which we allow acts to\nrouse in us, than we do from the acts themselves at which we are angry and\nvexed. How much most people, for instance, allow themselves to be\ndistracted and disturbed by quarrels and family disputes. Yet in nine\ncases out of ten one ought not to suffer from being found fault with. If\nthe condemnation is just, it should be welcome as a warning; if it is\nundeserved, why should we allow it to distress us?\n\nMoreover, if misfortunes happen we do but make them worse by grieving over\nthem.\n\n\"I must die,\" again says Epictetus. \"But must I then die sorrowing? I must\nbe put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Can I be\nprevented from going with cheerfulness and contentment? But I will put you\nin prison. Man, what are you saying? You may put my body in prison, but my\nmind not even Zeus himself can overpower.\"\n\nIf, indeed, we cannot be happy, the fault is generally in ourselves.\nSocrates lived under the Thirty Tyrants. Epictetus was a poor slave, and\nyet how much we owe him!\n\n\"How is it possible,\" he says, \"that a man who has nothing, who is naked,\nhouseless, without a hearth, squalid, without a slave, without a city, can\npass a life that flows easily? See, God has sent a man to show you that it\nis possible. Look at me, who am without a city, without a house, without\npossessions, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no\nchildren, no praetorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poor\nclock. And what do I want? Am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear?\nAm I not free? When did any of you see me failing in the object of my\ndesire? or ever falling into that which I would avoid? Did I ever blame\nGod or man? Did I ever accuse any man? Did any of you ever see me with a\nsorrowful countenance? And how do I meet with those whom you are afraid of\nand admire? Do not I treat them like slaves? Who, when he sees me, does\nnot think that he sees his king and master?\"\n\nThink how much we have to be thankful for. Few of us appreciate the number\nof our everyday blessings; we look on them as trifles, and yet \"trifles\nmake perfection, and perfection is no trifle,\" as Michael Angelo said. We\nforget them because they are always with us; and yet for each of us, as\nMr. Pater well observes, \"these simple gifts, and others equally trivial,\nbread and wine, fruit and milk, might regain that poetic and, as it were,\nmoral significance which surely belongs to all the means of our daily\nlife, could we but break through the veil of our familiarity with things\nby no means vulgar in themselves.\"\n\n\"Let not,\" says Isaak Walton, \"the blessings we receive daily from God\nmake us not to value or not praise Him because they be common; let us not\nforget to praise Him for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with\nsince we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant\nrivers and meadows and flowers and fountains; and this and many other like\nblessings we enjoy daily.\"\n\nContentment, we have been told by Epicurus, consists not in great wealth,\nbut in few wants. In this fortunate country, however, we may have many\nwants, and yet, if they are only reasonable, we may gratify them all.\n\nNature indeed provides without stint the main requisites of human\nhappiness. \"To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard\nbreath over plough-share or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray,\"\nthese, says Ruskin, \"are the things that make men happy.\"\n\n\"I have fallen into the hands of thieves,\" says Jeremy Taylor; \"what then?\nThey have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife and many\nfriends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse;\nand, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my\ncheerful spirit and a good conscience.... And he that hath so many causes\nof joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness who\nloses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his little handful\nof thorns.\"\n\n\"When a man has such things to think on, and sees the sun, the moon, and\nstars, and enjoys earth and sea, he is not solitary or even helpless.\"\n[18]\n\n\"Paradise indeed might,\" as Luther said, \"apply to the whole world.\" What\nmore is there we could ask for ourselves? \"Every sort of beauty,\" says Mr.\nGreg, [19] \"has been lavished on our allotted home; beauties to enrapture\nevery sense, beauties to satisfy every taste; forms the noblest and the\nloveliest, colors the most gorgeous and the most delicate, odors the\nsweetest and subtlest, harmonies the most soothing and the most stirring:\nthe sunny glories of the day; the pale Elysian grace of moonlight; the\nlake, the mountain, the primeval forest, and the boundless ocean; 'silent\npinnacles of aged snow' in one hemisphere, the marvels of tropical\nluxuriance in another; the serenity of sunsets; the sublimity of storms;\neverything is bestowed in boundless profusion on the scene of our\nexistence; we can conceive or desire nothing more exquisite or perfect\nthan what is round us every hour; and our perceptions are so framed as to\nbe consciously alive to all. The provision made for our sensuous enjoyment\nis in overflowing abundance; so is that for the other elements of our\ncomplex nature. Who that has revelled in the opening ecstasies of a young\nImagination, or the rich marvels of the world of Thought, does not confess\nthat the Intelligence has been dowered at least with as profuse a\nbeneficence as the Senses? Who that has truly tasted and fathomed human\nLove in its dawning and crowning joys has not thanked God for a felicity\nwhich indeed 'passeth understanding.' If we had set our fancy to picture a\nCreator occupied solely in devising delight for children whom he loved, we\ncould not conceive one single element of bliss which is not here.\"\n\n[1] Seneca.\n\n[2] Shelley.\n\n[3] I quote from Whinfield's translation.\n\n[4] Seneca.\n\n[5] Herbert.\n\n[6] Sir T. Browne.\n\n[7] Bacon.\n\n[8] Sir T. Browne.\n\n[9] Bacon.\n\n[10] Rousseau.\n\n[11] Aubrey de Vere.\n\n[12] Epictetus.\n\n[13] _Ibid_.\n\n[14] Shakespeare.\n\n[15] Emerson.\n\n[16] Seneca.\n\n[17] Bacon.\n\n[18] Epictetus.\n\n[19] The Enigmas of Life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE HAPPINESS OF DUTY.\n\n\n    \"I am always content with that which happens; for I\n    think that what God chooses is better than what I choose.\"\n\n    EPICTETUS.\n\n\n    \"O God, All conquering! this lower earth\n    Would be for men the blest abode of mirth\n      If they were strong in Thee\n    As other things of this world well are seen;\n    Oh then, far other than they yet have been,\n      How happy would men be.\"\n\n    KING ALFRED'S ed. of Boethius's\n    _Consolations of Philosophy_.\n\n\nWe ought not to picture Duty to ourselves, or to others, as a stern\ntaskmistress. She is rather a kind and sympathetic mother, ever ready to\nshelter us from the cares and anxieties of this world, and to guide us in\nthe paths of peace.\n\nTo shut oneself up from mankind is, in most cases, to lead a dull, as well\nas a selfish life. Our duty is to make ourselves useful, and thus life may\nbe most interesting, and yet comparatively free from anxiety.\n\nBut how can we fill our lives with _life_, energy, and interest, and yet\nkeep care outside?\n\nMany great men have made shipwreck in the attempt. \"Anthony sought for\nhappiness in love; Brutus in glory; Caesar in dominion: the first found\ndisgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each\ndestruction.\" [1] Riches, again, often bring danger, trouble, and\ntemptation; they require care to keep, though they may give much happiness\nif wisely spent.\n\nHow then is this great object to be secured? What, says Marcus Aurelius,\n\"What is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only\none--philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon [2] within a man\nfree from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing\nnothing without a purpose, yet not falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling\nthe need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides,\naccepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from\nthence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting\nfor death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution\nof the elements of which every living being is compounded.\" I confess I do\nnot feel the force of these last few words, which indeed scarcely seem\nrequisite for his argument. The thought of death, however, certainly\ninfluences the conduct of life less than might have been expected.\n\nBacon truly points out that \"there is no passion in the mind of man so\nweak, but it mates and masters the fear of death.... Revenge triumphs over\ndeath, love slights it, honor aspireth to it, grief flieth to it.\"\n\n  \"Think not I dread to see my spirit fly\n  Through the dark gates of fell mortality;\n  Death has no terrors when the life is true;\n  'Tis living ill that makes us fear to die.\" [3]\n\nWe need certainly have no such fear if we have done our best to make\nothers happy; to promote \"peace on earth and goodwill amongst men.\"\nNothing, again, can do more to release us from the cares of this world,\nwhich consume so much of our time, and embitter so much of our life. When\nwe have done our best, we should wait the result in peace; content, as\nEpictetus says, \"with that which happens, for what God chooses is better\nthan what I choose.\"\n\nAt any rate, if we have not effected all we wished, we shall have\ninfluenced ourselves. It may be true that one cannot do much. \"You are not\nHercules, and you are not able to purge away the wickedness of others; nor\nyet are you Theseus, able to drive away the evil things of Attica. But you\nmay clear away your own. From yourself, from your own thoughts, cast away,\ninstead of Procrustes and Sciron, [4] sadness, fear, desire, envy,\nmalevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance. But it is not possible to\neject these things otherwise than by looking to God only, by fixing your\naffections on Him only, by being consecrated by his commands.\" [5]\n\nPeople sometimes think how delightful it would be to be quite free. But a\nfish, as Ruskin says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly, it is \"a\nblack incarnation of freedom.\" A life of so-called pleasure and\nself-indulgence is not a life of real happiness or true freedom. Far from\nit, if we once begin to give way to ourselves, we fall under a most\nintolerable tyranny. Other temptations are in some respects like that of\ndrink. At first, perhaps, it seems delightful, but there is bitterness at\nthe bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy the desire created by previous\nindulgence. So it is in other things. Repetition soon becomes a craving,\nnot a pleasure. Resistance grows more and more painful; yielding, which at\nfirst, perhaps, afforded some slight and temporary gratification, soon\nceases to give pleasure, and even if for a time it procures relief, ere\nlong becomes odious itself.\n\nTo resist is difficult, to give way is painful; until at length the\nwretched victim to himself, can only purchase, or thinks he can only\npurchase, temporary relief from intolerable craving and depression, at the\nexpense of far greater suffering in the future.\n\nOn the other hand, self-control, however difficult at first, becomes step\nby step easier and more delightful. We possess mysteriously a sort of dual\nnature, and there are few truer triumphs, or more delightful sensations,\nthan to obtain thorough command of oneself.\n\nHow much pleasanter it is to ride a spirited horse, even perhaps though\nrequiring some strength and skill, than to creep along upon a jaded hack.\nIn the one case you feel under you the free, responsive spring of a living\nand willing force; in the other you have to spur a dull and lifeless\nslave.\n\nTo rule oneself is in reality the greatest triumph. \"He who is his own\nmonarch,\" says Sir T. Browne, \"contentedly sways the sceptre of himself,\nnot envying the glory to crowned heads and Elohim of the earth;\" for those\nare really highest who are nearest to heaven, and those are lowest who are\nfarthest from it.\n\nTrue greatness has little, if anything, to do with rank or power.\n\"Eurystheus being what he was,\" says Epictetus, \"was not really king of\nArgos nor of Mycenae, for he could not even rule himself; while Hercules\npurged lawlessness and introduced justice, though he was both naked and\nalone.\"\n\nWe are told that Cineas the philosopher once asked Pyrrhus what he would\ndo when he had conquered Italy. \"I will conquer Sicily.\" \"And after\nSicily?\" \"Then Africa.\" \"And after you have conquered the world?\" \"I will\ntake my ease and be merry.\" \"Then,\" asked Cineas, \"why can you not take\nyour ease and be merry now?\"\n\nMoreover, as Sir Arthur Helps has wisely pointed out, \"the enlarged view\nwe have of the Universe must in some measure damp personal ambition. What\nis it to be king, sheikh, tetrarch, or emperor over a 'bit of a bit' of\nthis little earth?\" \"All rising to great place,\" says Bacon, \"is by a\nwinding stair;\" and \"princes are like heavenly bodies, which have much\nveneration, but no rest.\"\n\nPlato in the _Republic_ mentions an old myth that after death every soul\nhas to choose a lot in life for the existence in the next world; and he\ntells us that the wise Ulysses searched for a considerable time for the\nlot of a private man. He had some difficulty in finding it, as it was\nlying neglected in a corner, but when he had secured it he was delighted;\nthe recollection of all he had gone through on earth, having disenchanted\nhim of ambition.\n\nMoreover, there is a great deal of drudgery in the lives of courts.\nCeremonials may be important, but they take up much time and are terribly\ntedious.\n\nA man then is his own best kingdom. \"He that ruleth his speech,\" says\nSolomon, \"is better than he that taketh a city.\" But self-control, this\ntruest and greatest monarchy, rarely comes by inheritance. Every one of us\nmust conquer himself; and we may do so, if we take conscience for our\nguide and general.\n\nNo one really fails who does his best. Seneca observes that \"no one saith\nthe three hundred Fabii were defeated, but that they were slain,\" and if\nyou have done your best, you will, in the words of an old Norse ballad,\nhave gained\n\n  \"Success in thyself, which is best of all.\"\n\nBeing myself engaged in business, I was rather startled to find it laid\ndown by no less an authority than Aristotle (almost as if it were a\nself-evident proposition) that commerce \"is incompatible with that\ndignified life which it is our wish that our citizens should lead, and\ntotally adverse to that generous elevation of mind with which it is our\nambition to inspire them.\" I know not how far that may really have been\nthe spirit and tendency of commerce among the ancient Greeks; but if so, I\ndo not wonder that it was not more successful.\n\nI may, indeed, quote Aristotle against himself, for he has elsewhere told\nus that \"business should be chosen for the sake of leisure; and things\nnecessary and useful for the sake of the beautiful in conduct.\"\n\nIt is not true that the ordinary duties of life in a country like\nours--commerce, manufactures, agriculture,--the pursuits to which the vast\nmajority are and must be devoted--are incompatible with the dignity or\nnobility of life. Whether a life is noble or ignoble depends, not on the\ncalling which is adopted, but on the spirit in which it is followed. The\nhumblest life may be noble, while that of the most powerful monarch or the\ngreatest genius may be contemptible. Commerce, indeed, is not only\ncompatible, but I would almost go further and say that it will be most\nsuccessful, if carried on in happy union with noble aims and generous\naspirations. What Ruskin says of art is, with due modification, true of\nlife generally. It does not matter whether a man \"paint the petal of a\nrose or the chasms of a precipice, so that love and admiration attend on\nhim as he labors, and wait for ever on his work. It does not matter\nwhether he toil for months on a few inches of his canvas, or cover a\npalace front with color in a day; so only that it be with a solemn\npurpose, that he have filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to\nhaste.\"\n\nIt is true that in a subsequent volume he refers to this passage, and\nadds, \"But though all is good for study, and all is beautiful, some is\nbetter than the rest for the help and pleasure of others; and this it is\nour duty always to choose if we have opportunity,\" adding, however, \"being\nquite happy with what is within our reach if we have not.\"\n\nWe read of and admire the heroes of old, but every one of us has to fight\nhis own Marathon and Thermopylae; every one meets the Sphinx sitting by\nthe road he has to pass; to each of us, as to Hercules, is offered the\nchoice of Vice or Virtue; we may, like Paris, give the apple of life to\nVenus, or Juno, or Minerva.\n\nThere are many who seem to think that we have fallen on an age in the\nworld when life is especially difficult and anxious, when there is less\nleisure than of yore, and the struggle for existence is keener than ever.\n\nOn the other hand, we must remember how much we have gained in security?\nIt may be an age of hard work, but when this is not carried to an extreme,\nit is by no means an evil. If we have less leisure, one reason is because\nlife is so full of interest. Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment,\nand on the whole I believe there never was a time when modest merit and\npatient industry were more sure of reward.\n\nWe must not, indeed, be discouraged if success be slow in coming, nor\npuffed up if it comes quickly. We often complain of the nature of things\nwhen the fault is all in ourselves. Seneca, in one of his letters,\nmentions that his wife's maid, Harpaste, had nearly lost her eyesight, but\n\"she knoweth not she is blind, she saith the house is dark. This that\nseemeth ridiculous unto us in her, happeneth unto us all. No man\nunderstandeth that he is covetous, or avaricious. He saith, I am not\nambitious, but no man can otherwise live in Rome; I am not sumptuous, but\nthe city requireth great expense.\"\n\nNewman, in perhaps the most beautiful of his hymns, \"Lead, kindly light,\"\nsays:\n\n  \"Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see\n  The distant scene; one step enough for me.\"\n\nBut we must be sure that we are really following some trustworthy guide,\nand not out of mere laziness allowing ourselves to drift. We have a guide\nwithin us which will generally lead us straight enough.\n\nReligion, no doubt, is full of difficulties, but if we are often puzzled\nwhat to think, we need seldom be in doubt what to do.\n\n  \"To say well is good, but to do well is better;\n  Do well is the spirit, and say well the letter;\n  If do well and say well were fitted in one frame,\n  All were won, all were done, and got were all the gain.\"\n\nCleanthes, who appears to have well merited the statue erected to him at\nAssos, says:\n\n  \"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny.\n    The way that I am bid by you to go:\n  To follow I am ready. If I choose not,\n    I make myself a wretch;--and still must follow.\"\n\nIf we are ever in doubt what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves\nwhat we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.\n\nMoreover, the result in the long run will depend not so much on some\nsingle resolution, or on our action in a special case, but rather on the\npreparation of daily life. Battles are often won before they are fought.\nTo control our passions we must govern our habits, and keep watch over\nourselves in the small details of everyday life.\n\nThe importance of small things has been pointed out by philosophers over\nand over again from AEsop downward. \"Great without small makes a bad\nwall,\" says a quaint Greek proverb, which seems to go back to cyclopean\ntimes. In an old Hindoo story Ammi says to his son, \"Bring me a fruit of\nthat tree and break it open. What is there?\" The son said, \"Some small\nseeds.\" \"Break one of them and what do you see?\" \"Nothing, my lord,\" \"My\nchild,\" said Ammi, \"where you see nothing there dwells a mighty tree.\" It\nmay almost be questioned whether anything can be truly called small.\n\n  \"There is no great and no small\n  To the soul that maketh all;\n  And where it cometh all things are,\n  And it cometh everywhere.\" [6]\n\nWe should therefore watch ourselves in small things. If \"you wish not to\nbe of an angry temper, do not feed the habit: throw nothing on it which\nwill increase it: at first keep quiet, and count the days on which you\nhave not been angry. I used to be in passion every day; now every second\nday; then every third; then every fourth. But if you have intermitted\nthirty days, make a sacrifice to God. For the habit at first begins to be\nweakened, and then is completely destroyed. When you can say, 'I have not\nbeen vexed to-day, nor the day before, nor yet on any succeeding day\nduring two or three months; but I took care when some exciting things\nhappened,' be assured that you are in a good way.\" [7]\n\nEmerson closes his _Conduct of Life_ with a striking allegory. The young\nMortal enters the Hall of the Firmament. The Gods are sitting there, and\nhe is alone with them. They pour on him gifts and blessings, and beckon\nhim to their thrones. But between him and them suddenly appear snow-storms\nof illusions. He imagines himself in a vast crowd, whose behests he\nfancies he must obey. The mad crowd drives hither and thither, and sways\nthis way and that. What is he that he should resist? He lets himself be\ncarried about. How can he think or act for himself? But the clouds lift,\nand there are the Gods still sitting on their thrones; they alone with him\nalone.\n\n\"The great man,\" he elsewhere says, \"is he who in the midst of the crowd\nkeeps with perfect sweetness the serenity of solitude.\"\n\nWe may all, if we will, secure peace of mind for ourselves.\n\n\"Men seek retreats,\" says Marcus Aurelius, \"houses in the country,\nseashores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very\nmuch. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men; for it\nis in thy power whenever thou shalt choose, to retire into thyself. For\nnowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man\nretire, than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such\nthoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect\ntranquillity.\"\n\nHappy indeed is he who has such a sanctuary in his own soul. \"He who is\nvirtuous is wise; and he who is wise is good; and he who is good is\nhappy.\" [8]\n\nBut we cannot expect to be happy if we do not lead pure and useful lives.\nTo be good company for ourselves we must store our minds well; fill them\nwith pure and peaceful thoughts; with pleasant memories of the past, and\nreasonable hopes for the future. We must, as far as may be, protect\nourselves from self-reproach, from care, and from anxiety. We shall make\nour lives pure and peaceful, by resisting evil, by placing restraint upon\nour appetites, and perhaps even more by strengthening and developing our\ntendencies to good. We must be careful, then, on what we allow our minds\nto dwell. The soul is dyed by its thoughts; we cannot keep our minds pure\nif we allow them to be sullied by detailed accounts of crime and sin.\nPeace of mind, as Ruskin beautifully observes, \"must come in its own time,\nas the waters settle themselves into clearness as well as quietness; you\ncan no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into\ncalmness; you must keep it pure if you would have it pure, and throw no\nstones into it if you would have it quiet.\"\n\nThe penalty of injustice, said Socrates, is not death or stripes, but the\nfatal necessity of becoming more and more unjust. Few men have led a wiser\nor more virtuous life than Socrates himself, of whom Xenophon gives us the\nfollowing description:--\"To me, being such as I have described him, so\npious that he did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just, that\nhe wronged no man even in the most trifling affair, but was of service in\nthe most important matters to those who enjoyed his society; so temperate\nthat he never preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise, that he never erred\nin distinguishing better from worse; needing no counsel from others, but\nbeing sufficient in himself to discriminate between them; so able to\nexplain and settle such questions by argument; and so capable of\ndiscerning the character of others, of confuting those who were in error,\nand of exhorting them to virtue and honor, he seemed to be such as the\nbest and happiest of men would be. But if any one disapproves of my\nopinion let him compare the conduct of others with that of Socrates, and\ndetermine accordingly.\"\n\nMarcus Aurelius again has drawn for us a most instructive lesson in his\ncharacter of Antoninus:--\"Remember his constancy in every act which was\nconformable to reason, his evenness in all things, his piety, the serenity\nof his countenance, his sweetness, his disregard of empty fame, and his\nefforts to understand things; how he would never let anything pass without\nhaving first carefully examined it and clearly understood it; how he bore\nwith those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them in return; how he\ndid nothing in a hurry; how he listened not to calumnies, and how exact an\nexaminer of manners and actions he was; not given to reproach people, nor\ntimid, nor suspicious, nor a sophist; with how little he was satisfied,\nsuch as lodging, bed, dress, food, servants; how laborious and patient;\nhow sparing he was in his diet; his firmness and uniformity in his\nfriendships; how he tolerated freedom of speech in those who opposed his\nopinions; the pleasure that he had when any man showed him anything\nbetter, and how pious he was without superstition. Imitate all this that\nthou mayest have as good a conscience, when thy last hour comes, as he\nhad.\"\n\nSuch peace of mind is indeed an inestimable boon, a rich reward of duty\nfulfilled. Well then does Epictetus ask, \"Is there no reward? Do you seek\na reward greater than that of doing what is good and just? At Olympia you\nwish for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the\ngames. Does it then seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good\nand happy?\"\n\nIn Bernard of Morlaix's beautiful lines--\n\n  \"Pax erit illa fidelibus, illa beata,\n  Irrevocabilis, Invariabilis, Intemerata.\n  Pax sine crimine, pax sine turbine, pax sine rix\u00e2,\n  Meta Laboribus, inque tumultibus anchora fixa;\n  Pax erit omnibus unica. Sed quibus? Immaculatis\n  Pectore mitibus, ordine stantibus, ore sacratis.\"\n\nWhat greater reward can we have than this; than the \"peace which passeth\nall understanding,\" \"which cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver\nbe weighed for the price thereof.\" [9]\n\n[1] Colton, _Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words_.\n\n[2] _i.e._ spirit.\n\n[3] Omar Khayyam.\n\n[4] Two robbers destroyed by Theseus.\n\n[5] Epictetus.\n\n[6] Emerson.\n\n[7] Epictetus.\n\n[8] King Alfred's _Boethius_.\n\n[9] Job.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nA SONG OF BOOKS.\n\n\n    \"Oh for a booke and a shadie nooke,\n      Eyther in doore or out;\n    With the grene leaves whispering overhead\n      Or the streete cryes all about.\n    Where I maie reade all at my ease,\n      Both of the newe and old;\n    For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,\n      Is better to me than golde.\"\n\n    OLD ENGLISH SONG.\n\n\nOf all the privileges we enjoy in this nineteenth century there is none,\nperhaps, for which we ought to be more thankful than for the easier access\nto books.\n\nThe debt we owe to books was well expressed by Richard de Bury, Bishop of\nDurham, author of _Philobiblon_, written as long ago as 1344, published in\n1473, and the earliest English treatise on the delights of\nliterature:--\"These,\" he says, \"are the masters who instruct us without\nrods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money.\nIf you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you\ninterrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never\ngrumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. The library,\ntherefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that\ncan be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever therefore\nacknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of happiness, of\nwisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a\nlover of books.\" But if the debt were great then, how much more now.\n\nThis feeling that books are real friends is constantly present to all who\nlove reading. \"I have friends,\" said Petrarch, \"whose society is extremely\nagreeable to me; they are of all ages, and of every country. They have\ndistinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and\nobtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to\ngain access to them, for they are always at my service, and I admit them\nto my company, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never\ntroublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate\nto me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of\nNature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their\nvivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give\nfortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to restrain my\ndesires, and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the\nvarious avenues of all the arts and sciences, and upon their information I\nmay safely rely in all emergencies. In return for all their services, they\nonly ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner\nof my humble habitation, where they may repose in peace; for these friends\nare more delighted by the tranquillity of retirement than with the tumults\nof society.\"\n\n\"He that loveth a book,\" says Isaac Barrow, \"will never want a faithful\nfriend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, an effectual\ncomforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert\nand pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, so in all fortunes.\"\n\nSouthey took a rather more melancholy view:\n\n  \"My days among the dead are pass'd,\n    Around me I behold,\n  Where'er these casual eyes are cast,\n    The mighty minds of old.\n  My never-failing friends are they,\n    With whom I converse day by day.\"\n\nImagine, in the words of Aikin, \"that we had it in our power to call up\nthe shades of the greatest and wisest men that ever existed, and oblige\nthem to converse with us on the most interesting topics--what an\ninestimable privilege should we think it!--how superior to all common\nenjoyments! But in a well-furnished library we, in fact, possess this\npower. We can question Xenophon and Caesar on their campaigns, make\nDemosthenes and Cicero plead before us, join in the audiences of Socrates\nand Plato, and receive demonstrations from Euclid and Newton. In books we\nhave the choicest thoughts of the ablest men in their best dress.\"\n\n\"Books,\" says Jeremy Collier, \"are a guide in youth and an entertainment\nfor age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from being a burthen\nto ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things;\ncompose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments asleep.\nWhen we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have\nnothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.\"\n\nSir John Herschel tells an amusing anecdote illustrating the pleasure\nderived from a book, not assuredly of the first order. In a certain\nvillage the blacksmith having got hold of Richardson's novel, _Pamela, or\nVirtue Rewarded_, used to sit on his anvil in the long summer evenings and\nread it aloud to a large and attentive audience. It is by no means a short\nbook, but they fairly listened to it all. At length, when the happy turn\nof fortune arrived, which brings the hero and heroine together, and sets\nthem living long and happily together according to the most approved\nrules, the congregation were so delighted as to raise a great shout, and\nprocuring the church keys, actually set the parish bells a-ringing.\n\n\"The lover of reading,\" says Leigh Hunt, \"will derive agreeable terror\nfrom _Sir Bertram_ and the _Haunted Chamber_; will assent with delighted\nreason to every sentence in _Mrs. Barbauld's Essay_; will feel himself\nwandering into solitudes with _Gray_; shake honest hands with _Sir Roger\nde Coverley_; be ready to embrace _Parson Adams_, and to chuck _Pounce_\nout of the window instead of the hat; will travel with _Marco Polo_ and\n_Mungo Park_; stay at home with _Thomson_; retire with _Cowley_; be\nindustrious with _Hutton_; sympathizing with _Gay_ and _Mrs. Inchbald_;\nlaughing with (and at) _Buncle_; melancholy, and forlorn, and\nself-restored with the shipwrecked mariner of _De Foe_.\"\n\nCarlyle has wisely said that a collection of books is a real university.\n\nThe importance of books has been appreciated in many quarters where we\nmight least expect it. Among the hardy Norsemen runes were supposed to be\nendowed with miraculous power. There is an Arabic proverb, that \"a wise\nman's day is worth a fool's life,\" and another--though it reflects perhaps\nrather the spirit of the Califs than of the Sultans,--that \"the ink of\nscience is more precious than the blood of the martyrs.\"\n\nConfucius is said to have described himself as a man who \"in his eager\npursuit of knowledge forgot his food, who in the joy of its attainment\nforgot his sorrows, and did not even perceive that old age was coming on.\"\n\nYet, if this could be said by the Arabs and the Chinese, what language can\nbe strong enough to express the gratitude we ought to feel for the\nadvantages we enjoy! We do not appreciate, I think, our good fortune in\nbelonging to the nineteenth century. Sometimes, indeed, one may even be\ninclined to wish that one had not lived quite so soon, and to long for a\nglimpse of the books, even the school-books, of one hundred years hence. A\nhundred years ago not only were books extremely expensive and cumbrous,\nbut many of the most delightful were still uncreated--such as the works of\nScott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, and Trollope, not to mention\nliving authors. How much more interesting science has become especially,\nif I were to mention only one name, through the genius of Darwin! Renan\nhas characterized this as a most amusing century; I should rather have\ndescribed it as most interesting: presenting us as it does with an endless\nvista of absorbing problems; with infinite opportunities; with more\ninterest and less danger than surrounded our less fortunate ancestors.\n\nCicero described a room without books, as a body without a soul. But it is\nby no means necessary to be a philosopher to love reading.\n\nReading, indeed, is by no means necessarily study. Far from it. \"I put,\"\nsays Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent article on the \"Choice of\nBooks,\" \"I put the poetic and emotional side of literature as the most\nneeded for daily use.\"\n\nIn the prologue to the _Legende of Goode Women_, Chaucer says:\n\n  \"And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,\n  On bokes for to rede I me delyte,\n  And to him give I feyth and ful credence,\n  And in myn herte have him in reverence,\n  So hertely, that ther is game noon,\n  That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,\n  But yt be seldome on the holy day,\n  Save, certynly, when that the monthe of May\n  Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,\n  And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,\n  Farwel my boke and my devocion.\"\n\nBut I doubt whether, if he had enjoyed our advantages, he could have been\nso certain of tearing himself away, even in the month of May.\n\nMacaulay, who had all that wealth and fame, rank and talents could give,\nyet, we are told, derived his greatest happiness from books. Sir G.\nTrevelyan, in his charming biography, says that--\"of the feelings which\nMacaulay entertained toward the great minds of bygone ages it is not for\nany one except himself to speak. He has told us how his debt to them was\nincalculable; how they guided him to truth; how they filled his mind with\nnoble and graceful images; how they stood by him in all vicissitudes--\ncomforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude, the old\nfriends who are never seen with new faces; who are the same in wealth and\nin poverty, in glory and in obscurity. Great as were the honors and\npossessions which Macaulay acquired by his pen, all who knew him were well\naware that the titles and rewards which he gained by his own works were as\nnothing in the balance compared with the pleasure he derived from the\nworks of others.\"\n\nThere was no society in London so agreeable that Macaulay would have\npreferred it at breakfast or at dinner \"to the company of Sterne or\nFielding, Horace Walpole or Boswell.\" The love of reading which Gibbon\ndeclared he would not exchange for all the treasures of India was, in\nfact, with Macaulay \"a main element of happiness in one of the happiest\nlives that it has ever fallen to the lot of the biographer to record.\"\n\n\"History,\" says Fuller, \"maketh a young man to be old without either\nwrinkles or gray hair, privileging him with the experience of age without\neither the infirmities or the inconveniences thereof.\"\n\nSo delightful indeed are books that we must be careful not to forget other\nduties for them; in cultivating the mind we must not neglect the body.\n\nTo the lover of literature or science, exercise often presents itself as\nan irksome duty, and many a one has felt like \"the fair pupil of Ascham\n(Lady Jane Gray), who, while the horns were sounding and dogs in full cry,\nsat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which\ntells how meekly and bravely (Socrates) the first martyr of intellectual\nliberty took the cup from his weeping jailer.\" [1]\n\nStill, as the late Lord Derby justly observed, [2] those who do not find\ntime for exercise will have to find time for illness.\n\nBooks, again, are now so cheap as to be within the reach of almost every\none. This was not always so. It is quite a recent blessing. Mr. Ireland,\nto whose charming little _Book Lover's Enchiridion_, in common with every\nlover of reading. I am greatly indebted, tells us that when a boy he was\nso delighted with White's _Natural History of Selborne_, that in order to\npossess a copy of his own he actually copied out the whole work.\n\nMary Lamb gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering at a\nbookstall:\n\n  \"I saw a boy with eager eye\n  Open a book upon a stall,\n  And read, as he'd devour it all;\n  Which, when the stall man did espy,\n  Soon to the boy I heard him call,\n  'You, sir, you never buy a book,\n  Therefore in one you shall not look.'\n  The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh\n  He wished he never had been taught to read,\n  Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need.\"\n\nSuch snatches of literature have indeed, special and peculiar charm. This\nis, I believe, partly due to the very fact of their being brief. Many\nreaders miss much of the pleasure of reading by forcing themselves to\ndwell too long continuously on one subject. In a long railway journey, for\ninstance, many persons take only a single book. The consequence is that,\nunless it is a story, after half an hour or an hour they are quite tired\nof it. Whereas, if they had two, or still better three books, on different\nsubjects, and one of them of an amusing character, they would probably\nfind that, by changing as soon as they felt at all weary, they would come\nback again and again to each with renewed zest, and hour after hour would\npass pleasantly away. Every one, of course, must judge for himself, but\nsuch at least is my experience.\n\nI quite agree, therefore, with Lord Iddesleigh as to the charm of\ndesultory reading, but the wider the field the more important that we\nshould benefit by the very best books in each class. Not that we need\nconfine ourselves to them, but that we should commence with them, and they\nwill certainly lead us on to others. There are of course some books which\nwe must read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But these are exceptions.\nAs regards by far the larger number, it is probably better to read them\nquickly, dwelling only on the best and most important passages. In this\nway, no doubt, we shall lose much, but we gain more by ranging over a\nwider field. We may, in fact, I think, apply to reading Lord Brougham's\nwise dictum as regards education, and say that it is well to read\neverything of something, and something of everything. In this way only we\ncan ascertain the bent of our own tastes, for it is a general, though not\nof course an invariable, rule, that we profit little by books which we do\nnot enjoy.\n\nEvery one, however, may suit himself. The variety is endless.\n\nNot only does a library contain \"infinite riches in a little room,\" [3]\nbut we may sit at home and yet be in all quarters of the earth. We may\ntravel round the world with Captain Cook or Darwin, with Kingsley or\nRuskin, who will show us much more perhaps than ever we should see for\nourselves. The world itself has no limits for us; Humboldt and Herschel\nwill carry us far away to the mysterious nebulae, beyond the sun and even\nthe stars: time has no more bounds than space; history stretches out\nbehind us, and geology will carry us back for millions of years before the\ncreation of man, even to the origin of the material Universe itself. Nor\nare we limited to one plane of thought. Aristotle and Plato will transport\nus into a sphere none the less delightful because we cannot appreciate it\nwithout some training.\n\nComfort and consolation, refreshment and happiness, may indeed be found in\nhis library by any one \"who shall bring the golden key that unlocks its\nsilent door.\" [4] A library is true fairyland, a very palace of delight, a\nhaven of repose from the storms and troubles of the world. Rich and poor\ncan enjoy it equally, for here, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We\nmay make a library, if we do but rightly use it, a true paradise on earth,\na garden of Eden without its one drawback; for all is open to us,\nincluding, and especially, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for which\nwe are told that our first mother sacrificed all the Pleasures of\nParadise. Here we may read the most important histories, the most exciting\nvolumes of travels and adventures, the most interesting stories, the most\nbeautiful poems; we may meet the most eminent statesmen, poets, and\nphilosophers, benefit by the ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy the\ngrandest creations of human genius.\n\n[1] Macaulay.\n\n[2] Address, Liverpool College, 1873.\n\n[3] Marlowe.\n\n[4] Matthews.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE CHOICE OF BOOKS.\n\n\n    \"All round the room my silent servants wait\n    My friends in every season, bright and dim,\n        Angels and Seraphim\n    Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,\n    And spirits of the skies all come and go\n        Early and Late.\"\n\n    PROCTOR.\n\n\nAnd yet too often they wait in vain. One reason for this is, I think, that\npeople are overwhelmed by the crowd of books offered to them.\n\nIn old days books were rare and dear. Now on the contrary, it may be said\nwith greater truth than ever that\n\n  \"Words are things, and a small drop of ink,\n  Falling like dew upon a thought, produces\n  That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.\"\n\nOur ancestors had a difficulty in procuring them. Our difficulty now is\nwhat to select. We must be careful what we read, and not, like the sailors\nof Ulysses, take bags of wind for sacks of treasure--not only lest we\nshould even now fall into the error of the Greeks, and suppose that\nlanguage and definitions can be instruments of investigation as well as of\nthought, but lest, as too often happens, we should waste time over trash.\nThere are many books to which one may apply, in the sarcastic sense, the\nambiguous remark said to have been made to an unfortunate author, \"I will\nlose no time in reading your book.\"\n\nThere are, indeed, books and books, and there are books which, as Lamb\nsaid, are not books at all. It is wonderful how much innocent happiness we\nthoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says that calamities sent by\nheaven may be avoided, but from those we bring on ourselves there is no\nescape.\n\nMany, I believe, are deterred from attempting what are called stiff books\nfor fear they should not understand them; but there are few who need\ncomplain of the narrowness of their minds, if only they would do their\nbest with them.\n\nIn reading, however, it is most important to select subjects in which one\nis interested. I remember years ago consulting Mr. Darwin as to the\nselection of a course of study. He asked me what interested me most, and\nadvised me to choose that subject. This, indeed, applies to the work of\nlife generally.\n\nI am sometimes disposed to think that the readers of the next generation\nwill be, not our lawyers and doctors, shopkeepers and manufacturers, but\nthe laborers and mechanics. Does not this seem natural? The former work\nmainly with their head; when their daily duties are over the brain is\noften exhausted, and of their leisure time much must be devoted to air and\nexercise. The laborer and mechanic, on the contrary, besides working often\nfor much shorter hours, have in their work-time taken sufficient bodily\nexercise, and could therefore give any leisure they might have to reading\nand study. They have not done so as yet, it is true; but this has been for\nobvious reasons. Now, however, in the first place, they receive an\nexcellent education in elementary schools, and in the second have more\neasy access to the best books.\n\nRuskin has observed that he does not wonder at what men suffer, but he\noften wonders at what they lose. We suffer much, no doubt, from the faults\nof others, but we lose much more by our own ignorance.\n\n\"If,\" says Sir John Herschel, \"I were to pray for a taste which should\nstand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of\nhappiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its\nills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would\nbe a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly\nadvantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating\nfrom the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious\nprinciples--but as a taste, and instrument, and a mode of pleasurable\ngratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and\nyou can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into\nhis hands a most perverse selection of books.\"\n\nIt is one thing to own a library; it is quite another to use it wisely. I\nhave often been astonished how little care people devote to the selection\nof what they read. Books, we know, are almost innumerable; our hours for\nreading are, alas! very few. And yet many people read almost by hazard.\nThey will take any book they chance to find in a room at a friend's house;\nthey will buy a novel at a railway-stall if it has an attractive title;\nindeed, I believe in some cases even the binding affects their choice. The\nselection is, no doubt, far from easy. I have often wished some one would\nrecommend a list of a hundred good books. If we had such lists drawn up by\na few good guides they would be most useful. I have indeed sometimes heard\nit said that in reading every one must choose for himself, but this\nreminds me of the recommendation not to go into the water till you can\nswim.\n\nIn the absence of such lists I have picked out the books most frequently\nmentioned with approval by those who have referred directly or indirectly\nto the pleasure of reading, and have ventured to include some which,\nthough less frequently mentioned, are especial favorites of my own. Every\none who looks at the list will wish to suggest other books, as indeed I\nshould myself, but in that case the number would soon run up. [1]\n\nI have abstained, for obvious reasons, from mentioning works by living\nauthors, though from many of them--Tennyson, Ruskin, and others--I have\nmyself derived the keenest enjoyment; and I have omitted works on science,\nwith one or two exceptions, because the subject is so progressive.\n\nI feel that the attempt is over bold, and I must beg for indulgence, while\nhoping for criticism; indeed one object which I have had in view is to\nstimulate others more competent far than I am to give us the advantage of\ntheir opinions.\n\nMoreover, I must repeat that I suggest these works rather as those which,\nas far as I have seen, have been most frequently recommended, than as\nsuggestions of my own, though I have slipped in a few of my own special\nfavorites.\n\nIn any such selection much weight should, I think, be attached to the\ngeneral verdict of mankind. There is a \"struggle for existence\" and a\n\"survival of the fittest\" among books, as well as among animals and\nplants. As Alonzo of Aragon said, \"Age is a recommendation in four\nthings--old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust,\nand old books to read.\" Still, this can not be accepted without important\nqualifications. The most recent books of history and science contain or\nought to contain, the most accurate information and the most trustworthy\nconclusions. Moreover, while the books of other races and times have an\ninterest from their very distance, it must be admitted that many will\nstill more enjoy, and feel more at home with, those of our own century and\npeople.\n\nYet the oldest books of the world are remarkable and interesting on\naccount of their very age; and the works which have influenced the\nopinions, or charmed the leisure hours, of millions of men in distant\ntimes and far-away regions are well worth reading on that very account,\neven if to us they seem scarcely to deserve their reputation. It is true\nthat to many, such works are accessible only in translations; but\ntranslations, though they can never perhaps do justice to the original,\nmay yet be admirable in themselves. The Bible itself, which must stand\nfirst in the list, is a conclusive case.\n\nAt the head of all non-Christian moralists, I must place the\n_Enchiridion_ of Epictetus, certainly one of the noblest books in the\nwhole of literature; it has, moreover, been admirably translated. With\nEpictetus, [2] I think must come Marcus Aurelius. The _Analects_ of\nConfucius will, I believe, prove disappointing to most English readers,\nbut the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men\nconstitutes in itself a peculiar interest. The _Ethics_ of Aristotle,\nperhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so\nprofoundly influenced our views of morality. The _Koran_, like the\n_Analects_ of Confucius, will to most of us derive its principal interest\nfrom the effect it has exercised, and still exercises, on so many millions\nof our fellow-men. I doubt whether in any other respect it will seem to\nrepay perusal, and to most persons probably certain extracts, not too\nnumerous, would appear sufficient.\n\nThe writings of the Apostolic Fathers have been collected in one volume by\nWake. It is but a small one, and though I must humbly confess that I was\ndisappointed, they are perhaps all the more curious from the contrast they\nafford to those of the Apostles themselves. Of the later Fathers I have\nincluded only the _Confessions_ of St. Augustine, which Dr. Pusey selected\nfor the commencement of the _Library of the Fathers_, and which, as he\nobserves, has \"been translated again and again into almost every European\nlanguage, and in all loved;\" though Luther was of opinion that St.\nAugustine \"wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith.\" But then Luther\nwas no great admirer of the Father. St. Jerome, he says, \"writes, alas!\nvery coldly;\" Chrysostom \"digresses from the chief points;\" St. Jerome is\n\"very poor;\" and in fact, he says, \"the more I read the books of the\nFathers the more I find myself offended;\" while Renan, in his interesting\nautobiography, compared theology to a Gothic Cathedral, \"elle a la\ngrandeur, les vides immenses, et le peu de solidit\u00e9.\"\n\nAmong other devotional works most frequently recommended are Thomas \u00e0\nKempis' _Imitation of Christ_, Pascal's _Pens\u00e9es_, Spinoza's _Tractatus\nTheologico-Politicus_, Butler's _Analogy of Religion_, Jeremy Taylor's\n_Holy Living and Dying_, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, and last, not\nleast, Keble's beautiful _Christian Year_.\n\nAristotle and Plato again stand at the head of another class. The\n_Politics_ of Aristotle, and Plato's _Dialogues_, if not the whole, at any\nrate the _Phaedo_, the _Apology_, and the _Republic_, will be of course\nread by all who wish to know anything of the history of human thought,\nthough I am heretical enough to doubt whether the latter repays the minute\nand laborious study often devoted to it.\n\nAristotle being the father, if not the creator, of the modern scientific\nmethod, it has followed naturally--indeed, almost inevitably--that his\nprinciples have become part of our very intellectual being, so that they\nseem now almost self-evident, while his actual observations, though very\nremarkable--as, for instance, when he observes that bees on one journey\nconfine themselves to one kind of flower--still have been in many cases\nsuperseded by others, carried on under more favorable conditions. We must\nnot be ungrateful to the great master, because his lessons have taught us\nhow to advance.\n\nPlato, on the other hand, I say so with all respect, seems to me in some\ncases to play on words: his arguments are very able, very philosophical,\noften very noble; but not always conclusive; in a language differently\nconstructed they might sometimes tell in exactly the opposite sense. If\nthis method has proved less fruitful, if in metaphysics we have made but\nlittle advance, that very fact in one point of view leaves the\n_Dialogues_ of Socrates as instructive now as ever they were; while the\nproblems with which they deal will always rouse our interest, as the calm\nand lofty spirit which inspires them must command our admiration. Of the\n_Apology_ and the _Phaedo_ especially it would be impossible to speak too\ngratefully.\n\nI would also mention Demosthenes' _De Coron\u00e2_, which Lord Brougham\npronounced the greatest oration of the greatest of orators; Lucretius,\nPlutarch's Lives, Horace, and at least the _De Officiis_, _De Amiciti\u00e2_,\nand _De Senectute_ of Cicero.\n\nThe great epics of the world have always constituted one of the most\npopular branches of literature. Yet how few, comparatively, ever read\nHomer or Virgil after leaving school.\n\nThe _Nibelungenlied_, our great Anglo-Saxon epic, is perhaps too much\nneglected, no doubt on account of its painful character. Brunhild and\nKriemhild, indeed, are far from perfect, but we meet with few such \"live\"\nwomen in Greek or Roman literature. Nor must I omit to mention Sir T.\nMalory's _Morte d'Arthur_, though I confess I do so mainly in deference to\nthe judgment of others.\n\nAmong the Greek tragedians I include Aeschylus, if not all his works, at\nany rate _Prometheus_, perhaps the sublimest poem in Greek literature, and\nthe _Trilogy_ (Mr. Symonds in his _Greek Poets_ speaks of the \"unrivalled\nmajesty\" of the _Agamemnon_, and Mark Pattison considered it \"the grandest\nwork of creative genius in the whole range of literature\"); or, as Sir M.\nE. Grant Duff recommends, the _Persae_; Sophocles (_Oedipus Tyrannus_),\nEuripides (_Medea_), and Aristophanes (_The Knights_ and _Clouds_);\nunfortunately, as Schlegel says, probably even the greatest scholar does\nnot understand half his jokes; and I think most modern readers will prefer\nour modern poets.\n\nI should like, moreover, to say a word for Eastern poetry, such as\nportions of the _Maha Bharata_ and _Ramayana_ (too long probably to be\nread through, but of which Talboys Wheeler has given a most interesting\nepitome in the first two volumes of his _History of India_); the\n_Shah-nameh_, the work of the great Persian poet Firdusi; Kalidasa's\n_Sakuntala_, and the Sheking, the classical collection of ancient Chinese\nodes. Many I know, will think I ought to have included Omar Khayyam.\n\nIn history we are beginning to feel that the vices and vicissitudes of\nkings and queens, the dates of battles and wars, are far less important\nthan the development of human thought, the progress of art, of science,\nand of law, and the subject is on that very account even more interesting\nthan ever. I will, however, only mention, and that rather from a literary\nthan a historical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon (the _Anabasis_),\nThucydides, and Tacitus (_Germania_); and of modern historians, Gibbon's\n_Decline and Fall_ (\"the splendid bridge from the old world to the new\"),\nHume's _History of England_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Grote's\n_History of Greece_, and Green's _Short History of the English People_.\n\nScience is so rapidly progressive that, though to many minds it is the\nmost fruitful and interesting subject of all, I cannot here rest on that\nagreement which, rather than my own opinion, I take as the basis of my\nlist. I will therefore only mention Bacon's _Novum Organum_, Mill's\n_Logic_, and Darwin's _Origin of Species_; in Political Economy, which\nsome of our rulers do not now sufficiently value, Mill, and parts of\nSmith's _Wealth of Nations_, for probably those who do not intend to make\na special study of political economy would scarcely read the whole.\n\nAmong voyages and travels, perhaps those most frequently suggested are\nCook's _Voyages_, Humboldt's _Travels_, and Darwin's _Naturalist's\nJournal_; though I confess I should like to have added many more.\n\nMr. Bright not long ago specially recommended the less known American\npoets, but he probably assumed that every one would have read Shakespeare,\nMilton (_Paradise Lost_, _Lycidas_, _Comus_ and minor poems), Chaucer,\nDante, Spencer, Dryden, Scott, Wordsworth, Pope, Byron, and others, before\nembarking on more doubtful adventures.\n\nAmong other books most frequently recommended are Goldsmith's _Vicar of\nWakefield_, Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, _The\nArabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_, Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, White's\n_Natural History of Selborne_, Burke's Select Works (Payne), the Essays of\nBacon, Addison, Hume, Montaigne, Macaulay, and Emerson, Carlyle's _Past\nand Present_, Smiles' _Self-Help_, and Goethe's _Faust_ and\n_Autobiography_.\n\nNor can one go wrong in recommending Berkeley's _Human Knowledge_,\nDescartes' _Discours sur la M\u00e9thode_, Locke's _Conduct of the\nUnderstanding_, Lewes' _History of Philosophy_; while, in order to keep\nwithin the number one hundred, I can only mention Moliere and Sheridan\namong dramatists. Macaulay considered Marivaux's _La Vie de Marianne_ the\nbest novel in any language, but my number is so nearly complete that I\nmust content myself with English: and will suggest Thackeray (_Vanity\nFair_ and _Pendennis_), Dickens (_Pickwick_ and _David Copperfield_), G.\nEliot (_Adam Bede_ or _The Mill on the Floss_), Kingsley (_Westward Ho!_),\nLytton (_Last Days of Pompeii_), and last, not least, those of Scott,\nwhich indeed constitute a library in themselves, but which I must ask, in\nreturn for my trouble, to be allowed, as a special favor, to count as one.\n\nTo any lover of books the very mention of these names brings back a crowd\nof delicious memories, grateful recollections of peaceful home hours,\nafter the labors and anxieties of the day. How thankful we ought to be for\nthese inestimable blessings, for this numberless host of friends who never\nweary, betray, or forsake us!\n\n\nLIST OF 100 BOOKS.\n\n_Works by Living Authors are omitted_.\n\n  The Bible\n  The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius\n  Epictetus\n  Aristotle's Ethics\n  Analects of Confucius\n  St. Hilaire's \"Le Bouddha et sa religion\"\n  Wake's Apostolic Fathers\n  Thos. \u00e0 Kempis' Imitation of Christ\n  Confessions of St. Augustine (Dr. Pusey)\n  The Koran (portions of)\n  Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus\n  Comte's Catechism of Positive Philosophy\n  Pascal's Pens\u00e9es\n  Butler's Analogy of Religion\n  Taylor's Holy Living and Dying\n  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress\n  Keble's Christian Year\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Plato's Dialogues; at any rate, the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo\n  Xenophon's Memorabilia\n  Aristotle's Politics\n  Demosthenes' De Corona.\n  Cicero's De Officiis, De Amicitia, and De Senectute\n  Plutarch's Lives\n  Berkeley's Human Knowledge\n  Descartes' Discours sur la Methode\n  Locke's On the Conduct of the Understanding\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Homer\n  Hesiod\n  Virgil\n  Maha Bharata       |Epitomized in Talboys Wheeler's\n  Ramayana           |History of India, vols. i. and ii.\n  The Shahnameh\n  The Nibelungenlied\n  Malory's Morte d'Arthur\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  The Sheking\n  Kalidasa's Sakuntala or The Lost Ring\n  Aeschylus' Prometheus\n    Trilogy of Orestes\n  Sophocles' OEdipus\n  Euripides' Medea\n  Aristophanes' The Knights and Clouds\n  Horace\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (perhaps in Morris' edition; or, if\n    expurgated, in C. Clarke's, or Mrs. Haweis')\n  Shakespeare\n  Milton's Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus, and the shorter poems\n  Dante's Divina Commedia\n  Spenser's Fairie Queen\n  Dryden's Poems\n  Scott's Poems\n  Wordsworth (Mr. Arnold's selection)\n  Pope's Essay on Criticism\n    Essay on Man\n    Rape of the Lock\n  Burns\n  Byron's Childe Harold\n  Gray\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Herodotus\n  Xenophon's Anabasis and Memorabilia\n  Thucydides\n  Tacitus' Germania\n  Livy\n  Gibbon's Decline and Fall\n  Hume's History of England\n  Grote's History of Greece\n  Carlyle's French Revolution\n  Green's Short History of England\n  Lewes' History of Philosophy\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Arabian Nights\n  Swift's Gulliver's Travels\n  Defoe's Robinson Crusoe\n  Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield\n  Cervantes' Don Quixote\n  Boswell's Life of Johnson\n  Moli\u00e8re\n  Schiller's William Tell\n  Sheridan's The Critic, School for Scandal, and The Rivals\n  Carlyle's Past and Present\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Bacon's Novum Organum\n  Smith's Wealth of Nations (part of)\n  Mill's Political Economy\n  Cook's Voyages\n  Humboldt's Travels\n  White's Natural History of Selborne\n  Darwin's Origin of Species\n    Naturalist's Voyage\n  Mill's Logic\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Bacon's Essays\n  Montaigne's Essays\n  Hume's Essays\n  Macaulay's Essays\n  Addison's Essays\n  Emerson's Essays\n  Burke's Select Works\n  Smiles' Self-Help\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Voltaire's Zadig and Micromegas\n  Goethe's Faust, and Autobiography\n  Thackeray's Vanity Fair\n    Pendennis\n  Dickens' Pickwick\n    David Copperfield\n  Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii\n  George Eliot's Adam Bede\n  Kingsley's Westward Ho!\n  Scott's Novels\n\n[1] Several longer lists have been given; for instance, by Comte,\n_Catechism, of Positive Philosophy_; Pycroft, _Course of English Reading_;\nBaldwin, _The Book Lover_; Perkins, _The Best Reading_; and by Mr.\nIreland, _Books for General Readers_.\n\n[2] It is much to be desired that some one would publish a selection from\nthe works of Seneca.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE BLESSING OF FRIENDS.\n\n\n    \"They seem to take away the sun from the world who withdraw friendship\n    from life; for we have received nothing better from the Immortal Gods,\n    nothing more delightful.\"--CICERO.\n\n\nMost of those who have written in praise of books have thought they could\nsay nothing more conclusive than to compare them to friends.\n\n\"All men,\" said Socrates, \"have their different objects of\nambition--horses, dogs, money, honor, as the case may be; but for his own\npart he would rather have a good friend than all these put together.\" And\nagain, men know \"the number of their other possessions, although they\nmight be very numerous, but of their friends, though but few, they were\nnot only ignorant of the number, but even when they attempted to reckon it\nto such as asked them, they set aside again some that they had previously\ncounted among their friends; so little did they allow their friends to\noccupy their thoughts. Yet in comparison with what possession, of all\nothers, would not a good friend appear far more valuable?\"\n\n\"As to the value of other things,\" says Cicero, \"most men differ;\nconcerning friendship all have the same opinion. What can be more foolish\nthan, when men are possessed of great influence by their wealth, power,\nand resources, to procure other things which are bought by money--horses,\nslaves, rich apparel, costly vases--and not to procure friends, the most\nvaluable and fairest furniture of life?\" And yet, he continues, \"every man\ncan tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.\"\nIn the choice, moreover, of a dog or of a horse, we exercise the greatest\ncare: we inquire into its pedigree, its training and character, and yet we\ntoo often leave the selection of our friends, which is of infinitely\ngreater importance--by whom our whole life will be more or less influenced\neither for good or evil--almost to chance.\n\nIt is no doubt true, as the _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ says, that\nall men are bores except when we want them. And Sir Thomas Browne quaintly\nobserves that \"unthinking heads who have not learnt to be alone, are a\nprison to themselves if they be not with others; whereas, on the contrary,\nthose whose thoughts are in a fair and hurry within, are sometimes fain to\nretire into company to be out of the crowd of themselves.\" Still I do not\nquite understand Emerson's idea that \"men descend to meet.\" In another\nplace, indeed, he qualifies the statement, and says, \"Almost all people\ndescend to meet.\" Even so I should venture to question it, especially\nconsidering the context. \"All association,\" he adds, \"must be a\ncompromise, and, what is worse, the very flower and aroma of the flower of\neach of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other.\"\nWhat a sad thought! Is it really so; need it be so? And if it were, would\nfriends be any real advantage? I should have thought that the influence of\nfriends was exactly the reverse: that the flower of a beautiful nature\nwould expand, and the colors grow brighter, when stimulated by the warmth\nand sunshine of friendship.\n\nIt has been said that it is wise always to treat a friend, remembering\nthat he may become an enemy, and an enemy, remembering that he may become\na friend; and whatever may be thought of the first part of the adage,\nthere is certainly much wisdom in the latter. Many people seem to take\nmore pains and more pleasure in making enemies, than in making friends.\nPlutarch, indeed, quotes with approbation the advice of Pythagoras \"not to\nshake hands with too many,\" but as long as friends are well chosen, it is\ntrue rather that\n\n  \"He who has a thousand friends,\n    Has never a one to spare,\n   And he who has one enemy,\n    Will meet him everywhere,\"\n\nand unfortunately, while there are few great friends there is no little\nenemy.\n\nI guard myself, however, by saying again--As long as they are well chosen.\nOne is thrown in life with a great many people who, though not actively\nbad, though they may not wilfully lead us astray, yet take no pains with\nthemselves, neglect their own minds, and direct the conversation to petty\npuerilities or mere gossip; who do not seem to realize that conversation\nmay by a little effort be made most instructive and delightful, without\nbeing in any way pedantic; or, on the other hand, may be allowed to drift\ninto a mere morass of muddy thought and weedy words. There is hardly\nanyone from whom we may not learn much, if only they will trouble\nthemselves to tell us. Nay, even if they teach us nothing, they may help\nus by the stimulus of intelligent questions, or the warmth of sympathy.\nBut if they do neither, then indeed their companionship, if companionship\nit can be called, is mere waste of time, and of such we may well say, \"I\ndo desire that we be better strangers.\"\n\nMuch certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our\nmaking a wise choice of our companions and friends. If our friends are\nbadly chosen they will inevitably drag us down; if well they will raise us\nup. Yet many people seem to trust in this matter to the chapter of\naccident. It is well and right, indeed, to be courteous and considerate to\nevery one with whom we are brought into contact, but to choose them as\nreal friends is another matter. Some seem to make a man a friend, or try\nto do so, because he lives near, because he is in the same business,\ntravels on the same line of railway, or for some other trivial reason.\nThere cannot be a greater mistake. These are only, in the words of\nPlutarch, \"the idols and images of friendship.\"\n\nTo be friendly with every one is another matter; we must remember that\nthere is no little enemy, and those who have ever really loved any one\nwill have some tenderness for all. There is indeed some good in most men.\n\"I have heard much,\" says Mr. Nasmyth in his charming autobiography,\n\"about the ingratitude and selfishness of the world. It may have been my\ngood fortune, but I have never experienced either of these unfeeling\nconditions.\" Such also has been my own experience.\n\n  \"Men talk of unkind hearts, kind deeds\n    With coldness still returning.\n  Alas! the gratitude of men\n    Has oftener left me mourning.\"\n\nI cannot, then, agree with Emerson that \"we walk alone in the world.\nFriends such as we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers\never the faithful heart, that elsewhere in other regions of the universal\npower souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and\nwhich we can love.\"\n\nNo doubt, much as worthy friends add to the happiness and value of life,\nwe must in the main depend on ourselves, and every one is his own best\nfriend or worst enemy.\n\nSad, indeed, is Bacon's assertion that \"there is little friendship in the\nworld, and least of all between equals, which was wont to be magnified.\nThat  that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may\ncomprehend the one to the other.\" But this can hardly be taken as his\ndeliberate opinion, for he elsewhere says, \"but we may go farther, and\naffirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true\nfriends, without which the world is but a wilderness.\" Not only, he adds,\ndoes friendship introduce \"daylight in the understanding out of darkness\nand confusion of thoughts;\" it \"maketh a fair day in the affections from\nstorm and tempests:\" in consultation with a friend a man \"tosseth his\nthoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they\nlook when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than\nhimself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's\nmeditation.\"... \"But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far\nit extendeth, for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of\npictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love.\"\n\nWith this last assertion I cannot altogether concur. Surely even strangers\nmay be most interesting! and many will agree with Dr. Johnson when,\ndescribing a pleasant evening, he summed it up--\"Sir, we had a good talk.\"\n\nEpictetus gives excellent advice when he dissuades from conversation on\nthe very subjects most commonly chosen, and advises that it should be on\n\"none of the common subjects--not about gladiators, nor horse-races, nor\nabout athletes, nor about eating or drinking, which are the usual\nsubjects; and especially not about men, as blaming them;\" but when he\nadds, \"or praising them,\" the injunction seems to me of doubtful value.\nSurely Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that \"when thou wishest to\ndelight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee; for\ninstance, the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the\nliberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth. For\nnothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when they are\nexhibited in the morals of those who live with us and present themselves\nin abundance, as far as is possible. Wherefore we must keep them before\nus.\" Yet how often we know merely the sight of those we call our friends,\nor the sound of their voices, but nothing whatever of their mind or soul.\n\nWe must, moreover, be as careful to keep friends as to make them. If every\none knew what one said of the other, Pascal assures us that \"there would\nnot be four friends in the world.\" This I hope and think is too strong,\nbut at any rate try to be one of the four. And when you have made a\nfriend, keep him. Hast thou a friend, says an Eastern proverb, \"visit him\noften, for thorns and brushwood obstruct the road which no one treads.\"\nThe affections should not be mere \"tents of a night.\"\n\nStill less does Friendship confer any privilege to make ourselves\ndisagreeable. Some people never seem to appreciate their friends till they\nhave lost them. Anaxagoras described the Mausoleum as the ghost of wealth\nturned into stone.\n\n\"But he who has once stood beside the grave to look back on the\ncompanionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent _then_\nare the wild love and the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to\nthe pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit\nfor the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt\nto the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.\" [1]\n\nDeath, indeed, cannot sever friendship. \"Friends,\" says Cicero, \"though\nabsent, are still present; though in poverty they are rich; though weak,\nyet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to\nassert, though dead they are alive.\" This seems a paradox, yet it there\nnot much truth in his explanation? \"To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and\nwill always live; for I love the virtue of that man, and that worth is not\nyet extinguished.... Assuredly of all things that either fortune or time\nhas bestowed on me, I have none which I can compare with the friendship of\nScipio.\"\n\nIf, then, we choose our friends for what they are, not for what they have,\nand if we deserve so great a blessing, then they will be always with us,\npreserved in absence, and even after death, in the \"amber of memory.\"\n\n[1] Ruskin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE VALUE OF TIME.\n\n\n    Each day is a little life.\n\n\nAll other good gifts depend on time for their value. What are friends,\nbooks, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we\nhave not time for their enjoyment? Time is often said to be money, but it\nis more-it is life; and yet many who would cling desperately to life,\nthink nothing of wasting time.\n\nAsk of the wise, says Schiller in Lord Sherbrooke's translation,\n\n  \"The moments we forego\n  Eternity itself cannot retrieve.\"\n\nAnd, in the words of Dante,\n\n  \"For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves.\"\n\nNot that a life of drudgery should be our ideal. Far from it. Time spent\nin innocent and rational enjoyments, in healthy games, in social and\nfamily intercourse, is well and wisely spent. Games not only keep the body\nin health, but give a command over the muscles and limbs which cannot be\novervalued. Moreover, there are temptations which strong exercise best\nenables us to resist.\n\nIt is the idle who complain they cannot find time to do that which they\nfancy they wish. In truth, people can generally make time for what they\nchoose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is wanting: and\nthe advantage of leisure is mainly that we may have the power of choosing\nour own work, not certainly that it confers any privilege of idleness.\n\n\"Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who time\nambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he\nstands still withal.\" [1]\n\nFor it is not so much the hours that tell, as the way we use them.\n\n  \"Circles are praised, not that excel\n  In largeness, but th'exactly framed;\n  So life we praise, that doth excel\n  Not in much time, but acting well.\" [2]\n\n\"Idleness,\" says Jeremy Taylor, \"is the greatest prodigality in the world;\nit throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and\nirreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of art or\nnature.\"\n\nLife must be measured rather by depth than by length, by thought and\naction rather than by time. \"A counted number of pulses only,\" says Pater,\n\"is given to us of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may we see in them\nall that is to be seen by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly\nfrom point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest\nnumber of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with\nthis hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.\nFailure is to form habits, for habit is relation to a stereotyped\nworld:... while all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any\nexquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge, that seems, by a\nlifted horizon, to set the spirit free for a moment.\"\n\nI would not quote Lord Chesterfield as generally a safe guide, but there\nis certainly much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his son with reference to\ntime. \"Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost;\nas, on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much\ntime wisely laid out, at prodigious interest.\"\n\nAnd again, \"It is astonishing that any one can squander away in absolute\nidleness one single moment of that small portion of time which is allotted\nto us in the world ... Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and\nenjoy every moment of it.\"\n\n  \"Are you in earnest? seize this very minute,\n  What you can do, or think you can, begin it.\" [3]\n\nThere is a Turkish proverb that the Devil tempts the Idle man, but the\nIdle man tempts the Devil. I remember, says Hilliard, \"a satirical poem,\nin which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his\nbait to the tastes and temperaments of his prey; but the idlers were the\neasiest victims, for they swallowed even the naked hook.\"\n\nThe mind of the idler indeed preys upon itself. \"The human heart is like a\nmillstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and\nbruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on--and\ngrinds itself away.\" [4]\n\nIt is not work, but care, that kills, and it is in this sense, I suppose,\nthat we are told to \"take no thought for the morrow.\" To \"consider the\nlilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:\nand yet even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.\nWherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and\nto-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye\nof little faith?\" It would indeed be a mistake to suppose that lilies are\nidle or imprudent. On the contrary, plants are most industrious, and\nlilies store up in their complex bulbs a great part of the nourishment of\none year to quicken the growth of the next. Care, on the other hand, they\ncertainly know not. [5]\n\n\"Hours have wings, fly up to the author of time, and carry news of our\nusage. All our prayers cannot entreat one of them either to return or\nslacken his pace. The misspents of every minute are a new record against\nus in heaven. Sure if we thought thus, we should dismiss them with better\nreports, and not suffer them to fly away empty, or laden with dangerous\nintelligence. How happy is it when they carry up not only the messages,\nbut the fruits of good, and stay with the Ancient of Days to speak for us\nbefore His glorious throne!\" [6]\n\nTime is often said to fly; but it is not so much the time that flies; as\nwe that waste it, and wasted time is worse than no time at all; \"I wasted\ntime,\" Shakespeare makes Richard II. say, \"and now doth time waste me.\"\n\n\"He that is choice of his time,\" says Jeremy Taylor, \"will also be choice\nof his company, and choice of his actions; lest the first engage him in\nvanity and loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be a throwing his time\nand himself away, and a going back in the accounts of eternity.\"\n\nThe life of man is seventy years, but how little of this is actually our\nown. We must deduct the time required for sleep, for meals, for dressing\nand undressing, for exercise, etc., and then how little remains really at\nour own disposal!\n\n\"I have lived,\" said Lamb, \"nominally fifty years, but deduct from them\nthe hours I have lived for other people, and not for myself, and you will\nfind me still a young fellow.\"\n\nThe hours we live for other people, however, are not those that should be\ndeducted, but rather those which benefit neither oneself nor any one else;\nand these, alas! are often very numerous.\n\n\"There are some hours which are taken from us, some which are stolen from\nus, and some which slip from us.\" [7] But however we may lose them, we can\nnever get them back. It is wonderful, indeed, how much innocent happiness\nwe thoughtlessly throw away. An Eastern proverb says that calamities sent\nby heaven may be avoided, but from those we bring on ourselves there is no\nescape.\n\nSome years ago I paid a visit to the principal lake villages of\nSwitzerland in company with a distinguished archaeologist, M. Morlot. To\nmy surprise I found that his whole income was \u00a3100 a year, part of which,\nmoreover, he spent in making a small museum. I asked him whether he\ncontemplated accepting any post or office, but he said certainly not. He\nvalued his leisure and opportunities as priceless possessions far more\nthan silver or gold, and would not waste any of his time in making money.\n\nTime indeed, is a sacred gift, and each day is a little life. Just think\nof our advantages here in London! We have access to the whole literature\nof the world; we may see in our National Gallery the most beautiful\nproductions of former generations, and in the Royal Academy and other\ngalleries the works of the greatest living artists. Perhaps there is no\none who has ever found time to see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet\nconsider what it contains; or rather, what does it not contain? The most\ngigantic of living and extinct animals; the marvellous monsters of\ngeological ages; the most beautiful birds, shells, and minerals; precious\nstones and fragments from other worlds; the most interesting antiquities;\ncurious and fantastic specimens illustrating different races of men;\nexquisite gems, coins, glass, and china; the Elgin marbles; the remains of\nthe Mausoleum; of the temple of Diana of Ephesus; ancient monuments of\nEgypt and Assyria; the rude implements of our predecessors in England, who\nwere coeval with the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, the musk-ox, and the\nmammoth; and beautiful specimens of Greek and Roman art.\n\nSuffering may be unavoidable, but no one has any excuse for being dull.\nAnd yet some people _are_ dull. They talk of a better world to come, while\nwhatever dulness there may be here is all their own. Sir Arthur Helps has\nwell said: \"What! dull, when you do not know what gives its loveliness of\nform to the lily, its depth of color to the violet, its fragrance to the\nrose; when you do not know in what consists the venom of the adder, any\nmore than you can imitate the glad movements of the dove. What! dull, when\nearth, air, and water are all alike mysteries to you, and when as you\nstretch out your hand you do not touch anything the properties of which\nyou have mastered; while all the time Nature is inviting you to talk\nearnestly with her, to understand her, to subdue her, and to be blessed by\nher! Go away, man; learn something, do something, understand something,\nand let me hear no more of your dulness.\"\n\n[1] Shakespeare.\n\n[2] Waller.\n\n[3] _Faust_.\n\n[4] Luther.\n\n[5] The word used [Greek: merimnaesaete] is translated in Liddell and\nScott \"to be anxious about, to be distressed in mind, to be cumbered with\nmany cares.\"\n\n[6] Milton.\n\n[7] Seneca.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL.\n\n\n    \"I am a part of all that I have seen.\"--TENNYSON.\n\n\nI am sometimes disposed to think that there are few things in which we of\nthis generation enjoy greater advantages over our ancestors than in the\nincreased facilities of travel; but I hesitate to say this, not because\nour advantages are not great, but because I have already made the same\nremark with reference to several other aspects of life.\n\nThe very word \"travel\" is suggestive. It is a form of \"travail\"--excessive\nlabor; and, as Skeat observes, it forcibly recalls the toil of travel in\nolden days. How different things are now!\n\nIt is sometimes said that every one should travel on foot \"like Thales,\nPlato, and Pythagoras\"; we are told that in these days of railroads people\nrush through countries and see nothing. It may be so, but that is not the\nfault of the railways. They confer upon us the inestimable advantage of\nbeing able, so rapidly and with so little fatigue, to visit countries\nwhich were much less accessible to our ancestors. What a blessing it is\nthat not our own islands only--our smiling fields and rich woods, the\nmountains that are full of peace and the rivers of joy, the lakes and\nheaths and hills, castles and cathedrals, and many a spot immortalized in\nthe history of our country:--not these only, but the sun and scenery of\nthe South, the Alps the palaces of Nature, the blue Mediterranean, and the\ncities of Europe, with all their memories and treasures, are now brought\nwithin a few hours of us.\n\nSurely no one who has the opportunity should omit to travel. The world\nbelongs to him who has seen it. \"But he that would make his travels\ndelightful must first make himself delightful.\" [1]\n\nAccording to the old proverb, \"the fool wanders, the wise man travels.\"\nBacon tells us that \"the things to be seen and observed are the courts of\nprinces, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of\njustice while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories\necclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are\ntherein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so\nthe havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges,\ndisputations and lectures, when any are; shipping and navies; houses and\ngardens of state and pleasure near great cities; armories, arsenals,\nmagazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exercises of horsemanship,\nfencing, training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the\nbetter sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; cabinets\nand rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places\nwhere they go.\"\n\nBut this depends on the time at our disposal, and the object with which we\ntravel. If we can stay long in any one place Bacon's advice is no doubt\nexcellent; but for the moment I am thinking rather of an annual holiday,\ntaken for the sake of rest and health; for fresh air and exercise rather\nthan for study. Yet even so, if we have eyes to see we cannot fail to lay\nin a stock of new ideas as well as a store of health.\n\nWe may have read the most vivid and accurate description, we may have\npored over maps and plans and pictures, and yet the reality will burst on\nus like a revelation. This is true not only of mountains and glaciers, of\npalaces and cathedrals, but even of the simplest examples.\n\nFor instance, like every one else, I had read descriptions and seen\nphotographs and pictures of the Pyramids. Their form is simplicity itself.\nI do not know that I could put into words any characteristic of the\noriginal for which I was not prepared. It was not that they were larger;\nit was not that they differed in form, in color, or situation. And yet,\nthe moment I saw them, I felt that my previous impression had been but a\nfaint shadow of the reality. The actual sight seemed to give life to the\nidea.\n\nEvery one who has been in the East will agree that a week of oriental\ntravel brings out, with more than stereoscopic effect, the pictures of\npatriarchal life as given us in the Old Testament. And what is true of the\nOld Testament is true of history generally. To those who have been in\nAthens or Rome, the history of Greece or Italy becomes far more\ninteresting; while, on the other hand, some knowledge of the history and\nliterature enormously enhances the interest of the scenes themselves.\n\nGood descriptions and pictures, however, help us to see much more than we\nshould perhaps perceive for ourselves. It may even be doubted whether some\npersons do not derive a more correct impression from a good drawing or\ndescription, which brings out the salient points, than they would from\nactual, but unaided, inspection. The idea may gain in accuracy, in\ncharacter, and even in detail, more than it misses in vividness. But,\nhowever this may be, for those who cannot travel, descriptions and\npictures have an immense interest; while to those who _have_ traveled,\nthey will afford an inexhaustible delight in reviving the memories of\nbeautiful scenes and interesting expeditions.\n\nIt is really astonishing how little most of us see of the beautiful world\nin which we live. Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me that while traveling on a\nscientific mission in the Rocky Mountains, he was astonished to meet an\naged French Abb\u00e9, and could not help showing his surprise. The Abb\u00e9\nobserved this, and in the course of conversation explained his presence in\nthat distant region.\n\n\"You were,\" he said, \"I easily saw, surprised to find me here. The fact\nis, that some months ago I was very ill. My physicians gave me up: one\nmorning I seemed to faint and thought that I was already in the arms of\nthe Bon Dieu. I fancied one of the angels came and asked me, 'Well, M.\nl'Abb\u00e9 how did you like the beautiful world you have just left?' And then\nit occurred to me that I who had been all my life preaching about heaven,\nhad seen almost nothing of the world in which I was living. I determined\ntherefore, if it pleased Providence to spare me, to see something of this\nworld; and so here I am.\"\n\nFew of us are free, however much we might wish it, to follow the example\nof the worthy Abb\u00e9. But although it may not be possible for us to reach\nthe Rocky Mountains, there are other countries nearer home which most of\nus might find time to visit.\n\nThough it is true that no descriptions can come near the reality, they may\nat least persuade us to give ourselves this great advantage. Let me then\ntry to illustrate this by pictures in words, as realized by one of our\nmost illustrious countrymen; I will select references to foreign countries\nonly, not that we have not equal beauties here, but because everywhere in\nEngland one feels oneself at home.\n\nThe following passage from _Tyndall's Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, is\nalmost as good as an hour in the Alps themselves:\n\n\"I looked over this wondrous scene toward Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin,\nthe Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, the Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks\nwhich seem to join in the celebration of the risen day. I asked myself, as\non previous occasions, How was this colossal work performed? Who chiselled\nthese mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of the\nearth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, ever mighty-with the vigor\nof a thousand worlds still within him-the real sculptor was even then\nclimbing up the eastern sky. It was he who raised aloft the waters which\ncut out these ravines; it was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain\nslopes, thus giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is\nhe who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty\nmonuments, rolling them gradually seaward, sowing the seeds of continents\nto be; so that the people of an older earth may see mould spread, and corn\nwave over the hidden rocks which at this moment bear the weight of the\nJungfrau.\" And the Alps lie within twenty-four hours of London!\n\nTyndall's writings also contain many vivid descriptions of glaciers; those\n\"silent and solemn causeways ... broad enough for the march of an army in\nline of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in a buried city.\" [2] I do\nnot, however, borrow from him or from any one else any description of\nglaciers, for they are so unlike anything else, that no one who has not\nseen, can possibly visualize them.\n\nThe history of European rivers yet remains to be written, and is most\ninteresting. They did not always run in their present courses. The Rhone,\nfor instance, appears to have been itself a great traveler. At least there\nseems reasons to believe that the upper waters of the Valais fell at first\ninto the Danube, and so into the Black Sea; subsequently joined the Rhine\nand the Thames, and so ran far north over the plains which once connected\nthe mountains of Scotland and of Norway--to the Arctic Ocean; and to have\nonly comparatively of late years adopted their present course into the\nMediterranean.\n\nBut, however this may be, the Rhine of Germany and the Rhine of\nSwitzerland are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaffhausen seems to\nalter the whole character of the river, and no wonder. \"Stand for half an\nhour,\" says Ruskin, \"beside the Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side\nwhere the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends,\nunbroken, in pure polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of\nthe cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so\nswift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts\nover it like a falling star;... and how ever and anon, startling you with\nits white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a\nrocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with\nlight; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless crushing\nabyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows\npurer than the sky through white rain-cloud; ... their dripping masses\nlifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush\nfrom the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies\naway.\"\n\nBut much as we may admire the majestic grandeur of a mighty river, either\nin its eager rush or its calmer moments, there is something which\nfascinates even more in the free life, the young energy, the sparkling\ntransparence, and merry music of smaller streams.\n\n\"The upper Swiss valleys,\" as the same great Seer says, \"are sweet with\nperpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steepest places\nto come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of\ncrystal this way and that, as the winds take them, with all the grace, but\nwith none of the formalism, of fountains ... until at last ... they find\ntheir way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently; with\nquiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass blades, and looking\nonly like their shadow, but presently emerging again in little startled\ngushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the\nday was too short for them to get down the hill.\"\n\nHow vividly does Symonds bring before us the sunny shores of the\nMediterranean, which he loves so well, and the contrast between the\nscenery of the North and the South.\n\n\"In northern landscapes the eye travels through vistas of leafy boughs to\nstill, secluded crofts and pastures, where slow-moving oxen graze. The\nmystery of dreams and the repose of meditation haunt our massive bowers.\nBut in the South, the lattice-work of olive boughs and foliage scarcely\nveils the laughing sea and bright blue sky, while the hues of the\nlandscape find their climax in the dazzling radiance of the sun upon the\nwaves, and the pure light of the horizon. There is no concealment and no\nmelancholy here. Nature seems to hold a never-ending festival and dance,\nin which the waves and sunbeams and shadows join. Again, in northern\nscenery, the rounded forms of full-foliaged trees suit the undulating\ncountry, with its gentle hills and brooding clouds; but in the South the\nspiky leaves and sharp branches of the olive carry out the defined\noutlines which are everywhere observable through the broader beauties of\nmountain and valley and sea-shore. Serenity and intelligence characterize\nthis southern landscape, in which a race of splendid men and women lived\nbeneath the pure light of Phoebus, their ancestral god. Pallas protected\nthem, and golden Aphrodite favored them with beauty. Olives are not,\nhowever, by any means the only trees which play a part in idyllic scenery.\nThe tall stone pine is even more important.... Near Massa, by Sorrento,\nthere are two gigantic pines so placed that, lying on the grass beneath\nthem, one looks on Capri rising from the sea, Baiae, and all the bay of\nNaples sweeping round to the base of Vesuvius. Tangled growths of olives,\nand rose-trees fill the garden-ground along the shore, while far away in\nthe distance pale Inarime sleeps, with her exquisite Greek name, a virgin\nisland on the deep.\n\n\"On the wilder hills you find patches of ilex and arbutus glowing with\ncrimson berries and white waxen bells, sweet myrtle rods and shafts of\nbay, frail tamarisk and tall tree-heaths that wave their frosted boughs\nabove your head. Nearer the shore the lentisk grows, a savory shrub, with\ncytisus and aromatic rosemary. Clematis and polished garlands of tough\nsarsaparilla wed the shrubs with clinging, climbing arms; and here and\nthere in sheltered nooks the vine shoots forth luxuriant tendrils bowed\nwith grapes, stretching from branch to branch of mulberry or elm, flinging\nfestoons on which young loves might sit and swing, or weaving a\nlattice-work of leaves across the open shed. Nor must the sounds of this\nlandscape be forgotten,--sounds of bleating flocks, and murmuring bees,\nand nightingales, and doves that moan, and running streams, and shrill\ncicadas, and hoarse frogs, and whispering pines. There is not a single\ndetail which a patient student may not verify from Theocritus.\n\n\"Then too it is a landscape in which sea and country are never sundered.\nThe higher we climb upon the mountain-side the more marvellous is the\nbeauty of the sea, which seems to rise as we ascend, and stretch into the\nsky. Sometimes a little flake of blue is framed by olive boughs, sometimes\na turning in the road reveals the whole broad azure calm below. Or, after\ntoiling up a steep ascent we fall upon the undergrowth of juniper, and lo!\na double sea, this way and that, divided by the sharp spine of the jutting\nhill, jewelled with villages along its shore, and smiling with fair\nislands and silver sails.\"\n\nTo many of us the mere warmth of the South is a blessing and a delight.\nThe very thought of it is delicious. I have read over again and again\nWallace's graphic description of a tropical sunrise--of the \"sun of the\nearly morning that turneth all into gold.\" [3]\n\n\"Up to about a quarter past five o'clock,\" he says, \"the darkness is\ncomplete; but about that time a few cries of birds begin to break the\nsilence of night, perhaps indicating that signs of dawn are perceptible in\nthe eastern horizon. A little later the melancholy voices of the\ngoatsuckers are heard, varied croakings of frogs, the plaintive whistle of\nmountain thrushes, and strange cries of birds or mammals peculiar to each\nlocality. About half-past five the first glimmer of light becomes\nperceptible; it slowly becomes lighter, and then increases so rapidly that\nat about a quarter to six it seems full daylight. For the next quarter of\nan hour this changes very little in character; when, suddenly, the sun's\nrim appears above the horizon, decking the dew-laden foliage with\nglittering gems sending gleams of golden light far into the woods, and\nwaking up all nature to life and activity. Birds chirp and flutter about,\nparrots scream, monkeys chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and gorgeous\nbutterflies flutter lazily along or sit with full expanded wings exposed\nto the warm and invigorating rays. The first hour of morning in the\nequatorial regions possesses a charm and a beauty that can never be\nforgotten. All nature seems refreshed and strengthened by the coolness and\nmoisture of the past night, new leaves and buds unfold almost before the\neye, and fresh shoots may often be observed to have grown many inches\nsince the preceding day. The temperature is the most delicious\nconceivable. The slight chill of early dawn, which was itself agreeable,\nis succeeded by an invigorating warmth; and the intense sunshine lights up\nthe glorious vegetation of the tropics, and realizes all that the magic\nart of the painter or the glowing words of the poet have pictured as their\nideals of terrestrial beauty.\"\n\nOr take Dean Stanley's description of the colossal statues of Amenophis\nIII., the Memnon of the Greeks, at Thebes--\"The sun was setting, the\nAfrican range glowed red behind them; the green plain was dyed with a\ndeeper green beneath them, and the shades of evening veiled the vast rents\nand fissures in their aged frames. As I looked back at them in the sunset,\nand they rose up in front of the background of the mountain, they seemed,\nindeed, as if they were part of it,--as if they belonged to some natural\ncreation.\"\n\nBut I must not indulge myself in more quotations, though it is difficult\nto stop. Such extracts recall the memory of many glorious days: for the\nadvantages of travel last through life; and often, as we sit at home,\n\"some bright and perfect view of Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes\nback on you, as full of repose as a day wisely spent in travel.\" [4]\n\nSo far is a thorough love and enjoyment of travel from interfering with\nthe love of home, that perhaps no one can thoroughly enjoy his home who\ndoes not sometimes wander away. They are like exertion and rest, each the\ncomplement of the other; so that, though it may seem paradoxical, one of\nthe greatest pleasures of travel is the return; and no one who has not\nroamed abroad, can realize the devotion which the wanderer feels for\nDomiduca--the sweet and gentle goddess who watches over our coming home.\n\n[1] Seneca.\n\n[2] Ruskin.\n\n[3] Morris.\n\n[4] Helps.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF HOME.\n\n\n    \"There's no place like Home.\"--_Old English Song_.\n\n\nIt may well be doubted which is more delightful,--to start for a holiday\nwhich has been fully earned, or to return home from one which has been\nthoroughly enjoyed; to find oneself, with renewed vigor, with a fresh\nstore of memories and ideas, back once more by one's own fireside, with\none's family, friends, and books.\n\n\"To sit at home,\" says Leigh Hunt, \"with an old folio (?) book of romantic\nyet credible voyages and travels to read, an old bearded traveller for its\nhero, a fireside in an old country house to read it by, curtains drawn,\nand just wind enough stirring out of doors to make an accompaniment to the\nbillows or forests we are reading of--this surely is one of the perfect\nmoments of existence.\"\n\nIt is no doubt a great privilege to visit foreign countries; to travel say\nin Mexico or Peru, or to cruise among the Pacific Islands; but in some\nrespects the narratives of early travellers, the histories of Prescott or\nthe voyages of Captain Cook, are even more interesting; describing to us,\nas they do, a state of society which was then so unlike ours, but which\nhas now been much changed and Europeanized.\n\nThus we may make our daily travels interesting, even though, like those of\nthe Vicar of Wakefield, all our adventures are by our own fireside, and\nall our migrations from one room to another.\n\nMoreover, even if the beauties of home are humble, they are still\ninfinite, and a man \"may lie in his bed, like Pompey and his sons, in all\nquarters of the earth.\" [1]\n\nIt is, then, wise to \"cultivate a talent very fortunate for a man of my\ndisposition, that of travelling in my easy chair; of transporting myself,\nwithout stirring from my parlor, to distant places and to absent friends;\nof drawing scenes in my mind's eye; and of peopling them with the groups\nof fancy, or the society of remembrance.\" [2]\n\nWe may indeed secure for ourselves endless variety without leaving our own\nfiresides.\n\nIn the first place, the succession of seasons multiplies every home. How\ndifferent is the view from our windows as we look on the tender green of\nspring, the rich foliage of summer, the glorious tints of autumn, or the\ndelicate tracery of winter.\n\nOur climate is so happy, that even in the worst months of the year, \"calm\nmornings of sunshine visit us at times, appearing like glimpses of\ndeparted spring amid the wilderness of wet and windy days that lead to\nwinter. It is pleasant, when these interludes of silver light occur, to\nride into the woods and see how wonderful are all the colors of decay.\nOverhead, the elms and chestnuts hang their wealth of golden leaves, while\nthe beeches darken into russet tones, and the wild cherry glows like\nblood-red wine. In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet hips are wreathed\nwith hoary clematis or necklaces of coral briony-berries; the brambles\nburn with many-colored flames; the dog-wood is bronzed to purple; and here\nand there the spindle-wood puts forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds,\non delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the brown brake\nrises to our knees as we thread the forest paths.\" [3]\n\nNay, every day gives us a succession of glorious pictures in never-ending\nvariety. It is remarkable how few people seem to derive any pleasure from\nthe beauty of the sky. Gray, after describing a sunrise--how it began with\na slight whitening, just tinged with gold and blue, lit up all at once by\na little line of insufferable brightness which rapidly grew to half an\norb, and so to a whole one too glorious to be distinctly seen--adds, \"I\nwonder whether any one ever saw it before. I hardly believe it.\" [4]\n\nNo doubt from the dawn of poetry, the splendors of the morning and evening\nskies have delighted all those who have eyes to see. But we are especially\nindebted to Ruskin for enabling us more vividly to realize these glorious\nsky pictures. As he says, in language almost as brilliant as the sky\nitself, the whole heaven, \"from the zenith to the horizon, becomes one\nmolten, mantling sea of color and fire; every block bar turns into massy\ngold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and\npurple, and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language,\nand no ideas in the mind--things which can only be conceived while they\nare visible; the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it\nall, showing here deep and pure, and lightness; there, modulated by the\nfilmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it is lost\nimperceptibly in its crimson and gold.\"\n\nIt is in some cases indeed \"not color but conflagration,\" and though the\ntints are richer and more varied toward morning and at sunset, the\nglorious kaleidoscope goes on all day long. Yet \"it is a strange thing how\nlittle in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in\nwhich Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole\nand evident purpose of talking to him, and teaching him, than in any other\nof her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her.\nThere are not many of her other works in which some more material or\nessential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every\npart of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might,\nso far as we know, be answer, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a\ngreat, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and\neverything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with\nperhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this,\nthere is not a moment of any day of our lives when Nature is not producing\nscene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working\nstill upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect\nbeauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for\nour perpetual pleasure.\" [5]\n\nNor does the beauty end with the day. \"It is nothing to sleep under the\ncanopy of heaven, where we have the globe of the earth for our place of\nrepose, and the glories of the heavens for our spectacle?\" [6] For my part\nI always regret the custom of shutting up our rooms in the evening, as\nthough there was nothing worth seeing outside. What, however, can be more\nbeautiful than to \"look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with\npatines of bright gold,\" or to watch the moon journeying in calm and\nsilver glory through the night. And even if we do not feel that \"the man\nwho has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight, has been\npresent like an Archangel at the creation of light and of the world,\" [7]\nstill \"the stars say something significant to all of us: and each man has\na whole hemisphere of them, if he will but look up, to counsel and\nbefriend him\"; [8] for it is not so much, as Helps elsewhere observes, \"in\nguiding us over the seas of our little planet, but out of the dark waters\nof our own perturbed minds, that we may make to ourselves the most of\ntheir significance.\" Indeed,\n\n     \"How beautiful is night!\n    A dewy freshness fills the silent air;\n  No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,\n      Breaks the serene of heaven:\n    In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine\n    Rolls through the dark blue depths;\n     Beneath her steady ray\n     The desert circle spreads,\n  Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky;\n      How beautiful is night!\" [9]\n\nI have never wondered at those who worshipped the sun and moon.\n\nOn the other hand, when all outside is dark and cold; when perhaps\n\n  \"Outside fall the snowflakes lightly;\n    Through the night loud raves the storm;\n  In my room the fire glows brightly,\n    And 'tis cosy, silent, warm.\n\n  \"Musing sit I on the settle\n    By the firelight's cheerful blaze,\n  Listening to the busy kettle\n    Humming long forgotten lays.\" [10]\n\nFor after all the true pleasures of home are not without, but within; and\n\"the domestic man who loves no music so well as his own kitchen clock and\nthe airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has\nsolaces which others never dream of.\" [11]\n\nWe love the ticking of the clock, and the flicker of the fire, like the\nsound of the cawing of rooks, not so much for any beauty of their own as\nfor their associations.\n\nIt is a great truth that when we retire into ourselves we can call up what\nmemories we please.\n\n  \"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,\n  When fond recollection recalls them to view.--\n  The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood\n  And every lov'd spot which my infancy knew.\" [12]\n\nIt is not so much the\n\n  \"Fireside enjoyments,\n   And _all the comforts_ of the lowly roof,\" [13]\n\nbut rather, according to the higher and better ideal of Keble,\n\n  \"Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look,\n     When hearts are of each other sure;\n  Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,\n     The haunt of all affections pure.\"\n\nIn ancient times, not only among savage races, but even among the Greeks\nthemselves, there seems to have been but little family life. What a\ncontrast was the home life of the Greeks, as it seems to have been, to\nthat, for instance, described by Cowley--a home happy \"in books and\ngardens,\" and above all, in a\n\n  \"Virtuous wife, where thou dost meet\n  Both pleasures more refined and sweet;\n  The fairest garden in her looks\n  And in her mind the wisest books.\"\n\nNo one who has ever loved mother or wife, sister or daughter, can read\nwithout astonishment and pity St. Chrysostom's description of woman as \"a\nnecessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic\nperil, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.\"\n\nIn few respects has mankind made a greater advance than in the relations\nof men and women. It is terrible to think how women suffer in savage life;\nand even among the intellectual Greeks, with rare exceptions, they seem to\nhave been treated rather as housekeepers or playthings than as the Angels\nwho make a Heaven of home.\n\nThe Hindoo proverb that you should \"never strike a wife, even with a\nflower,\" though a considerable advance, tells a melancholy tale of what\nmust previously have been.\n\nIn _The Origin of Civilization_ I have given many cases showing how small\na part family affection plays in savage life. Here I will only mention one\ncase in illustration. The Algonquin (North America) language contained no\nword for \"to love,\" so that when the missionaries translated the Bible\ninto it they were obliged to invent one. What a life, and what a language,\nwithout love.\n\nYet in marriage even the rough passion of a savage may contrast favorably\nwith any cold calculation, which, like the enchanted hoard of the\nNibelungs, is almost sure to bring misfortune. In the Kalevala, the\nFinnish epic, the divine smith, Ilmarinnen, forges a bride of gold and\nsilver for Wainamoinen, who was pleased at first to have so rich a wife,\nbut soon found her intolerably cold, for, in spite of fires and furs,\nwhenever he touched her she froze him.\n\nMoreover, apart from mere coldness, how much we suffer from foolish\nquarrels about trifles; from mere misunderstandings; from hasty words\nthoughtlessly repeated, sometimes without the context or tone which would\nhave deprived them of any sting. How much would that charity which\n\"beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all\nthings,\" effect to smooth away the sorrows of life and add to the\nhappiness of home. Home indeed may be a sure haven of repose from the\nstorms and perils of the world. But to secure this we must not be content\nto pave it with good intentions, but must make it bright and cheerful.\n\nIf our life be one of toil and of suffering, if the world outside be cold\nand dreary, what a pleasure to return to the sunshine of happy faces and\nthe warmth of hearts we love.\n\n[1] Sir T. Browne.\n\n[2] Mackenzie, _The Lounger_.\n\n[3] J. A. Symonds.\n\n[4] Gray's Letters.\n\n[5] Ruskin.\n\n[6] Seneca.\n\n[7] Emerson.\n\n[8] Helps.\n\n[9] Southey.\n\n[10] Heine, trans. by E. A. Bowring.\n\n[11] Emerson.\n\n[12] Woodworth.\n\n[13] Cowper.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nSCIENCE.\n\n\n    \"Happy is he that findeth wisdom,\n    And the man that getteth understanding:\n    For the merchandise of it is better than silver,\n    And the gain thereof than fine gold.\n    She is more precious than rubies:\n    And all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.\n    Length of days is in her right hand,\n    And in her left hand riches and honor.\n    Her ways are ways of pleasantness,\n    And all her paths are peace.\"\n\n    PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.\n\n\nThose who have not tried for themselves can hardly imagine how much\nScience adds to the interest and variety of life. It is altogether a\nmistake to regard it as dry, difficult, or prosaic--much of it is as easy\nas it is interesting. A wise instinct of old united the prophet and the\n\"seer.\" \"The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in\ndarkness.\" Technical works, descriptions of species, etc., bear the same\nrelation to science as dictionaries do to literature.\n\nOccasionally, indeed, Science may destroy some poetical myth of antiquity,\nsuch as the ancient Hindoo explanation of rivers, that \"Indra dug out\ntheir beds with his thunderbolts, and sent them forth by long continuous\npaths;\" but the real causes of natural phenomena are far more striking,\nand contain more true poetry, than those which have occurred to the\nuntrained imagination of mankind.\n\nIn endless aspects science is as wonderful and interesting as a fairy\ntale.\n\n  \"There are things whose strong reality\n    Outshines our fairyland; in shape and hues\n  More beautiful than our fantastic sky,\n    And the strange constellations which the Muse\n    O'er her wild universe is skillful to diffuse.\" [1]\n\nMackay justly exclaims:\n\n  \"Blessings on Science! When the earth seemed old,\n  When Faith grew doting, and our reason cold,\n  'Twas she discovered that the world was young,\n  And taught a language to its lisping tongue.\"\n\nBotany, for instance, is by many regarded as a dry science. Yet though\nwithout it we may admire flowers and trees, it is only as strangers, only\nas one may admire a great man or a beautiful woman in a crowd. The\nbotanist, on the contrary--nay, I will not say the botanist, but one with\neven a slight knowledge of that delightful science--when he goes out into\nthe woods, or into one of those fairy forests which we call fields, finds\nhimself welcomed by a glad company of friends, every one with something\ninteresting to tell. Dr. Johnson said that, in his opinion, when you had\nseen one green field you had seen all; and a greater even than\nJohnson--Socrates--the very type of intellect without science, said he was\nalways anxious to learn, and from fields and trees he could learn nothing.\n\nIt has, I know, been said that botanists\n\n  \"Love not the flower they pluck and know it not.\n  And all their botany is but Latin names.\"\n\nContrast this, however, with the language of one who would hardly claim to\nbe a master in botany, though he is certainly a loving student.\n\"Consider,\" says Ruskin, \"what we owe to the meadow grass, to the covering\nof the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those\nsoft, countless, and peaceful spears of the field! Follow but for a little\ntime the thought of all that we ought to recognize in those words. All\nspring and summer is in them--the walks by silent scented paths, the rest\nin noonday heat, the joy of the herds and flocks, the power of all\nshepherd life and meditation; the life of the sunlight upon the world,\nfalling in emerald streaks and soft blue shadows, when else it would have\nstruck on the dark mould or scorching dust; pastures beside the pacing\nbrooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down\noverlooked by the blue line of lifted sea; crisp lawns all dim with early\ndew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet,\nsoftening in their fall the sound of loving voices.\"\n\nMy own tastes and studies have led me mainly in the direction of Natural\nHistory and Archaeology; but if you love one science, you cannot but feel\nintense interest in them all. How grand are the truths of Astronomy!\nPrudhomme, in a sonnet beautifully translated by Arthur O'Shaugnessy, has\npictured an Observatory. He says--\n\n  \"'Tis late; the astronomer in his lonely height,\n  Exploring, all the dark, descries afar\n  Orbs that like distant isles of splendor are.\"\n\nHe notices a comet, and calculating its orbit, finds that it will return\nin a thousand years--\n\n  \"The star will come. It dare not by one hour\n    Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation;\n  Men will have passed, but, watchful in the tower,\n    Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation;\n  And should all men have perished in their turn,\n  Truth in their place would watch that star's return.\"\n\nErnest Rhys well says of a student's chamber--\n\n  \"Strange things pass nightly in this little room,\n  All dreary as it looks by light of day;\n  Enchantment reigns here when at evening play\n  Red fire-light glimpses through the pallid gloom.\"\n\nAnd the true student, in Ruskin's words, stands on an eminence from which\nhe looks back on the universe of God and forward over the generations of\nmen.\n\nEven if it be true that science was dry when it was buried in huge folios,\nthat is certainly no longer the case now; and Lord Chesterfield's wise\nwish, that Minerva might have three graces as well as Venus, has been\namply fulfilled.\n\nThe study of natural history indeed seems destined to replace the loss of\nwhat is, not very happily I think, termed \"sport;\" engraven in us as it is\nby the operation of thousands of years, during which man lived greatly on\nthe produce of the chase. Game is gradually becoming \"small by degrees and\nbeautifully less.\" Our prehistoric ancestors hunted the mammoth, the\nwoolly-haired rhinoceros, and Irish elk; the ancient Britons had the wild\nox, the deer, and the wolf. We have still the pheasant, the partridge, the\nfox, and the hare; but even these are becoming scarcer, and must be\npreserved first, in order that they may be killed afterwards. Some of us\neven now--and more, no doubt, will hereafter--satisfy instincts,\nessentially of the same origin, by the study of birds, or insects, or even\ninfusoria--of creatures which more than make up by their variety what they\nwant in size.\n\nEmerson avers that when a naturalist has \"got all snakes and lizards in\nhis phials, science has done for him also, and has put the man into a\nbottle.\" I do not deny that there are such cases, but they are quite\nexceptional. The true naturalist is no mere dry collector.\n\nI cannot resist, although it is rather long, quoting the following\ndescription from Hudson and Gosse's beautiful work on the Rotifera:--\n\n\"On the Somersetshire side of the Avon, and not far from Clifton, is a\nlittle combe, at the bottom of which lies an old fish-pond. Its slopes are\ncovered with plantations of beech and fir, so as to shelter the pond on\nthree sides, and yet leave it open to the soft south-western breezes, and\nto the afternoon sun. At the head of the combe wells up a clear spring,\nwhich sends a thread of water, trickling through a bed of osiers, into the\nupper end of the pond. A stout stone wall has been drawn across the combe\nfrom side to side, so as to dam up the stream; and there is a gap in one\ncorner through which the overflow finds its way in a miniature cascade,\ndown into the lower plantation.\n\n\"If we approach the pond by the gamekeeper's path from the cottage above,\nwe shall pass through the plantation, and come unseen right on the corner\nof the wall; so that one quiet step will enable us to see at a glance its\nwhole surface, without disturbing any living thing that may be there.\n\n\"Far off at the upper end a water-hen is leading her little brood among\nthe willows; on the fallen trunk of an old beech, lying half way across\nthe pond, a vole is sitting erect, rubbing his right ear, and the splash\nof a beech husk just at our feet tells of a squirrel who is dining\nsomewhere in the leafy crown above us.\n\n\"But see, the water-rat has spied us out, and is making straight for his\nhole in the bank, while the ripple above him is the only thing that tells\nof his silent flight. The water-hen has long ago got under cover, and the\nsquirrel drops no more husks. It is a true Silent Pond, and without a sign\nof life.\n\n\"But if, retaining sense and sight, we could shrink into living atoms and\nplunge under the water, of what a world of wonders should we then form\npart! We should find this fairy kingdom peopled with the strangest\ncreatures--creatures that swim with their hair, that have ruby eyes\nblazing deep in their necks, with telescopic limbs that now are withdrawn\nwholly within their bodies and now stretched out to many times their own\nlength. Here are some riding at anchor, moored by delicate threads spun\nout from their toes; and there are others flashing by in glass armor,\nbristling with sharp spikes or ornamented with bosses and flowing curves;\nwhile fastened to a great stem is an animal convolvulus that, by some\ninvisible power, draws a never-ceasing stream of victims into its gaping\ncup, and tears them to death with hooked jaws deep down within its body.\n\n\"Close by it, on the same stem, is something that looks like a filmy\nheart's-ease. A curious wheelwork runs round its four outspread petals;\nand a chain of minute things, living and dead, is winding in and out of\ntheir curves into a gulf at the back of the flower. What happens to them\nthere we cannot see; for round the stem is raised a tube of golden-brown\nballs, all regularly piled on each other. Some creature dashes by, and\nlike a flash the flower vanishes within its tube.\n\n\"We sink still lower, and now see on the bottom slow gliding lumps of\njelly that thrust a shapeless arm out where they will, and grasping their\nprey with these chance limbs, wrap themselves round their food to get a\nmeal; for they creep without feet, seize without hands, eat without\nmouths, and digest without stomachs.\"\n\nToo many, however, still feel only in Nature that which we share \"with the\nweed and the worm;\" they love birds as boys do--that is, they love\nthrowing stones at them; or wonder if they are good to eat, as the\nEsquimaux asked about the watch; or treat them as certain devout Afreedee\nvillagers are said to have treated a descendant of the Prophet--killed him\nin order to worship at his tomb: but gradually we may hope that the love\nof Science--the notes \"we sound upon the strings of nature\" [2]--will\nbecome to more and more, as already it is to many, a \"faithful and sacred\nelement of human feeling.\"\n\nScience summons us\n\n  \"To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,\n     Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;\n  Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,\n                       Its dome the sky.\" [3]\n\nWhere the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt, Science will\noften reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in\nthe street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate\nthe sand, however, as Ruskin observes--let the atoms arrange themselves in\npeace according to their nature--and you have the opal. Separate the clay,\nand it becomes a white earth, fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still\nfurther purifies itself, you have a sapphire. Take the soot, and if\nproperly treated it will give you a diamond. While, lastly, the water,\npurified and distilled, will become a dew-drop, or crystallize into a\nlovely star. Or, again, you may see as you will in any shallow pool either\nthe mud lying at the bottom, or the image of the heavens above.\n\nNay, even if we imagine beauties and charms which do not really exist;\nstill if we err at all it is better to do so on the side of charity; like\nNasmyth, who tells us in his delightful autobiography, that he used to\nthink one of his friends had a charming and kindly twinkle, and was one\nday surprised to discover that he had a glass eye.\n\nBut I should err indeed were I to dwell exclusively on science as lending\ninterest and charm to our leisure hours. Far from this, it would be\nimpossible to overrate the importance of scientific training on the wise\nconduct of life.\n\n\"Science,\" said the Royal Commission of 1861, \"quickens and cultivates\ndirectly the faculty of observation, which in very many persons lies\nalmost dormant through life, the power of accurate and rapid\ngeneralization, and the mental habit of method and arrangement; it\naccustoms young persons to trace the sequence of cause and effect; it\nfamiliarizes them with a kind of reasoning which interests them, and which\nthey can promptly comprehend; and it is perhaps the best corrective for\nthat indolence which is the vice of half-awakened minds, and which shrinks\nfrom any exertion that is not, like an effort of memory, merely\nmechanical.\"\n\nAgain, when we contemplate the grandeur of science, if we transport\nourselves in imagination back into primeval times, or away into the\nimmensity of space, our little troubles and sorrows seem to shrink into\ninsignificance. \"Ah, beautiful creations!\" says Helps, speaking of the\nstars, \"it is not in guiding us over the seas of our little planet, but\nout of the dark waters of our own perturbed minds, that we may make to\nourselves the most of your significance.\" They teach, he tells us\nelsewhere, \"something significant to all of us; and each man has a whole\nhemisphere of them, if he will but look up, to counsel and befriend him.\"\n\nThere is a passage in an address given many years ago by Professor Huxley\nto the South London Working Men's College which struck me very much at the\ntime, and which puts this in language more forcible than any which I could\nuse.\n\n\"Suppose,\" he said, \"it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune\nof every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or\nlosing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to\nbe a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces?\nDo you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to\nscorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its\nmembers, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? Yet it is a very\nplain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness\nof every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us,\ndo depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely\nmore difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been\nplayed for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two\nplayers in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the\npieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what\nwe call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from\nus. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we\nknow to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest\nallowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are\npaid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows\ndelight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste,\nbut without remorse.\"\n\nI have elsewhere endeavored to show the purifying and ennobling influence\nof science upon religion; how it has assisted, if indeed it may not claim\nthe main share, in sweeping away the dark superstitions, the degrading\nbelief in sorcery and witchcraft, and the cruel, however well-intentioned,\nintolerance which embittered the Christian world almost from the very days\nof the Apostles themselves. In this she has surely performed no mean\nservice to religion itself. As Canon Fremantle has well and justly said,\nmen of science, and not the clergy only, are ministers of religion.\n\nAgain, the national necessity for scientific education is imperative. We\nare apt to forget how much we owe to science, because so many of its\nwonderful gifts have become familiar parts of our everyday life, that\ntheir very value makes us forget their origin. At the recent celebration\nof the sexcentenary of Peterhouse College, near the close of a long\ndinner, Sir Frederick Bramwell was called on, some time after midnight, to\nreturn thanks for Applied Science. He excused himself from making a long\nspeech on the ground that, though the subject was almost inexhaustible,\nthe only illustration which struck him as appropriate under the\ncircumstances was \"the application of the domestic lucifer to the bedroom\ncandle.\" One cannot but feel how unfortunate was the saying of the poet\nthat\n\n  \"The light-outspeeding telegraph\n  Bears nothing on its beam.\"\n\nThe report of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, which has\nrecently been issued, teems with illustrations of the advantages afforded\nby technical instruction. At the same time, technical training ought not\nto begin too soon, for, as Bain truly observes, \"in a right view of\nscientific education the first principles and leading examples, with\nselect details, of all the great sciences, are the proper basis of the\ncomplete and exhaustive study of any single science.\" Indeed, in the words\nof Sir John Herschel, \"it can hardly be pressed forcibly enough on the\nattention of the student of Nature, that there is scarcely any natural\nphenomenon which can be fully and completely explained in all its\ncircumstances, without a union of several, perhaps of all, the sciences.\"\nThe most important secrets of Nature are often hidden away in unexpected\nplaces. Many valuable substances have been discovered in the refuse of\nmanufactories; and it was a happy thought of Glauber to examine what\neverybody else threw away. There is perhaps no nation the future happiness\nand prosperity of which depend more on science than our own. Our\npopulation is over 35,000,000, and is rapidly increasing. Even at present\nit is far larger than our acreage can support. Few people whose business\ndoes not lie in the study of statistics realize that we have to pay\nforeign countries no less than \u00a3140,000,000 a year for food. This, of\ncourse, we purchase mainly by manufactured articles. We hear now a great\ndeal about depression of trade, and foreign, especially American,\ncompetition, which, let me observe, will be much keener a few years hence,\nwhen the United States have paid off their debt, and consequently reduced\ntaxation.\n\nBut let us look forward a hundred years--no long time in the history of a\nnation. Our coal supplies will then be greatly diminished. The population\nof Great Britain doubles at the present rate of increase in about fifty\nyears, so that we should, if the present rate continues, require to import\nover \u00a3400,000,000 a year in food. How, then, is this to be paid for? We\nhave before us, as usual, three courses. The natural rate of increase may\nbe stopped, which means suffering and outrage; or the population may\nincrease, only to vegetate in misery and destitution; or, lastly, by the\ndevelopment of scientific training and appliances, they may probably be\nmaintained in happiness and comfort. We have, in fact, to make our choice\nbetween science and suffering. It is only by wisely utilizing the gifts of\nscience that we have any hope of maintaining our population in plenty and\ncomfort. Science, however, will do this for us if we will only let her.\nShe may be no Fairy Godmother indeed, but she will richly endow those who\nlove her.\n\nThat discoveries, innumerable, marvellous, and fruitful, await the\nsuccessful explorers of Nature no one can doubt. What would one not give\nfor a Science primer of the next century? for, to paraphrase a well-known\nsaying, even the boy at the plough will then know more of science than the\nwisest of our philosophers do now. Boyle entitled one of his essays \"Of\nMan's great Ignorance of the Uses of Natural Things; or that there is no\none thing in Nature whereof the uses to human life are yet thoroughly\nunderstood\"--a saying which is still as true now as when it was written.\nAnd, lest I should be supposed to be taking too sanguine a view, let me\ngive the authority of Sir John Herschel, who says: \"Since it cannot but be\nthat innumerable and most important uses remain to be discovered among the\nmaterials and objects already known to us, as well as among those which\nthe progress of science must hereafter disclose, we may hence conceive a\nwell-grounded expectation, not only of constant increase in the physical\nresources of mankind, and the consequent improvement of their condition,\nbut of continual accession to our power of penetrating into the arcana of\nNature and becoming acquainted with her highest laws.\"\n\nNor is it merely in a material point of view that science would thus\nbenefit the nation. She will raise and strengthen the national, as surely\nas the individual, character. The great gift which Minerva offered to\nParis is now freely tendered to all, for we may apply to the nation, as\nwell as to the individual, Tennyson's noble lines:--\n\n  \"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control:\n  These three alone lead life to sovereign power,\n  Yet not for power (power of herself\n  Would come uncalled for), but to live by law;\n  Acting the law we live by without fear.\"\n\n\"In the vain and foolish exultation of the heart,\" said John Quincy Adams,\nat the close of his final lecture on resigning his chair at Boston, \"which\nthe brighter prospects of life will sometimes excite, the pensive portress\nof Science shall call you to the sober pleasures of her holy cell. In the\nmortification of disappointment, her soothing voice shall whisper serenity\nand peace. In social converse with the mighty dead of ancient days, you\nwill never smart under the galling sense of dependence upon the mighty\nliving of the present age. And in your struggles with the world, should a\ncrisis ever occur, when even friendship may deem it prudent to desert you,\nwhen priest and Levite shall come and look on you and pass by on the other\nside, seek refuge, my unfailing friends, and be assured you shall find it,\nin the friendship of Laelius and Scipio, in the patriotism of Cicero,\nDemosthenes, and Burke, as well as in the precepts and example of Him\nwhose law is love, and who taught us to remember injuries only to forgive\nthem.\"\n\nLet me in conclusion quote the glowing description of our debt to science\ngiven by Archdeacon Farrar in his address at Liverpool College--testimony,\nmoreover, all the more valuable, considering the source from which it\ncomes.\n\n\"In this great commercial city,\" he said, \"where you are surrounded by the\ntriumphs of science and of mechanism--you, whose river is ploughed by the\ngreat steamships whose white wake has been called the fittest avenue to\nthe palace front of a mercantile people--you know well that in the\nachievements of science there is not only beauty and wonder, but also\nbeneficence and power. It is not only that she has revealed to us infinite\nspace crowded with unnumbered worlds; infinite time peopled by unnumbered\nexistences; infinite organisms hitherto invisible but full of delicate and\niridescent loveliness; but also that she has been, as a great Archangel of\nMercy, devoting herself to the service of man. She has labored, her\nvotaries have labored, not to increase the power of despots or to add to\nthe magnificence of courts, but to extend human happiness, to economize\nhuman effort, to extinguish human pain. Where of old, men toiled, half\nblinded and half naked, in the mouth of the glowing furnace to mix the\nwhite-hot iron, she now substitutes the mechanical action of the viewless\nair. She has enlisted the sunbeam in her service to limn for us, with\nabsolute fidelity, the faces of the friends we love. She has shown the\npoor miner how he may work in safety, even amid the explosive fire-damp of\nthe mine. She hits, by her anaesthetics, enabled the sufferer to be hushed\nand unconscious while the delicate hand of some skilled operator cuts a\nfragment from the nervous circle of the unquivering eye. She points not to\npyramids built during weary centuries by the sweat of miserable nations,\nbut to the lighthouse and the steamship, to the railroad and the\ntelegraph. She has restored eyes to the blind and hearing to the deaf. She\nhas lengthened life, she has minimized danger, she has controlled madness,\nshe has trampled on disease. And on all these grounds, I think that none\nof our sons should grow up wholly ignorant of studies which at once train\nthe reason and fire the imagination, which fashion as well as forge, which\ncan feed as well as fill the mind.\"\n\n[1] Byron.\n\n[2] Emerson.\n\n[3] H. Smith.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nEDUCATION.\n\n\n    \"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the\n    vantage ground of truth.\"--BACON.\n\n\n                   \"Divine Philosophy!\n    Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,\n    But musical as is Apollo's lute,\n    And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets\n    Where no crude surfeit reigns.\"--MILTON.\n\n\nIt may seem rather surprising to include education among the pleasures of\nlife; for in too many cases it is made odious to the young, and is\nsupposed to cease with school; while, on the contrary, if it is to be\nreally successful it must be suitable, and therefore interesting, to\nchildren, and must last through life. The very process of acquiring\nknowledge is a privilege and a blessing. It used to be said that there was\nno royal road to learning; it would be more true to say that the avenues\nleading to it are all royal.\n\n\"It is not,\" says Jeremy Taylor, \"the eye that sees the beauties of\nheaven, nor the ear that hears the sweetness of music, or the glad tidings\nof a prosperous accident; but the soul that perceives all the relishes of\nsensual and intellectual perceptions: and the more noble and excellent the\nsoul is, the greater and more savory are its perceptions. And if a child\nbehold the rich ermine, or the diamonds of a starry night, or the order of\nthe world, or hears the discourses of an apostle; because he makes no\nreflex act on himself and sees not what he sees, he can have but the\npleasure of a fool or the deliciousness of a mule.\"\n\nHerein lies the importance of education. I say education rather than\ninstruction, because it is far more important to cultivate the mind than\nto store the memory. Studies are a means and not an end. \"To spend too\nmuch time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is\naffectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a\nscholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience.... Crafty\nmen contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.\" [1]\n\nMoreover, though, as Mill says, \"in the comparatively early state of human\ndevelopment in which we now live, a person cannot indeed feel that\nentireness of sympathy with all others which would make any real\ndiscordance in the general direction of their conduct in life impossible,\"\nyet education might surely do more to root in us the feeling of unity with\nour fellow-creatures. At any rate, if we do not study in this spirit, all\nour learning will but leave us as weak and sad as Faust.\n\n  \"I've now, alas! Philosophy,\n     Medicine and Jurisprudence too,\n   And to my cost Theology,\n     With ardent labor studied through,\n   And here I stand, with all my lore\n     Poor fool, no wiser than before.\" [2]\n\nOur studies should be neither \"a couch on which to rest; nor a cloister in\nwhich to promenade alone; nor a tower from which to look down on others;\nnor a fortress whence we may resist them; nor a workshop for gain and\nmerchandise; but a rich armory and treasury for the glory of the creator\nand the ennoblement of life.\" [3]\n\nFor in the noble words of Epictetus, \"you will do the greatest service to\nthe state if you shall raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls\nof the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small\nhouses rather than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.\"\n\nIt is then of great importance to consider whether our present system of\neducation is the one best calculated to fulfil these great objects. Does\nit really give that love of learning which is better than learning itself?\nDoes all the study of the classics to which our sons devote so many years\ngive any just appreciation of them; or do they not on leaving college too\noften feel with Byron--\n\n    \"Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so!\"\n\nToo much concentration on any one subject is a great mistake, especially\nin early life. Nature herself indicates the true system, if we would but\nlisten to her. Our instincts are good guides, though not infallible, and\nchildren will profit little by lessons which do not interest them. In\ncheerfulness, says Pliny, is the success of our studies--\"studia\nhilaritate proveniunt\"--and we may with advantage take a lesson from\nTheognis, who, in his Ode on the Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, makes\nthe Muses sing:\n\n  \"What is good and fair,\n  Shall ever be our care;\n    Thus the burden of it rang,\n  That shall never be our care,\n  Which is neither good nor fair.\n    Such were the words your lips immortal sang.\"\n\nThere are some who seem to think that our educational system is as good as\npossible, and that the only remaining points of importance are the number\nof schools and scholars, the question of fees, the relation of voluntary\nand board schools, etc. \"No doubt,\" says Mr. Symonds, in his _Sketches in\nItaly and Greece_, \"there are many who think that when we not only\nadvocate education but discuss the best system we are simply beating the\nair; that our population is as happy and cultivated as can be, and that no\nsubstantial advance is really possible. Mr. Galton, however, has expressed\nthe opinion, and most of those who have written on the social condition of\nAthens seem to agree with him, that the population of Athens, taken as a\nwhole, was as superior to us as we are to Australian savages.\"\n\nThat there is, indeed, some truth in this, probably no student of Greek\nhistory will deny. Why, then, should this be so? I cannot but think that\nour system of education is partly responsible.\n\nManual and science teaching need not in any way interfere with instruction\nin other subjects. Though so much has been said about the importance of\nscience and the value of technical instruction, or of hand-training, as I\nshould prefer to call it, it is unfortunately true that in our system of\neducation, from the highest schools downward, both of them are sadly\nneglected, and the study of language reigns supreme.\n\nThis is no new complaint. Ascham, in _The Schoolmaster_, long ago lamented\nit; Milton, in his letter to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, complained \"that our\nchildren are forced to stick unreasonably in these grammatick flats and\nshallows;\" and observes that, \"though a linguist should pride himself to\nhave all the tongues Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not\nstudied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he\nwere nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or\ntradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only;\" and Locke said\nthat \"schools fit us for the university rather than for the world.\"\nCommission after commission, committee after committee, have reiterated\nthe same complaint. How then do we stand now?\n\nI see it indeed constantly stated that, even if the improvement is not so\nrapid as could be desired, still we are making considerable progress. But\nis this so? I fear not. I fear that our present system does not really\ntrain the mind, or cultivate the power of observation, or even give the\namount of information which we may reasonably expect from the time devoted\nto it.\n\nSir M. E. Grant-Duff has expressed the opinion that a boy or girl of\nfourteen might reasonably be expected to \"read aloud clearly and\nagreeably, to write a large distinct round hand, and to know the ordinary\nrules of arithmetic, especially compound addition--a by no means universal\naccomplishment; to speak and write French with ease and correctness, and\nhave some slight acquaintance with French literature; to translate _ad\naperturam libri_ from an ordinary French or German book; to have a\nthoroughly good elementary knowledge of geography, under which are\ncomprehended some notions of astronomy--enough to excite his curiosity; a\nknowledge of the very broadest facts of geology and history--enough to\nmake him understand, in a clear but perfectly general way, how the larger\nfeatures of the world he lives in, physical and political, came to be like\nwhat they are; to have been trained from earliest infancy to use his\npowers of observation on plants, or animals, or rocks, or other natural\nobjects; and to have gathered a general acquaintance with what is most\nsupremely good in that portion of the more important English classics\nwhich is suitable to his time of life; to have some rudimentary\nacquaintance with drawing and music.\"\n\nTo effect this, no doubt, \"industry must be our oracle, and reason our\nApollo,\" as Sir T. Browne says; but surely it is no unreasonable estimate;\nyet how far do we fall short of it? General culture is often deprecated\nbecause it is said that smatterings are useless. But there is all the\ndifference in the world between having a smattering of, or being well\ngrounded in, a subject. It is the latter which we advocate--to try to\nknow, as Lord Brougham well said, \"everything of something, and something\nof everything.\"\n\n\"It can hardly,\" says Sir John Herschel, \"be pressed forcibly enough on\nthe attention of the student of nature, that there is scarcely any natural\nphenomenon which can be fully and completely explained, in all its\ncircumstances, without a union of several, perhaps of all, the sciences.\"\n\nThe present system in most of our public schools and colleges sacrifices\neverything else to classics and arithmetic. They are most important\nsubjects, but ought not to exclude science and modern languages. Moreover,\nafter all, our sons leave college unable to speak either Latin or Greek,\nand too often absolutely without any interest in classical history or\nliterature. But the boy who has been educated without any training in\nscience has grave reason to complain of \"knowledge to one entrance quite\nshut out.\"\n\nBy concentrating the attention, indeed, so much on one or two subjects, we\ndefeat our own object, and produce a feeling of distaste where we wish to\ncreate an interest.\n\nOur great mistake in education is, as it seems to me, the worship of\nbook-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the\nmemory instead of cultivating the mind. The children in our elementary\nschools are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable\nintricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists\nof kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and\nhave no near relation to their daily wants and occupations; while in our\npublic schools the same unfortunate results are produced by the weary\nmonotony of Latin and Greek grammar. We ought to follow exactly the\nopposite course with children--to give them a wholesome variety of mental\nfood, and endeavor to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their\nminds with dry facts. The important thing is not so much that every child\nshould be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.\nWhat does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A\nboy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have\nforgotten almost all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a\nthirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach\nhimself more than the first ever knew. Children are by nature eager for\ninformation. They are always putting questions. This ought to be\nencouraged. In fact, we may to a great extent trust to their instincts,\nand in that case they will do much to educate themselves. Too often,\nhowever, the acquirement of knowledge is placed before them in a form so\nirksome and fatiguing that all desire for information is choked, or even\ncrushed out; so that our schools, in fact, become places for the\ndiscouragement of learning, and thus produce the very opposite effect from\nthat at which we aim. In short, children should be trained to observe and\nto think, for in that way there would be opened out to them a source of\nthe purest enjoyment for leisure hours, and the wisest judgment in the\nwork of life.\n\nAnother point in which I venture to think that our system of education\nmight be amended, is that it tends at present to give the impression that\neverything is known.\n\nDr. Busby is said to have kept his hat on in the presence of King Charles,\nthat the boys might see what a great man he was. I doubt, however, whether\nthe boys were deceived by the hat; and am very skeptical about Dr. Busby's\ntheory of education.\n\nMaster John of Basingstoke, who was Archdeacon of Leicester in 1252,\nlearned Greek during a visit to Athens, from Constantina, daughter of the\nArchbishop of Athens, and used to say afterwards that though he had\nstudied well and diligently at the University of Paris, yet he learned\nmore from an Athenian maiden of twenty. We cannot all study so pleasantly\nas this, but the main fault I find with Dr. Busby's system is that it\nkeeps out of sight the great fact of human ignorance.\n\nBoys are given the impression that the masters know everything. If, on the\ncontrary, the great lesson impressed on them was that what we know is as\nnothing to what we do not know, that the \"great ocean of truth lies all\nundiscovered before us,\" surely this would prove a great stimulus, and\nmany would be nobly anxious to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge,\nand extend the intellectual kingdom of man. Philosophy, says Aristotle,\nbegins in wonder, for Iris is the child of Thaumas.\n\nEducation ought not to cease when we leave school; but if well begun\nthere, will continue through life.\n\nMoreover, whatever our occupation or profession in life may be, it is most\ndesirable to create for ourselves some other special interest. In the\nchoice of a subject every one should consult his own instincts and\ninterests, I will not attempt to suggest whether it is better to pursue\nart or science; whether we should study the motes in the sunbeam, or the\nheavenly bodies themselves. Whatever may be the subject of our choice, we\nshall find enough, and more than enough, to repay the devotion of a\nlifetime. Life no doubt is paved with enjoyments, but we must all expect\ntimes of anxiety, of suffering, and of sorrow; and when these come it is\nan inestimable comfort to have some deep interest which will, at any rate\nto some extent, enable us to escape from ourselves.\n\n\"A cultivated mind,\" says Mill--\"I do not mean that of a philosopher, but\nany mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which\nhas been taught in any tolerable degree to exercise its faculties--will\nfind sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the\nobjects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry,\nthe incidents of history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their\nprospects in the future. It is possible, indeed, to become indifferent to\nall this, and that too without having exhausted a thousandth part of it;\nbut only when one has had from the beginning no moral or human interest in\nthese things, and has sought in them only the gratification of curiosity.\"\n\nI have been subjected to some good-natured banter for having said that I\nlooked forward to a time when our artisans and mechanics would be great\nreaders. But it is surely not unreasonable to regard our social condition\nas susceptible of great improvement. The spread of schools, the cheapness\nof books, the establishment of free libraries will, it may be hoped,\nexercise a civilizing and ennobling influence. They will even, I believe,\ndo much to diminish poverty and suffering, so much of which is due to\nignorance and to the want of interest and brightness in uneducated life.\nSo far as our elementary schools are concerned, there is no doubt much\ndifficulty in apportioning the National Grant without unduly stimulating\nmere mechanical instruction. But this is not the place to discuss the\nsubject of religious or moral training, or the system of apportioning the\ngrant.\n\nIf we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure\nto follow.\n\nWe should therefore endeavor to educate our children so that every country\nwalk may be a pleasure; that the discoveries of science may be a living\ninterest; that our national history and poetry may be sources of\nlegitimate pride and rational enjoyment. In short, our schools, if they\nare to be worthy of the name--if they are to fulfil their high\nfunction--must be something more than mere places of dry study; they must\ntrain the children educated in them so that they may be able to appreciate\nand enjoy those intellectual gifts which might be, and ought to be, a\nsource of interest and of happiness, alike to the high and to the low, to\nthe rich and to the poor.\n\nA wise system of education will at least teach us how little man yet\nknows, how much he has still to learn; it will enable us to realize that\nthose who complain of the tiresome monotony of life have only themselves\nto blame; and that knowledge is pleasure as well as power. It will lead us\nall to try with Milton \"to behold the bright countenance of truth in the\nquiet and still air of study,\" and to feel with Bacon that \"no pleasure is\ncomparable is the standing upon the vantage ground of truth.\"\n\nWe should then indeed realize in part, for as yet we cannot do so fully,\nthe \"sacred trusts of health, strength, and time,\" and how thankful we\nought to be for the inestimable gift of life.\n\n[1] Bacon.\n\n[2] Goethe.\n\n[3] Bacon.\n\n\nEND OF PART I.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF LIFE.\n\nPART II.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n    \"And what is writ is writ--\n    Would it were worthier.\"\n\n    BYRON.\n\n\nHerewith I launch the conclusion of my subject. Perhaps I am unwise in\npublishing a second part. The first was so kindly received that I am\nrunning a risk in attempting to add to it.\n\nIn the preface, however, to the first part I have expressed the hope that\nthe thoughts and quotations in which I have found most comfort and\ndelight, might be of use to others also.\n\nIn this my most sanguine hopes have been more than realized. Not only has\nthe book passed through thirteen editions in less than two years, but the\nmany letters which I have received have been most gratifying.\n\nTwo criticisms have been repeated by several of those who have done me the\nhonor of noticing my previous volume. It has been said in the first place\nthat my life has been exceptionally bright and full, and that I cannot\ntherefore judge for others. Nor do I attempt to do so. I do not forget, I\nhope I am not ungrateful for, all that has been bestowed on me. But if I\nhave been greatly favored, ought I not to be on that very account\nespecially qualified to write on such a theme? Moreover, I have had,--who\nhas not,--my own sorrows.\n\nAgain, some have complained that there is too much quotation--too little\nof my own. This I take to be in reality a great compliment. I have not\nstriven to be original.\n\nIf, as I have been assured by many, my book have proved a comfort, and\nhave been able to cheer in the hour of darkness, that is indeed an ample\nreward, and is the utmost I have ever hoped.\n\nHIGH ELMS, DOWN,\n\nKENT, _April 1889_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nAMBITION.\n\n\n    \"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise\n    (That last infirmity of noble minds)\n    To scorn delights and live laborious days.\"\n\n    MILTON.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nAMBITION.\n\n\nIf fame be the last infirmity of noble minds, ambition is often the first;\nthough, when properly directed, it may be no feeble aid to virtue.\n\nHad not my youthful mind, says Cicero, \"from many precepts, from many\nwritings, drunk in this truth, that glory and virtue ought to be the\ndarling, nay, the only wish in life; that, to attain these, the torments\nof the flesh, with the perils of death and exile, are to be despised;\nnever had I exposed my person in so many encounters, and to these daily\nconflicts with the worst of men, for your deliverance. But, on this head,\nbooks are full; the voice of the wise is full; the examples of antiquity\nare full: and all these the night of barbarism had still enveloped, had it\nnot been enlightened by the sun of science.\"\n\nThe poet tells us that\n\n  \"The many fail: the one succeeds.\" [1]\n\nBut this is scarcely true. All succeed who deserve, though not perhaps as\nthey hoped. An honorable defeat is better than a mean victory, and no one\nis really the worse for being beaten, unless he loses heart. Though we may\nnot be able to attain, that is no reason why we should not aspire.\n\nI know, says Morris,\n\n  \"How far high failure overleaps the bound\n  Of low successes.\"\n\nAnd Bacon assures us that \"if a man look sharp and attentively he shall\nsee fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.\"\n\nTo give ourselves a reasonable prospect of success we must realize what we\nhope to achieve; and then make the most of our opportunities. Of these the\nuse of time is one of the most important. What have we to do with time,\nasks Oliver Wendell Holmes, but to fill it up with labor.\n\n\"At the battle of Montebello,\" said Napoleon, \"I ordered Kellermann to\nattack with 800 horse, and with these he separated the 6000 Hungarian\ngrenadiers before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was\nhalf a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive on the\nfield of action; and I have observed that it is always these quarters of\nan hour that decide the fate of a battle,\" including, we may add, the\nbattle of life.\n\nNor must we spare ourselves in other ways, for\n\n  \"He who thinks in strife\n  To earn a deathless fame, must do, nor ever care for life.\" [2]\n\nIn the excitement of the struggle, moreover, he will suffer comparatively\nlittle from wounds and blows which would otherwise cause intense\nsuffering.\n\nIt is well to weigh scrupulously the object in view, to run as little risk\nas may be, to count the cost with care.\n\nBut when the mind is once made up, there must be no looking back, you must\nspare yourself no labor, nor shrink from danger.\n\n  \"He either fears his fate too much\n  Or his deserts are small,\n  That dares not put it to the touch\n  To gain or lose it all.\" [3]\n\nGlory, says Renan, \"is after all the thing which has the best chance of\nnot being altogether vanity.\" But what is glory?\n\nMarcus Aurelius observes that \"a spider is proud when it has caught a fly,\na man when he has caught a hare, another when he has taken a little fish\nin a net, another when he has taken wild boars, another when he has taken\nbears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians;\" [4] but this, if from\none point of view it shows the vanity of fame, also encourages us with the\nevidence that every one may succeed if his objects are but reasonable.\n\nAlexander may be taken as almost a type of Ambition in its usual form,\nthough carried to an extreme.\n\nHis desire was to conquer, not to inherit or to rule. When news was\nbrought that his father Philip had taken some town, or won some battle,\ninstead of appearing delighted with it, he used to say to his companions,\n\"My father will go on conquering, till there be nothing extraordinary left\nfor you and me to do.\" [5] He is said even to have been mortified at the\nnumber of the stars, considering that he had not been able to conquer one\nworld. Such ambition is justly foredoomed to disappointment.\n\nThe remarks of Philosophers on the vanity of ambition refer generally to\nthat unworthy form of which Alexander may be taken as the type--the idea\nof self-exaltation, not only without any reference to the happiness, but\neven regardless of the sufferings, of others.\n\n\"A continual and restless search after fortune,\" says Bacon, \"takes up too\nmuch of their time who have nobler things to observe.\" Indeed he elsewhere\nextends this, and adds, \"No man's private fortune can be an end any way\nworthy of his existence.\"\n\nGoethe well observes that man \"exists for culture; not for what he can\naccomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him.\" [6]\n\nAs regards fame we must not confuse name and essence. To be remembered is\nnot necessarily to be famous. There is infamy as well as fame; and\nunhappily almost as many are remembered for the one as for the other, and\nnot a few for the mixture of both.\n\nWho would not rather be forgotten, than recollected as Ahab or Jezebel,\nNero or Commodus, Messalina or Heliogabalus, King John or Richard III.?\n\n\"To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The\nCanaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with\none; and who would not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?\" [7]\n\nKings and Generals are often remembered as much for their deaths as for\ntheir lives, for their misfortunes as for their successes. The Hero of\nThermopylae was Leonidas, not Xerxes. Alexander's Empire fell to pieces at\nhis death. Napoleon was a great genius, though no Hero. But what came of\nall his victories? They passed away like the smoke of his guns, and he\nleft France weaker, poorer, and smaller than he found her. The most\nlasting result of his genius is no military glory, but the Code Napol\u00e9on.\n\nA surer and more glorious title to fame is that of those who are\nremembered for some act of justice or self-devotion: the self-sacrifice of\nLeonidas, the good faith of Regulus, are the glories of history.\n\nIn some cases where men have been called after places, the men are\nremembered, while the places are forgotten. When we speak of Palestrina or\nPerugino, of Nelson or Wellington, of Newton or Darwin, who remembers the\ntowns? We think only of the men.\n\nGoethe has been called the soul of his century.\n\nIt is true that we have but meagre biographies of Shakespeare or of Plato;\nyet how much we know about them.\n\nStatesmen and Generals enjoy great celebrity during their lives. The\nnewspapers chronicle every word and movement. But the fame of the\nPhilosopher and Poet is more enduring.\n\nWordsworth deprecates monuments to Poets, with some exceptions, on this\nvery account. The case of Statesmen, he says, is different. It is right to\ncommemorate them because they might otherwise be forgotten; but Poets live\nin their books forever.\n\nThe real conquerors of the world indeed are not the generals but the\nthinkers; not Genghis Khan and Akbar, Rameses, or Alexander, but Confucius\nand Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ. The rulers and kings who reigned\nover our ancestors have for the most part long since sunk into\noblivion--they are forgotten for want of some sacred bard to give them\nlife--or are remembered, like Suddhodana and Pilate, from their\nassociation with higher spirits.\n\nSuch men's lives cannot be compressed into any biography. They lived not\nmerely in their own generation, but for all time. When we speak of the\nElizabethan period we think of Shakespeare and Bacon, Raleigh and Spenser.\nThe ministers and secretaries of state, with one or two exceptions, we\nscarcely remember, and Bacon himself is recollected less as the Judge than\nas the Philosopher.\n\nMoreover, to what do Generals and Statesmen owe their fame? They were\ncelebrated for their deeds, but to the Poet and the Historian they owe\ntheir fame, and to the Poet and Historian we owe their glorious memories\nand the example of their virtues.\n\n  \"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona\n  Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles\n  Urgentur ignotique long\u00e2\n  Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.\"\n\nThere were many brave men before Agamemnon, but their memory has perished\nbecause they were celebrated by no divine Bard. Montrose happily combined\nthe two, when in \"My dear and only love\" he promises,\n\n  \"I'll make thee glorious by my pen,\n  And famous by my sword.\"\n\nIt is remarkable, and encouraging, how many of the greatest men have risen\nfrom the lowest rank, and triumphed over obstacles which might well have\nseemed insurmountable; nay, even obscurity itself may be a source of\nhonor. The very doubts as to Homer's birthplace have contributed to this\nglory, seven cities as we all know laying claim to the great poet--\n\n  \"Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athenae.\"\n\nTo take men of Science only. Ray was the son of a blacksmith, Watt of a\nshipwright, Franklin of a tallow-chandler, Dalton of a handloom weaver,\nFra\u00fcnhofer of a glazier, Laplace of a farmer, Linnaeus of a poor curate,\nFaraday of a blacksmith, Lamarck of a banker's clerk; Davy was an\napothecary's assistant, Galileo, Kepler, Sprengel, Cuvier, and Sir W.\nHerschel were all children of very poor parents.\n\nIt is, on the other hand, sad to think how many of our greatest\nbenefactors are unknown even by name. Who discovered the art of procuring\nfire? Prometheus is merely the personification of forethought. Who\ninvented letters? Cadmus is a mere name.\n\nThese inventions, indeed, are lost in the mists of antiquity, but even as\nregards recent progress the steps are often so gradual, and so numerous,\nthat few inventions can be attributed entirely, or even mainly, to any one\nperson.\n\nColumbus is said, and truly said, to have discovered America, though the\nNorthmen were there before him.\n\nWe Englishmen have every reason to be proud of our fellow-countrymen. To\ntake Philosophers and men of Science only, Bacon and Hobbes' Locke and\nBerkeley, Hume and Hamilton, will always be associated with the progress\nof human thought; Newton with gravitation, Adam Smith with Political\nEconomy, Young with the undulatory theory of light, Herschel with the\ndiscovery of Uranus and the study of the star depths, Lord Worcester,\nTrevethick, and Watt with the steam-engine, Wheatstone with the electric\ntelegraph, Jenner with the banishment of smallpox, Simpson with the\npractical application of anaesthetics, and Darwin with the creation of\nmodern Natural History.\n\nThese men, and such as these, have made our history and moulded our\nopinions; and though during life they may have occupied, comparatively, an\ninsignificant space in the eyes of their countrymen, they became at length\nan irresistible power, and have now justly grown to a glorious memory.\n\n[1] Tennyson.\n\n[2] Beowulf.\n\n[3] Montrose.\n\n[4] He is referring here to one of his expeditions.\n\n[5] Plutarch.\n\n[6] Emerson.\n\n[7] Sir J. Browne.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWEALTH.\n\n\n    \"The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of\n    them all.\"--PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWEALTH.\n\n\nAmbition often takes the form of a love of money. There are many who have\nnever attempted Art or Music, Poetry or Science; but most people do\nsomething for a livelihood, and consequently an increase of income is not\nonly acceptable in itself, but gives a pleasant feeling of success.\n\nDoubt is often expressed whether wealth is any advantage. I do not myself\nbelieve that those who are born, as the saying is, with a silver spoon in\ntheir mouth, are necessarily any the happier for it. No doubt wealth\nentails almost more labor than poverty, and certainly more anxiety. Still\nit must, I think, be confessed that the possession of an income, whatever\nit may be, which increases somewhat as the years roll on, does add to the\ncomfort of life.\n\nUnquestionably the possession of wealth is by no means unattended by\ndrawbacks. Money and the love of money often go together. The poor man, as\nEmerson says, is the man who wishes to be rich; and the more a man has,\nthe more he often longs to be richer. Just as drinking often does but\nincrease thirst; so in many cases the craving for riches does grow with\nwealth.\n\nThis is, of course, especially the case when money is sought for its own\nsake. Moreover, it is often easier to make money than to keep or to enjoy\nit. Keeping it is dull and anxious drudgery. The dread of loss may hang\nlike a dark cloud over life. Apicius, when he squandered most of his\npatrimony, but had still 250,000 crowns left, committed suicide, as Seneca\ntells us, for fear he should die of hunger.\n\nWealth is certainly no sinecure. Moreover, the value of money depends\npartly on knowing what to do with it, partly on the manner in which it is\nacquired.\n\n\"Acquire money, thy friends say, that we also may have some. If I can\nacquire money and also keep myself modest, and faithful, and magnanimous,\npoint out the way, and I will acquire it. But if you ask me to love the\nthings which are good and my own, in order that you may gain things that\nare not good, see how unfair and unwise you are. For which would you\nrather have? Money, or a faithful and modest friend....\n\n\"What hinders a man, who has clearly comprehended these things, from\nliving with a light heart, and bearing easily the reins, quietly expecting\neverything which can happen, and enduring that which has already happened?\nWould you have me to bear poverty? Come, and you will know what poverty is\nwhen it has found one who can act well the part of a poor man.\" [1]\n\nWe must bear in mind Solon's answer to Croesus, \"Sir, if any other come\nthat hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold.\"\n\nMidas is another case in point. He prayed that everything he touched might\nbe turned into gold, and this prayer was granted. His wine turned to gold,\nhis bread turned to gold, his clothes, his very bed.\n\n  \"Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,\n  Effugere optat opes, et quae modo voverat, odit.\"\n\nHe is by no means the only man who has suffered from too much gold.\n\nThe real truth I take to be that wealth is not necessarily an advantage,\nbut that whether it is so or not depends on the use we make of it. The\nsame, however, might be said of most other opportunities and privileges;\nKnowledge and Strength, Beauty and Skill, may all be abused; if we neglect\nor misuse them we are worse off than if we had never had them. Wealth is\nonly a disadvantage in the hands of those who do not know how to use it.\nIt gives the command of so many other things--leisure, the power of\nhelping friends, books, works of art, opportunities and means of travel.\n\nIt would, however, be easy to exaggerate the advantages of money. It is\nwell worth having, and worth working for, but it does not requite too\ngreat a sacrifice; not indeed so great as is often offered up to it. A\nwise proverb tells us that gold may be bought too dear. If wealth is to be\nvalued because it gives leisure, clearly it would be a mistake to\nsacrifice leisure in the struggle for wealth. Money has no doubt also a\ntendency to make men poor in spirit. But, on the other hand, what gift is\nthere which is without danger?\n\nEuripides said that money finds friends for men, and has great (he said\nthe greatest) power among Mankind, cynically adding, \"A mighty person\nindeed is a rich man, especially if his heir be unknown.\"\n\nBossuet tells us that \"he had no attachment to riches, still if he had\nonly what was barely necessary, he felt himself narrowed, and would lose\nmore than half his talents.\"\n\nShelley was certainly not an avaricious man, and yet \"I desire money,\" he\nsaid, \"because I think I know the use of it. It commands labor, it gives\nleisure; and to give leisure to those who will employ it in the forwarding\nof truth is the noblest present an individual can make to the whole.\"\n\nMany will have felt with Pepys when he quaintly and piously says, \"Abroad\nwith my wife, the first time that ever I rode in my own coach; which do\nmake my heart rejoice and praise God, and pray him to bless it to me, and\ncontinue it.\"\n\nThis, indeed, was a somewhat selfish satisfaction. Yet the merchant need\nnot quit nor be ashamed of his profession, bearing in mind only the\ninscription on the Church of St. Giacomo de Rialto at Venice: \"Around this\ntemple let the merchant's law be just, his weight true, and his covenants\nfaithful.\" [2]\n\nIf life has been sacrificed to the rolling up of money for its own sake,\nthe very means by which it was acquired will prevent its being enjoyed;\nthe chill of poverty will have entered into the very bones. The term Miser\nwas happily chosen for such persons; they are essentially miserable.\n\n\"A collector peeps into all the picture shops of Europe for a landscape of\nPoussin, a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last\nJudgment, the Communion of St. Jerome, and what are as transcendent as\nthese, are on the walls of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre, where\nevery footman may see them: to say nothing of Nature's pictures in every\nstreet, of sunsets and sunrises every day, and the sculpture of the human\nbody never absent. A collector recently bought at public auction in\nLondon, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of\nShakespeare: but for nothing a schoolboy can read Hamlet, and can detect\nsecrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein.\" [3] And yet\n\"What hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes.\" [4]\n\nWe are really richer than we think. We often hear of Earth hunger. People\nenvy a great Landlord, and fancy how delightful it must be to possess a\nlarge estate. But, as Emerson says, \"if you own land, the land owns you.\"\nMoreover, have we not all, in a better sense--have we not all thousands of\nacres of our own? The commons, and roads, and footpaths, and the seashore,\nour grand and varied coast--these are all ours. The sea-coast has,\nmoreover, two great advantages. In the first place, it is for the most\npart but little interfered with by man, and in the second it exhibits most\ninstructively the forces of Nature. We are all great landed proprietors,\nif we only knew it. What we lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it.\nMoreover, this great inheritance has the additional advantage that it\nentails no labor, requires no management. The landlord has the trouble,\nbut the landscape belongs to every one who has eyes to see it. Thus\nKingsley called the heaths round Eversley his \"winter garden;\" not because\nthey were his in the eye of the law, but in that higher sense in which ten\nthousand persons may own the same thing.\n\n[1] Epictetus.\n\n[2] Ruskin.\n\n[3] Emerson.\n\n[4] Solomon.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nHEALTH.\n\n\n    \"Health is best for mortal man; next beauty; thirdly, well gotten\n    wealth; fourthly, the pleasures of youth among friends.\"\n\n    SIMONIDES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nHEALTH.\n\n\nBut if there has been some difference of opinion as to the advantage of\nwealth, with reference to health all are agreed.\n\n\"Health,\" said Simonides long ago, \"is best for mortal man; next beauty;\nthirdly, well gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasure of youth among\nfriends.\" \"Life,\" says Longfellow, \"without health is a burden, with\nhealth is a joy and gladness.\" Empedocles delivered the people of Selinus\nfrom a pestilence by draining a marsh, and was hailed as a Demigod. We are\ntold that a coin was struck in his honor, representing the Philosopher in\nthe act of staying the hand of Phoebus.\n\nWe scarcely realize, I think, how much we owe to Doctors. Our system of\nMedicine seems so natural and obvious that it hardly occurs to us as\nsomewhat new and exceptional. When we are ill we send for a Physician; he\nprescribes some medicine; we take it, and pay his fee. But among the lower\nraces of men pain and illness are often attributed to the presence of evil\nspirits. The Medicine Man is a Priest, or rather a Sorcerer, more than a\ntrue Doctor, and his effort is to exorcise the evil spirit.\n\nIn other countries where some advance has been made, a charm is written on\na board, washed off, and drunk. In some cases the medicine is taken, not\nby the patient, but by the Doctor. Such a system, however, is generally\ntransient; it is naturally discouraged by the Profession, and is indeed\nincompatible with a large practice. Even as regards the payment we find\nvery different systems. The Chinese pay their medical man as long as they\nare well, and stop his salary as soon as they are ill. In ancient Egypt we\nare told that the patient feed the Doctor for the first few days, after\nwhich the Doctor paid the patient until he made him well. This is a\nfascinating system, but might afford too much temptation to heroic\nremedies.\n\nOn the whole our plan seems the best, though it does not offer adequate\nencouragement to discovery and research. We do not appreciate how much we\nowe to the discoveries of such men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and\nLister. And yet in the matter of health we can generally do more for\nourselves than the greatest Doctors can for us.\n\nBut if all are agreed as to the blessing of health, there are many who\nwill not take the little trouble, or submit to the slight sacrifices,\nnecessary to maintain it. Many, indeed, deliberately ruin their own\nhealth, and incur the certainty of an early grave, or an old age of\nsuffering.\n\nNo doubt some inherit a constitution which renders health almost\nunattainable. Pope spoke of that long disease, his life. Many indeed may\nsay, \"I suffer, therefore I am.\" But happily these cases are exceptional.\nMost of us might be well, if we would. It is very much our own fault that\nwe are ill. We do those things which we ought not to do, and we leave\nundone those things which we ought to have done, and then we wonder there\nis no health in us.\n\nWe all know that we can make ourselves ill, but few perhaps realize how\nmuch we can do to keep ourselves well. Much of our suffering is\nself-inflicted. It has been observed that among the ancient Egyptians the\nchief aim of life seemed to be to be well buried. Many, however, live even\nnow as if this were the principal object of their existence.\n\nLike Naaman, we expect our health to be the subject of some miraculous\ninterference, and neglect the homely precautions by which it might be\nsecured.\n\nI am inclined to doubt whether the study of health is sufficiently\nimpressed on the minds of those entering life. Not that it is desirable to\npotter over minor ailments, to con over books on illnesses, or experiment\non ourselves with medicine. Far from it. The less we fancy ourselves ill,\nor bother about little bodily discomforts, the more likely perhaps we are\nto preserve our health.\n\nIt is, however, a different matter to study the general conditions of\nhealth. A well-known proverb tells us that every one is a fool or a\nphysician at forty. Unfortunately, however, many persons are invalids at\nforty as well as physicians.\n\nIll-health, however, is no excuse for moroseness. If we have one disease\nwe may at least congratulate ourselves that we are escaping all the rest.\nSydney Smith, ever ready to look on the bright side of things, once, when\nborne down by suffering, wrote to a friend that he had gout, asthma, and\nseven other maladies, but was \"otherwise very well;\" and many of the\ngreatest invalids have borne their sufferings with cheerfulness and good\nspirits.\n\nIt is said that the celebrated physiognomist, Campanella, could so\nabstract his attention from any sufferings of his body, that he was even\nable to endure the rack without much pain; and whoever has the power of\nconcentrating his attention and controlling his will, can emancipate\nhimself from most of the minor miseries of life. He may have much cause\nfor anxiety, his body may be the seat of severe suffering, and yet his\nmind will remain serene and unaffected; he may triumph over care and pain.\n\nBut many have undergone much unnecessary suffering, and valuable lives\nhave often been lost, through ignorance or carelessness. We cannot but\nfancy that the lives of many great men might have been much prolonged by\nthe exercise of a little ordinary care.\n\nIf we take musicians only, what a grievous loss to the world it is that\nPergolesi should have died at twenty-six, Schubert at thirty-one, Mozart\nat thirty-five, Purcell at thirty-seven, and Mendelssohn at thirty-eight.\n\nIn the old Greek myth the life of Meleager was indissolubly connected by\nfate with the existence of a particular log of wood. As long as this was\nkept safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore a charmed life. It seems\nwonderful that we do not watch with equal care over our body, on the state\nof which happiness so much depends.\n\nThe requisites of health are plain enough; regular habits, daily exercise,\ncleanliness, and moderation in all things--in eating as well as in\ndrinking--would keep most people well.\n\nI need not here dwell on the evils of drinking, but we perhaps scarcely\nrealize how much of the suffering and ill-humor of life is due to\nover-eating. Dyspepsia, for instance, from which so many suffer, is in\nnine cases out of ten their own fault, and arises from the combination of\ntoo much food with too little exercise. To lengthen your life, says an old\nproverb, shorten your meals. Plain living and high thinking will secure\nhealth for most of us, though it matters, perhaps, comparatively little\nwhat a healthy man eats, so long as he does not eat too much.\n\nMr. Gladstone has told us that the splendid health he enjoys is greatly\ndue to his having early learnt one simple physiological maxim, and laid it\ndown as a rule for himself always to make twenty-five bites at every bit\nof meat.\n\n  \"Go to your banquet then, but use delight,\n  So as to rise still with an appetite.\" [1]\n\nNo doubt, however, though the rule not to eat or drink too much is simple\nenough in theory, it is not quite so easy in application. There have been\nmany Esaus who sold their birthright of health for a mess of pottage.\n\nMoreover, it may seem paradoxical, but it is certainly true, that in the\nlong run the moderate man will derive more enjoyment even from eating and\ndrinking, than the glutton or the drunkard will ever obtain. They know not\nwhat it is to enjoy \"the exquisite taste of common dry bread.\" [2]\n\nAnd yet even if we were to consider merely the pleasure to be derived from\neating and drinking, the same rule would hold good. A lunch of bread and\ncheese after a good walk is more enjoyable than a Lord Mayor's feast.\nWithout wishing, like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so that he might\nenjoy his dinner longer, we must not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we\nderive from eating and drinking, even though they be amongst the least\naesthetic of our pleasures. They are homely, no doubt, but they come\nmorning, noon, and night, and are not the less real because they have\nreference to the body rather than the soul.\n\nWe speak truly of a healthy appetite, for it is a good test of our bodily\ncondition; and indeed in some cases of our mental state also. That\n\n    \"There cometh no good thing\n  Apart from toil to mortals,\"\n\nis especially true with reference to appetite; to sit down to a dinner,\nhowever simple, after a walk with a friend among the mountains or along\nthe shore, is no insignificant pleasure.\n\nCheerfulness and good humor, moreover, during meals are not only pleasant\nin themselves, but conduce greatly to health.\n\nIt has been said that hunger is the best sauce, but most would prefer some\ngood stories at a feast even to a good appetite; and who would not like to\nhave it said of him, as of Biron by Rosaline--\n\n                      \"A merrier man\n  Within the limit of becoming mirth\n  I never spent an hour's talk withal.\"\n\nIn the three great \"Banquets\" of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food\nis not even mentioned.\n\nIn the words of the old Lambeth adage--\n\n  \"What is a merry man?\n  Let him do what he can\n  To entertain his guests\n  With wine and pleasant jests,\n  Yet if his wife do frown\n  All merryment goes down.\"\n\nWhat salt is to food, wit and humor are to conversation and literature.\n\"You do not,\" an amusing writer in the _Cornhill_ has said, \"expect humor\nin Thomas \u00e0 Kempis or Hebrew Prophets;\" but we have Solomon's authority\nthat there is a time to laugh, as well as to weep.\n\n\"To read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, when the\nbest things are said, and the most amusing things happen.\" [3]\n\nIt is not without reason that every one resents the imputation of being\nunable to see a joke.\n\nLaughter appears to be the special prerogative of man. The higher animals\npresent us with proof of evident, if not highly developed reasoning power,\nbut it is more than doubtful whether they are capable of appreciating a\njoke.\n\nWit, moreover, has solved many difficulties and decided many\ncontroversies.\n\n  \"Ridicule shall frequently prevail,\n  And cut the knot when graver reasons fail.\" [4]\n\nA careless song, says Walpole, with a little nonsense in it now and then,\ndoes not misbecome a monarch, but it is difficult now to realize that\nJames I. should have regarded skill in punning in his selections of\nbishops and privy councillors.\n\nThe most wasted of all days, says Chamfort, is that on which one has not\nlaughed.\n\nIt is, moreover, no small merit of laughter that it is quite spontaneous.\n\"You cannot force people to laugh; you cannot give a reason why they\nshould laugh; they must laugh of themselves or not at all.... If we think\nwe must not laugh, this makes our temptation to laugh the greater.\" [5]\nHumor is, moreover, contagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of\nhimself, \"I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in\nother men.\"\n\nBut one may paraphrase the well-known remark about port wine and say that\nsome jokes may be better than others, but anything which makes one laugh\nis good. \"After all,\" says Dryden, \"it is a good thing to laugh at any\nrate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness,\"\nand I may add, of health.\n\nI have been told that in omitting any mention of smoking I was overlooking\none of the real pleasures of life. Not being a smoker myself I cannot\nperhaps judge; much must depend on the individual temperament; to some\nnervous natures it certainly appears to be a great comfort; but I have my\ndoubts whether smoking, as a general rule, does add to the pleasures of\nlife. It must, moreover, detract somewhat from the sensitiveness of taste\nand of smell.\n\nThose who live in cities may almost lay it down as a rule that no time\nspent out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is a cordial of incredible\nvirtue; old families are in all senses county families, not town families;\nand those who prefer Homer and Plato and Shakespeare to hares and\npartridges and foxes must beware that they are not tempted to neglect this\ngreat requisite of our nature.\n\nMost Englishmen, however, love open air, and it is probably true that most\nof us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more than looking at any of the old\nmasters. The love of sport is engraven in the English character. As was\nsaid of William Rufus, \"he loves the tall deer as he had been their\nfather.\"\n\nAn Oriental traveler is said to have watched a game of cricket and been\nmuch astonished at hearing that many of those playing were rich men. He\nasked why they did not pay some poor people to do it for them.\n\nWordsworth made it a rule to go out every day, and he used to say that as\nhe never consulted the weather, he never had to consult the physicians.\n\nIt always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at\nthe weather through the window. Even in winter, though the landscape often\nseems cheerless and bare enough when you look at it from the fireside,\nstill it is far better to go out, even if you have to brave the storm:\nwhen you are once out of doors the touch of earth and the breath of the\nfresh air gives you fresh life and energy. Men, like trees, live in great\npart on air.\n\nAfter a gallop over the downs, a row on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by\nthe seashore or in the woods\n\n  \"The blue above, the music in the air,\n  The flowers upon the ground,\" [6]\n\none feels as if one could say with Henry IV., \"Je me porte comme le Ponte\nNeuf.\"\n\nThe Roman proverb that a child should be taught nothing which he cannot\nlearn standing up, went no doubt into an extreme, but surely we fall into\nanother when we act as if games were the only thing which boys could learn\nupon their feet.\n\nThe love of games among boys is certainly a healthy instinct, and though\ncarried too far in some of our great schools, there can be no question\nthat cricket and football, boating and hockey, bathing and birdnesting,\nare not only the greatest pleasures, but the best medicines for boys.\n\nWe cannot always secure sleep. When important decisions have to be taken,\nthe natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep us awake.\nNothing, however, is more conducive to healthy sleep than plenty of open\nair. Then indeed we can enjoy the fresh life of the early morning: \"the\nbreezy call of incense-bearing morn.\" [7]\n\n  \"At morn the Blackcock trims his jetty wing,\n      'Tis morning tempts the linnet's blithest lay,\n  All nature's children feel the matin spring\n      Of life reviving with reviving day.\"\n\nEpictetus described himself as \"a spirit bearing about a corpse.\" That\nseems to me an ungrateful description. Surely we ought to cherish the\nbody, even if it be but a frail and humble companion. Do we not own to the\neye our enjoyment of the beauties of this world and the glories of the\nHeavens; to the ear the voices of friends and all the delights of music;\nare not the hands most faithful and invaluable instruments, ever ready in\ncase of need, ever willing to do our bidding; and even the feet bear us\nwithout a murmur along the roughest and stoniest paths of life.\n\nWith reasonable care, then, most of us may hope to enjoy good health. And\nyet what a marvellous and complex organization we have!\n\nWe are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made. It is\n\n  \"Strange that a harp of a thousand strings,\n  Should keep in tune so long.\"\n\nWhen we consider the marvellous complexity of our bodily organization, it\nseems a miracle that we should live at all; much more that the innumerable\norgans and processes should continue day after day and year after year\nwith so much regularity and so little friction that we are sometimes\nscarcely conscious of having a body at all.\n\nAnd yet in that body we have more than 200 bones, of complex and varied\nforms, any irregularity in, or injury to, which would of course grievously\ninterfere with our movements.\n\nWe have over 500 muscles; each nourished by almost innumerable blood\nvessels, and regulated by nerves. One of our muscles, the heart, beats\nover 30,000,000 times in a year, and if it once stops, all is over.\n\nIn the skin are wonderfully varied and complex organs--for instance, over\n2,000,000 perspiration glands, which regulate the temperature and\ncommunicate with the surface by ducts, which have a total length of some\nten miles.\n\nThink of the miles of arteries and veins, of capillaries and nerves; of\nthe blood, with the millions of millions of blood corpuscles, each a\nmicrocosm in itself.\n\nThink of the organs of sense,--the eye with its cornea and lens, vitreous\nhumor, aqueous humor, and choroid, culminating in the retina, no thicker\nthan a sheet of paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct layers, the\ninnermost composed of rods and cones, supposed to be the immediate\nrecipients of the undulations of light, and so numerous that in each eye\nthe cones are estimated at over 3,000,000, the rods at over 30,000,000.\n\nAbove all, and most wonderful of all, the brain itself. Meinert has\ncalculated that the gray matter of the convolutions alone contains no less\nthan 600,000,000 cells; each cell consists of several thousand visible\natoms, and each atom again of many millions of molecules.\n\nAnd yet with reasonable care we can most of us keep this wonderful\norganization in health; so that it will work without causing us pain, or\neven discomfort, for many years; and we may hope that even when old age\ncomes\n\n                 \"Time may lay his hand\n  Upon your heart gently, not smiting it\n  But as a harper lays his open palm\n  Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.\"\n\n[1] Herrick.\n\n[2] Hamerton.\n\n[3] Hazlitt.\n\n[4] Francis.\n\n[5] Hazlitt.\n\n[6] Trench.\n\n[7] Gray.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nLOVE.\n\n\n    \"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,\n    And men below and saints above;\n    For love is heaven and heaven is love.\"\n\n    SCOTT.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nLOVE.\n\n\nLove is the light and sunshine of life. We are so constituted that we\ncannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love\nenjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope\nof sharing it hereafter with those we love.\n\nLove lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance;\nin childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for\nchildren, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.\nThe strength of friendship is indeed proverbial, and in some cases, as in\nthat of David and Jonathan, is described as surpassing the love of women.\nBut I need not now refer to it, having spoken already of what we owe to\nfriends.\n\nThe goodness of Providence to man has been often compared to that of\nfathers and mothers for their children.\n\n  \"Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,\n    Yearns toward her little children from her seat,\n  Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,\n    Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;\n  And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,\n    She learns their feelings and their various will,\n  To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,\n    And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;--\n  So Providence for us, high, infinite,\n    Makes our necessities its watchful task,\n    Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,\n  And e'en if it denies what seems our right,\n    Either denies because 'twould have us ask,\n    Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants.\" [1]\n\nSir Walter Scott well says--\n\n  \"And if there be on Earth a tear\n  From passion's dross [2] refined and clear,\n  'Tis that which pious fathers shed\n  Upon a duteous daughter's head.\"\n\n\n\nEpaminondas is said to have given as his main reason for rejoicing at the\nvictory of Leuctra, that it would give so much pleasure to his father and\nmother.\n\nNor must the love of animals be altogether omitted. It is impossible not\nto sympathize with the Savage when he believes in their immortality, and\nthinks that after death\n\n              \"Admitted to that equal sky\n  His faithful dog shall bear him company.\" [3]\n\nIn the _Mahabharata_, the great Indian Epic, when the family of Pandavas,\nthe heroes, at length reach the gates of heaven, they are welcomed\nthemselves, but are told that their dog cannot come in. Having pleaded in\nvain, they turn to depart, as they say they can never leave their faithful\ncompanion. Then at the last moment the Angel at the door relents, and\ntheir Dog is allowed to enter with them.\n\nWe may hope the time will come when we shall learn\n\n  \"Never to blend our pleasures or our pride,\n  With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.\" [4]\n\nBut at the present moment I am speaking rather of the love which leads to\nmarriage. Such love is the music of life, nay, \"there is music in the\nbeauty, and the silver note of love, far sweeter than the sound of any\ninstrument.\" [5]\n\nThe Symposium of Plato contains an interesting and amusing disquisition on\nLove.\n\n\"Love,\" Phaedrus is made to say, \"will make men dare to die for their\nbeloved--love alone: and women as well as men. Of this, Alcestis, the\ndaughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to\nlay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would,\nalthough he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far\nexceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their\nown son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of\nhers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have\ndone virtuously she is one of the very few to whom they have granted the\nprivilege of returning to earth, in admiration of her virtue; such\nexceeding honor is paid by them to the devotion and virtue of love.\"\n\nAgathon is even more eloquent--\n\nLove \"fills men with affection, and takes away their disaffection, making\nthem meet together at such banquets as these. In sacrifices, feasts,\ndances, he is our lord--supplying kindness and banishing unkindness,\ngiving friendship and forgiving anmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of\nthe wise, the amazement of the gods, desired by those who have no part in\nhim, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of\ndelicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful of the\ngood, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear--pilot,\ncomrade, helper, savior; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest:\nin whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honor that\nsweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men.\"\n\nNo doubt, even so there are two Loves, \"one, the daughter of Uranus, who\nhas no mother, and is the elder and wiser goddess; and the other, the\ndaughter of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and common,\"--but let us not\nexamine too closely. Charity tells us even of Guinevere, \"that while she\nlived, she was a good lover and therefore she had a good end.\" [6]\n\nThe origin of love has exercised philosophers almost as much as the origin\nof evil. The Symposium continues with a speech which Plato attributes in\njoke to Aristophanes, and of which Jowett observes that nothing in\nAristophanes is more truly Aristophanic.\n\nThe original human nature, he says, was not like the present. The Primeval\nMan was round, [7] his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four\nhands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set\non a round neck and precisely alike. He could walk upright as men now do,\nbackward or forward as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at\na great rate, whirling round on his four hands and four feet, eight in\nall, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this\nwas when he wanted to run fast. Terrible was their might and strength, and\nthe thoughts of their hearts great, and they made an attack upon the gods;\nof them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes, who, as Homer says, dared\nto scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in\nthe celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with\nthunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of\nthe sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other\nhand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At\nlast, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said;\n\"Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and mend their\nmanners; they shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two, which\nwill have a double advantage, for it will halve their strength and we\nshall have twice as many sacrifices. They shall walk upright on two legs,\nand if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them\nagain and they shall hop on a single leg.\" He spoke and cut men in two,\n\"as you might split an egg with a hair.\"... After the division the two\nparts of man, each desiring his other half, came together.... So ancient\nis the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our\noriginal nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of\nus when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only,\nlike a flat-fish and he is always looking for his other half.\n\nAnd when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in amazement\nof love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the\nother's sight, as I may say, even for a minute: they will pass their whole\nlives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one\nanother. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other\ndoes not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something\nelse, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of\nwhich she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.\n\nHowever this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart\nthat we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such\nimpressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love\nat first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation.\nIt seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.\n\n  \"But to see her were to love her,\n  Love but her, and love for ever.\" [8]\n\nYet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse\ndoes not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a\nwarm love has been won by faithful devotion.\n\nMontaigne indeed declares that \"Few have married for love without\nrepenting it.\" Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally\nbe happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not\nthink either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to\nthe unfortunate Maid of Astolat, \"I love not to be constrained to love,\nfor love must arise of the heart and not by constraint.\" [9]\n\nLove defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by\nthe sea, \"but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow.\" [10]\n\nLove can be happy anywhere. Byron wished\n\n  \"O that the desert were my dwelling-place,\n  With one fair Spirit for my minister,\n  That I might all forget the human race,\n  And, hating no one, love but only her.\"\n\nAnd many will doubtless have felt\n\n  \"O Love! what hours were thine and mine\n  In lands of Palm and Southern Pine,\n  In lands of Palm, of Orange blossom,\n  Of Olive, Aloe, and Maize and Vine.\"\n\nWhat is true of space holds good equally of\ntime.\n\n  \"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed.\n  In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;\n  In halls, in gay attire is seen;\n  In hamlets, dances on the green.\n  Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,\n  And men below, and saints above;\n  For love is heaven, and heaven is love.\" [11]\n\nEven when, as among some Eastern races, Religion and Philosophy have\ncombined to depress Love, truth reasserts itself in popular sayings, as\nfor instance in the Turkish proverb, \"All women are perfection, especially\nshe who loves you.\"\n\nA French lady having once quoted to Abd-el-Kader the Polish proverb, \"A\nwoman draws more with a hair of her head than a pair of oxen well\nharnessed;\" he answered with a smile, \"The hair is unnecessary, woman is\npowerful as fate.\"\n\nBut we like to think of Love rather as the Angel of Happiness than as a\nruling force: of the joy of home when \"hearts are of each other sure.\"\n\n  \"It is the secret sympathy,\n  The silver link, the silken tie,\n  Which heart to heart, and mind to mind\n  In body and in soul can bind.\" [12]\n\nWhat Bacon says of a friend is even truer of a wife; there is \"no man that\nimparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that\nimparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.\"\n\nLet some one we love come near us and\n\n  \"At once it seems that something new or strange\n    Has passed upon the flowers, the trees, the ground;\n  Some slight but unintelligible change\n    On everything around.\" [13]\n\nWe might, I think, apply to love what Homer says of Fate:\n\n  \"Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps\n  Not on the ground, but on the heads of men.\"\n\nLove and Reason divide the life of man. We must give to each its due. If\nit is impossible to attain to virtue by the aid of Reason without Love,\nneither can we do so by means of Love alone without Reason.\n\nLove, said Melanippides, \"sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of\ndesire, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together.\"\n\nNo one indeed could complain now, with Phaedrus in Plato's Symposium, that\nLove has had no worshippers among the Poets. On the contrary, Love has\nbrought them many of their sweetest inspirations; none perhaps nobler or\nmore beautiful than Milton's description of Paradise:\n\n  \"With thee conversing, I forget all time,\n  All seasons, and their change, all please alike.\n  Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet\n  With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun\n  When first on this delightful land he spreads\n  His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower\n  Glistering with dew, fragrant the fertile earth\n  After soft showers; and sweet the coming on\n  Of grateful evening mild; then silent night\n  With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,\n  And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:\n  But neither breath of morn when she ascends\n  With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun\n  On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower\n  Glistering with dew, nor fragrance after showers,\n  Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night\n  With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon\n  Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.\"\n\nMoreover, no one need despair of an ideal marriage. We unfortunately\ndiffer so much in our tastes; love does so much to create love, that even\nthe humblest may hope for the happiest marriage if only he deserves it;\nand Shakespeare speaks, as he does so often, for thousands when he says\n\n                       \"She is mine own,\n  And I as rich in having such a jewel\n  As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearls,\n  The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.\"\n\nTrue love indeed will not be unreasonable or exacting.\n\n  \"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind\n    That from the nursery\n  Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind\n    To war and arms I fly.\n  True! a new mistress now I chase,\n    The first foe in the field,\n  And with a stronger faith embrace\n    A sword, a horse, a shield.\n  Yet this inconstancy is such\n    As you too shall adore,\n  I could not love thee, dear, so much,\n    Loved I not honor more.\" [14]\n\nAnd yet\n\n  \"Alas! how light a cause may move\n  Dissension between hearts that love!\n  Hearts that the world in vain had tried,\n  And sorrow but more closely tied,\n  That stood the storm, when waves were rough,\n  Yet in a sunny hour fall off,\n  Like ships that have gone down at sea,\n  When heaven was all tranquillity.\" [15]\n\nFor love is brittle. Do not risk even any little jar; it may be\n\n         \"The little rift within the lute,\n  That by and by will make the music mute,\n  And ever widening slowly silence all.\" [16]\n\nLove is delicate; \"Love is hurt with jar and fret,\" and you might as well\nexpect a violin to remain in tune if roughly used, as Love to survive if\nchilled or driven into itself. But what a pleasure to keep it alive by\n\n  \"Little, nameless, unremembered acts\n  Of kindness and of love.\" [17]\n\n\"She whom you loved and chose,\" says Bondi,\n\n                                \"Is now your bride,\n    The gift of heaven, and to your trust consigned;\n    Honor her still, though not with passion blind;\n    And in her virtue, though you watch, confide.\n  Be to her youth a comfort, guardian, guide,\n    In whose experience she may safety find;\n    And whether sweet or bitter be assigned,\n    The joy with her, as well as pain divide.\n  Yield not too much if reason disapprove;\n    Nor too much force; the partner of your life\n    Should neither victim be, nor tyrant prove.\n  Thus shall that rein, which often mars the bliss\n    Of wedlock, scarce be felt; and thus your wife\n    Ne'er in the husband shall the lover miss.\" [18]\n\nEvery one is ennobled by true love--\n\n  \"Tis better to have loved and lost\n    Than never to have loved at all.\" [19]\n\nPerhaps no one ever praised a woman more gracefully in a sentence than\nSteele when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that \"to know her was a\nliberal education;\" but every woman may feel as she improves herself that\nshe is not only laying in a store of happiness for herself, but also\nraising and blessing him whom she would most wish to see happy and good.\n\nLove, true love, grows and deepens with time. Husband and wife, who are\nmarried indeed, live\n\n       \"By each other, till to love and live\n  Be one.\" [20]\n\nFor does it end with life. A mother's love knows no bounds.\n\n  \"They err who tell us Love can die,\n  With life all other passions fly,\n    All others are but vanity.\n  In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,\n  Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;\n  Earthly these passions of the Earth;\n  They perish where they have their birth,\n      But Love is indestructible;\n    Its holy flame forever burneth,\n  From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;\n    Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,\n    At times deceived, at times opprest,\n      It here is tried and purified,\n    Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:\n  It soweth here with toil and care,\n  But the harvest time of Love is there.\n\n  \"The mother when she meets on high\n    The Babe she lost in infancy,\n  Hath she not then, for pains and fears,\n    The day of woe, the watchful night,\n    For all her sorrow, all her tears,\n    An over-payment of delight?\" [21]\n\nAs life wears on the love of husband or wife, of friends and of children,\nbecomes the great solace and delight of age. The one recalls the past, the\nother gives interest to the future; and in our children, it has been truly\nsaid, we live our lives again.\n\n[1] _Filicaja_. Translated by Leigh Hunt.\n\n[2] Not from passion itself.\n\n[3] Pope.\n\n[4] Wordsworth.\n\n[5] Browne.\n\n[6] Malory, _Morte d' Arthur_.\n\n[7] I avail myself of Dr. Jowett's translation.\n\n[8] Burns.\n\n[9] Malory, _Morte d' Arthur_.\n\n[10] Symonds.\n\n[11] Scott.\n\n[12] Scott.\n\n[13] Trench.\n\n[14] Lovelace.\n\n[15] Moore.\n\n[16] Tennyson.\n\n[17] Wordsworth.\n\n[18] Bondi. Tr. by Glassfors.\n\n[19] Tennyson.\n\n[20] Swinburne.\n\n[21] Southey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nART.\n\n\n    \"High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but\n    in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely,\n    whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the\n    utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and\n    directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle\n    emphasis. Art (caeteris paribus) is great in exact proportion to the\n    love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty\n    forfeit no atom of truth.\"--RUSKIN.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nART.\n\n\nThe most ancient works of Art which we possess are representations of\nanimals, rude indeed, but often strikingly characteristic, engraved on, or\ncarved in, stag's-horn or bone; and found in English, French, and German\ncaves, with stone and other rude implements, and the remains of mammalia,\nbelonging apparently to the close of the glacial epoch: not only of the\ndeer, bear, and other animals now inhabiting temperate Europe, but of\nsome, such as the reindeer, the musk sheep, and the mammoth, which have\neither retreated north or become altogether extinct. We may, I think,\nventure to hope that other designs may hereafter be found, which will give\nus additional information as to the manners and customs of our ancestors\nin those remote ages.\n\nNext to these in point of antiquity come the sculptures and paintings on\nAssyrian and Egyptian tombs, temples, and palaces.\n\nThese ancient scenes, considered as works of art, have no doubt many\nfaults, and yet how graphically they tell their story! As a matter of fact\na king is not, as a rule, bigger than his soldiers, but in these\nbattle-scenes he is always so represented. We must, however, remember that\nin ancient warfare the greater part of the fighting was, as a matter of\nfact, done by the chiefs. In this respect the Homeric poems resemble the\nAssyrian and Egyptian representations. At any rate, we see at a glance\nwhich is the king, which are officers, which side is victorious, the\nstruggles and sufferings of the wounded, the flight of the enemy, the city\nof refuge--so that he who runs may read; while in modern battle-pictures\nthe story is much less clear, and, indeed, the untrained eye sees for some\ntime little but scarlet and smoke.\n\nThese works assuredly possess a grandeur and dignity of their own, even\nthough they have not the beauty of later art.\n\nIn Greece Art reached a perfection which has never been excelled, and it\nwas more appreciated than perhaps it has ever been since.\n\nAt the time when Demetrius attacked the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was\npainting a picture of Ialysus. \"This,\" says Pliny, \"hindered King\nDemetrius from taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should burn the picture;\nand not being able to fire the town on any other side, he was pleased\nrather to spare the painting than to take the victory, which was already\nin his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had his painting-room in a garden\nout of the town, and very near the camp of the enemies, where he was daily\nfinishing those pieces which he had already begun, the noise of soldiers\nnot being capable of interrupting his studies. But Demetrius causing him\nto be brought into his presence, and asking him what made him so bold as\nto work in the midst of enemies, he answered the king, 'That he understood\nthe war which he made was against the Rhodians, and not against the\nArts.'\"\n\nWith the decay of Greece, Art sank too, until it was revived in the\nthirteenth century by Cimabue, since whose time its progress has been\ntriumphal.\n\nArt is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human\nhappiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the\nmind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.\n\n\"In true Art,\" says Ruskin, \"the hand, the head, and the heart of man go\ntogether. But Art is no recreation: it cannot be learned at spare moments,\nnor pursued when we have nothing better to do.\"\n\nIt is not only in the East that great works, really due to study and\nlabor, have been attributed to magic.\n\nStudy and labor cannot make every man an artist, but no one can succeed in\nart without them. In Art two and two do not make four, and no number of\nlittle things will make a great one.\n\nIt has been said, and on high authority, that the end of art is to please.\nBut this is a very imperfect definition. It might as well be said that a\nlibrary is only intended for pleasure and ornament.\n\nArt has the advantage of nature, in so far as it introduces a human\nelement, which is in some respects superior even to nature. \"If,\" says\nPlato, \"you take a man as he is made by nature and compare him with\nanother who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear\nthe less beautitiful, because art is more accurate than nature.\"\n\nBacon also, in _The Advancement of Learning_, speaks of \"the world being\ninferior to the soul, by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit\nof man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute\nvariety than can be found in the nature of things.\"\n\nThe poets tell us that Prometheus, having made a beautiful statue of\nMinerva, the goddess was so delighted that she offered to bring down\nanything from Heaven which could add to its perfection. Prometheus on this\nprudently asked her to take him there, so that he might choose for\nhimself. This Minerva did, and Prometheus, finding that in heaven all\nthings were animated by fire, brought back a spark, with which he gave\nlife to his work.\n\nIn fact, Imitation is the means and not the end of Art. The story of\nZeuxis and Parrhasius is a pretty tale; but to deceive birds, or even man\nhimself, is but a trifling matter compared with the higher functions of\nArt. To imitate the _Iliad_, says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer, but\nas Sir J. Reynolds adds, the more the artist studies nature \"the nearer he\napproaches to the true and perfect idea of art.\"\n\n\"Following these rules and using these precautions, when you have clearly\nand distinctly learned in what good coloring consists, you cannot do\nbetter than have recourse to Nature herself, who is always at hand, and in\ncomparison of whose true splendor the best colored pictures are but faint\nand feeble.\" [1]\n\nArt, indeed, must create as well as copy. As Victor Cousin well says, \"The\nideal without the real lacks life; but the real without the ideal lacks\npure beauty. Both need to unite; to join hands and enter into alliance. In\nthis way the best work may be achieved. Thus beauty is an absolute idea,\nand not a mere copy of imperfect Nature.\"\n\nThe grouping of the picture is of course of the utmost importance. Sir\nJoshua Reynolds gives two remarkable cases to show how much any given\nfigure in a picture is affected by its surroundings. Tintoret in one of\nhis pictures has taken the Samson of Michael Angelo, put an eagle under\nhim, placed thunder and lightning in his right hand instead of the jawbone\nof an ass, and thus turned him into a Jupiter. The second instance is even\nmore striking. Titian has copied the figure in the vault of the Sistine\nChapel which represents the Deity dividing light from darkness, and has\nintroduced it into his picture of the battle of Cadore, to represent a\ngeneral falling from his horse.\n\nWe must remember that so far as the eye is concerned, the object of the\nartist is to train, not to deceive, and that his higher function has\nreference rather to the mind than to the eye.\n\nNo doubt\n\n  \"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,\n  To throw a perfume on the violet,\n  To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n  Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n  To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n  Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\" [2]\n\nBut all is not gold that glitters, flowers are not all arrayed like the\nlily, and there is room for selection as well as representation.\n\n\"The true, the good, and the beautiful,\" says Cousin, \"are but forms of\nthe infinite: what then do we really love in truth, beauty, and virtue? We\nlove the infinite himself. The love of the infinite substance is hidden\nunder the love of its forms. It is so truly the infinite which charms in\nthe true, the good, and the beautiful, that its manifestations alone do\nnot suffice. The artist is dissatisfied at the sight even of his greatest\nworks; he aspires still higher.\"\n\nIt is indeed sometimes objected that Landscape painting is not true to\nnature; but we must ask, What is truth? Is the object to produce the same\nimpression on the mind as that created by the scene itself? If so, let any\none try to draw from memory a group of mountains, and he will probably\nfind that in the impression produced on his mind the mountains are loftier\nand steeper, the valleys deeper and narrower, than in the actual reality.\nA drawing, then, which was literally exact would not be true, in the sense\nof conveying the same impression as Nature herself.\n\nIn fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art simply because it is not Nature.\n\nIt is not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and\ndelineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something\nhigher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate\ninterpret, as well as copy.\n\nTurner was never satisfied merely to reach to even the most glorious\nscenery. He moved, and even suppressed, mountains.\n\nA certain nobleman, we are told, was very anxious to see the model from\nwhom Guido painted his lovely female faces. Guido placed his\ncolor-grinder, a big coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew a beautiful\nMagdalen. \"My dear Count,\" he said, \"the beautiful and pure idea must be\nin the mind, and then it is no matter what the model is.\"\n\nGuido Reni, who painted St. Michael for the Church of the Capuchins at\nRome, wished that he \"had the wings of an angel, to have ascended unto\nParadise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits,\nfrom which I might have copied my Archangel. But not being able to mount\nso high, it was in vain for me to seek for his resemblance here below; so\nthat I was forced to look into mine own mind, and into that idea of beauty\nwhich I have formed in my own imagination.\" [3]\n\nScience attempts, as far as the limited powers of Man permit, to reproduce\nthe actual facts in a manner which, however bald, is true in itself,\nirrespective of time and scene. To do this she must submit to many\nlimitations; not altogether unvexatious, and not without serious\ndrawbacks. Art, on the contrary, endeavors to convey the impression of the\noriginal under some especial aspect.\n\nIn some respects, Art gives a clearer and more vivid idea of an unknown\ncountry than any description can convey. In literature rock may be rock,\nbut in painting it must be granite or slate, and not merely rock in\ngeneral.\n\nIt is remarkable that while artists have long recognized the necessity of\nstudying anatomy, and there has been from the commencement a professor of\nanatomy in the Royal Academy, it is only of late years that any knowledge\nof botany or geology has been considered desirable, and even now their\nimportance is by no means generally recognized.\n\nMuch has been written as to the relative merits of painting, sculpture,\nand architecture. This, if it be not a somewhat unprofitable inquiry,\nwould at any rate be out of place here.\n\nArchitecture not only gives intense pleasure, but even the impression of\nsomething ethereal and superhuman.\n\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl described it as \"frozen music;\" and a cathedral is a\nglorious specimen of \"thought in stone,\" whose very windows are\ntransparent walls of gorgeous hues.\n\nCaracci said that poets paint in their words and artists speak in their\nworks. The latter have indeed one great advantage, for a glance at a\nstatue or a painting will convey a more vivid idea than a long and minute\ndescription.\n\nAnother advantage possessed by Art is that it is understood by all\ncivilized nations, whilst each has a separate language.\n\nEven from a material point of view Art is most important. In a recent\naddress Sir F. Leighton has observed that the study of Art \"is every day\nbecoming more important in relation to certain sides of the waning\nmaterial prosperity of the country. For the industrial competition between\nthis and other countries--a competition, keen and eager, which means to\ncertain industries almost a race for life--runs, in many cases, no longer\nexclusively or mainly on the lines of excellence of material and solidity\nof workmanship, but greatly nowadays on the lines of artistic charm and\nbeauty of design.\"\n\nThe highest service, however, that Art can accomplish for man is to become\n\"at once the voice of his nobler aspirations, and the steady\ndisciplinarian of his emotions; and it is with this mission, rather than\nwith any aesthetic perfection, that we are at present concerned.\" [4]\n\nScience and Art are sisters, or rather perhaps they are like brother and\nsister. The mission of Art is in some respects like that of woman. It is\nnot Hers so much to do the hard toil and moil of the world, as to surround\nit with a halo of beauty, to convert work into pleasure.\n\nIn science we naturally expect progress, but in Art the case is not so\nclear; and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not hesitate to express his\nconviction that in the future \"so much will painting improve, that the\nbest we can now achieve will appear like the work of children,\" and we may\nhope that our power of enjoying it may increase in an equal ratio.\nWordsworth says that poets have to create the taste for their own works,\nand the same is, in some degree at any rate, true of artists.\n\nIn one respect especially modern painters appear to have made a marked\nadvance, and one great blessing which in fact we owe to them is a more\nvivid enjoyment of scenery.\n\nI have of course no pretensions to speak with authority, but even in the\ncase of the greatest masters before Turner, the landscapes seem to me\nsingularly inferior to the figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us that\nGainsborough framed a kind of model of a landscape on his table, composed\nof broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he\nmagnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water; and Sir Joshua\nsolemnly discusses the wisdom of such a proceeding. \"How far it may be\nuseful in giving hints,\" he says, \"the professors of landscape can best\ndetermine,\" but he does not recommend it, and is disposed to think, on the\nwhole, the practice may be more likely to do harm than good!\n\nIn the picture of Ceyx and Alcyone, by Wilson, of whom Cunningham said\nthat, with Gainsborough, he laid the foundation of our School of\nLandscape, the castle is said to have been painted from a pot of porter,\nand the rock from a Stilton cheese. There is indeed another version of the\nstory, that the picture was sold for a pot of porter and a cheese, which,\nhowever, does not give a higher idea of the appreciation of the art of\nlandscape at that date.\n\nUntil very recently the general feeling with reference to mountain scenery\nhas been that expressed by Tacitus. \"Who would leave Asia or Africa or\nItaly to go to Germany, a shapeless and unformed country, a harsh sky, and\nmelancholy aspect, unless indeed it was his native land?\"\n\nIt is amusing to read the opinion of Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise on\n_Truth, Poetry and Music_, written at the close of the last century, that\n\"The Highlands of Scotland are in general a melancholy country. Long\ntracts of mountainous country, covered with dark heath, and often obscured\nby misty weather; narrow valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by\nprecipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a\nclimate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amenities of\npasturage, nor the labors of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves\nalong the firths and lakes: the portentous noises which every change of\nthe wind is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks,\nand caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by\nthe light of the moon: objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy,\"\netc. [5]\n\nEven Goldsmith regarded the scenery of the Highlands as dismal and\nhideous. Johnson, we know, laid it down as an axiom that \"the noblest\nprospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to\nEngland\"--a saying which throws much doubt on his distinction that the\nGiant's Causeway was \"worth seeing but not worth going to see.\" [6]\n\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl declared, that though she would go 500 leagues to meet a\nclever man, she would not care to open her window to see the Bay of\nNaples.\n\nNor was the ancient absence of appreciation confined to scenery. Even\nBurke, speaking of Stonehenge, says, \"Stonehenge, neither for disposition\nnor ornament, has anything admirable.\"\n\nUgly scenery, however, may in some cases have an injurious effect on the\nhuman system. It has been ingeniously suggested that what really drove Don\nQuixote out of his mind was not the study of his books of chivalry, so\nmuch as the monotonous scenery of La Mancha.\n\nThe love of landscape is not indeed due to Art alone. It has been the\nhappy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the\nbeauty which surrounds us.\n\nArt helps us to see, and \"hundreds of people can talk for one who can\nthink; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is\npoetry, prophecy, and religion all in one.... Remembering always that\nthere are two characters in which all greatness of Art consists--first,\nthe earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those\nfacts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look\nupon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus\ngreat Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for as\nthe ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world\nabout him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face,\nand then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and\nunescapable force of the things that he would not foresee and could not\nunderstand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in\nthe face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in\nunalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human\nintellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating\ntheir good and restraining their evil.\" [7]\n\nMay we not also hope that in this respect also still further progress may\nbe made, that beauties may be revealed, and pleasures may be in store for\nthose who come after us, which we cannot appreciate, or at least can but\nfaintly feel.\n\nEven now there is scarcely a cottage without something more or less\nsuccessfully claiming to rank as Art,--a picture, a photograph, or a\nstatuette; and we may fairly hope that much as Art even now contributes to\nthe happiness of life, it will do so even more effectively in the future.\n\n[1] Reynolds.\n\n[2] Shakespeare.\n\n[3] Dryden.\n\n[4] Haweis.\n\n[5] Beattie, 1776.\n\n[6] Boswell.\n\n[7] Ruskin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nPOETRY.\n\n\n    \"And here the singer for his Art\n       Not all in vain may plead;\n     The song that nerves a nation's heart\n       Is in itself a deed.\"\n                             TENNYSON.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nPOETRY.\n\n\nAfter the disastrous defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, Plutarch\ntells us that the Sicilians spared those who could repeat any of the\npoetry of Euripides.\n\n\"Some there were,\" he says, \"who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of\nall the Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in\nlove. From the strangers who landed in their island they gleaned every\nsmall specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure\nto each other. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians on\ntheir return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the most grateful\nmanner for their obligations to his pen; some having been enfranchised for\nteaching their masters what they remembered of his poems, and others\nhaving procured refreshments, when they were wandering about after the\nbattle, by singing a few of his verses.\"\n\nNowadays we are none of us likely to owe our lives to Poetry in this\nsense, yet in another we many of us owe to it a similar debt. How often,\nwhen worn with overwork, sorrow, or anxiety, have we taken down Homer or\nHorace, Shakespeare or Milton, and felt the clouds gradually roll away,\nthe jar of nerves subside, the consciousness of power replace physical\nexhaustion, and the darkness of despondency brighten once more into the\nlight of life.\n\n\"And yet Plato,\" says Jowett, \"expels the poets from his Republic because\nthey are allied to sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because\nthey are thrice removed from the ideal truth.\"\n\nIn that respect, as in some others, few would accept Plato's Republic as\nbeing an ideal Commonwealth, and most would agree with Sir Philip Sidney\nthat \"if you cannot bear the planet-like music of poetry ... I must send\nyou in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and\nnever get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your\nmemory die from the earth, for want of an epitaph.\"\n\nPoetry has often been compared with painting and sculpture. Simonides long\nago said that Poetry is a speaking picture, and painting is mute Poetry.\n\n\"Poetry,\" says Cousin, \"is the first of the Arts because it best\nrepresents the infinite.\"\n\nAnd again, \"Though the arts are in some respects isolated, yet there is\none which seems to profit by the resources of all, and that is Poetry.\nWith words, Poetry can paint and sculpture; she can build edifices like an\narchitect; she unites, to some extent, melody and music. She is, so to\nsay, the center in which all arts unite.\"\n\nA true poem is a gallery of pictures.\n\nIt must, I think, be admitted that painting and sculpture can give us a\nclearer and more vivid idea of an object we have never seen than any\ndescription can convey. But when we have once seen it, then on the\ncontrary there are many points which the poet brings before us, and which\nperhaps neither in the representation, nor even in nature, should we\nperceive for ourselves. Objects can be most vividly brought before us by\nthe artist, actions by the poet; space is the domain of Art, time of\nPoetry. [1]\n\nTake, for instance, as a typical instance, female beauty. How labored and\nhow cold any description appears. The greatest poets recognize this; as,\nfor instance, when Scott wishes us to realize the Lady of the Lake he does\nnot attempt any description, but just mentions her attitude and then\nadds--\n\n  \"And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace\n  A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,\n  Of finer form or lovelier face!\"\n\nA great poet indeed must be inspired; he must possess an exquisite sense\nof beauty, and feelings deeper than those of most men, and yet well under\nhis control. \"The Milton of poetry is the man, in his own magnificent\nphrase, of devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can enrich with all\nutterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire\nof his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.\" [2] And if\nfrom one point of view Poetry brings home to us the immeasurable\ninequalities of different minds, on the other hand it teaches us that\ngenius is no affair of rank or wealth.\n\n  \"I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,\n     The sleepless soul, that perish'd in his pride;\n   Of Burns, that walk'd in glory and in joy\n     Behind his plough upon the mountain-side.\" [3]\n\nA man may be a poet and yet write no verse, but not if he writes bad or\npoor ones.\n\n                        \"Mediocribus esse poetis\n  Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae.\" [4]\n\nSecond-rate poets, like second-rate writers generally, fade gradually into\ndreamland; but the great poets remain always.\n\nPoetry will not live unless it be alive, \"that which comes from the head\ngoes to the heart;\" [5] and Milton truly said that \"he who would not be\nfrustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought\nhimself to be a true poem.\"\n\nFor \"he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to\nthe door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art--he, I\nsay, and his Poetry are not admitted.\" [6]\n\nBut the work of the true poet is immortal.\n\n\"For have not the verses of Homer continued 2500 years or more without the\nloss of a syllable or a letter, during which time infinite palaces,\ntemples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not\npossible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar,\nno, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the\noriginals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of the life and\ntruth. But the images of men's wits and knowledge remain in books,\nexempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation.\nNeither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still\nand cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing\ninfinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages: so that if the invention\nof the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities\nfrom place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in\nparticipation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified,\nwhich, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time and make ages so\ndistant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the\none of the other?\" [7]\n\nThe poet requires many qualifications. \"Who has traced,\" says Cousin, \"the\nplan of this poem? Reason. Who has given it life and charm? Love. And who\nhas guided reason and love? The Will.\"\n\n \"All men have some imagination, but\n  The Lover and the Poet\n  Are of imagination all compact.\n\n     *       *       *      *       *\n\n \"The Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,\n  Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,\n  And as imagination bodies forth\n  The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\n  Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\n  A local habitation and a name.\" [8]\n\nPoetry is the fruit of genius; but it cannot be produced without labor.\nMoore, one of the airiest of poets, tells us that he was a slow and\npainstaking workman.\n\nThe works of our greatest Poets are all episodes in that one great poem\nwhich the genius of man has created since the commencement of human\nhistory.\n\nA distinguished mathematician is said once to have inquired what was\nproved by Milton in his _Paradise Lost_; and there are no doubt still some\nwho ask themselves, even if they shrink from putting the question to\nothers, whether Poetry is of any use, just as if to give pleasure were not\nuseful in itself. No true Utilitarian, however, would feel this doubt,\nsince the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the rule of his\nphilosophy.\n\n\"We must not estimate the works of genius merely with reference to the\npleasure they afford, even when pleasure was their principal object. We\nmust also regard the intelligence which they presuppose and exercise.\" [9]\n\nThoroughly to enjoy Poetry we must not so limit ourselves, but must rise\nto a higher ideal.\n\n\"Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really\nexcellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be\npresent in our minds, and should govern our estimate of what we\nread.\" [10]\n\nCicero, in his oration for Archias, well asked, \"Has not this man then a\nright to my love, to my admiration, to all the means which I can employ in\nhis defence? For we are instructed by all the greatest and most learned of\nmankind, that education, precepts, and practice, can in every other branch\nof learning produce excellence. But a poet is formed by the hand of\nnature; he is aroused by mental vigor, and inspired by what we may call\nthe spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our Ennius has a right to give to\npoets the epithet of Holy, [11] because they are, as it were, lent to\nmankind by the indulgent bounty of the gods.\"\n\n\"Poetry,\" says Shelley, \"awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering\nit the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought.\nPoetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes\nfamiliar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that\nit represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand\nthenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as\nmemorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all\nthoughts and actions with which it co-exists.\"\n\nAnd again, \"All high Poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which\ncontained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the\ninmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great poem is a\nfountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight.\"\n\nOr, as he has expressed himself in his Ode to a Skylark:\n\n    \"Higher still and higher\n      From the earth thou springest\n    Like a cloud of fire;\n      The blue deep thou wingest,\n  And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.\n\n    \"Like a poet hidden\n      In the light of thought,\n    Singing hymns unbidden,\n      Till the world is wrought\n  To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.\n\n    \"Like a glow-worm golden\n      In a dell of dew,\n    Scattering unbeholden\n      Its a\u00ebrial hue\n  Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view.\"\n\nWe speak now of the poet as the Maker or Creator--[Greek: poiaetaes]; the\norigin of the word \"bard\" seems doubtful.\n\nThe Hebrews well called their poets \"Seers,\" for they not only perceive\nmore than others, but also help other men to see much which would\notherwise be lost to us. The old Greek word was [Greek: aoidos]--the Bard\nor Singer.\n\nPoetry lifts the veil from the beauty of the world which would otherwise\nbe hidden, and throws over the most familiar objects the glow and halo of\nimagination. The man who has a love for Poetry can scarcely fail to derive\nintense pleasure from Nature, which to those who love it is all \"beauty to\nthe eye and music to the ear.\"\n\n\"Yet Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets\nhave done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling\nflowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more\nlovely.\" [12]\n\nIn the smokiest city the poet will transport us, as if by enchantment, to\nthe fresh air and bright sun, to the murmur of woods and leaves and water,\nto the ripple of waves upon sand, and enable us, as in some delightful\ndream, to cast off the cares and troubles of life.\n\nThe poet, indeed, must have more true knowledge, not only of human nature,\nbut of all Nature, than other men are gifted with.\n\nCrabbe Robinson tells us that when a stranger once asked permission to see\nWordsworth's study, the maid said, \"This is master's Library, but he\nstudies in the fields.\" No wonder then that Nature has been said to return\nthe poet's love.\n\n  \"Call it not vain;-they do not err\n     Who say that, when the poet dies,\n   Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,\n     And celebrates his obsequies.\" [13]\n\nSwinburne says of Blake, and I feel entirely with him, though in my case\nthe application would have been different, that \"The sweetness of sky and\nleaf, of grass and water--the bright light life of bird, child, and\nbeast--is, so to speak, kept fresh by some graver sense of faithful and\nmysterious love, explained and vivified by a conscience and purpose in the\nartist's hand and mind. Such a fiery outbreak of spring, such an\ninsurrection of fierce floral life and radiant riot of childish power and\npleasure, no poet or painter ever gave before; such lustre of green leaves\nand flushed limbs, kindled cloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought\ninto speech or shape.\"\n\nTo appreciate Poetry we must not merely glance at it, or rush through it,\nor read it in order to talk or write about it. One must compose oneself\ninto the right frame of mind. Of course for one's own sake one will read\nPoetry in times of agitation, sorrow, or anxiety, but that is another\nmatter.\n\nThe inestimable treasures of Poetry again are open to all of us. The best\nbooks are indeed the cheapest. For the price of a little beer, a little\ntobacco, we can buy Shakespeare or Milton--or indeed almost as many books\nas a man can read with profit in a year.\n\nNor, in considering the advantage of Poetry to man, must we limit\nourselves to its past or present influence. The future of Poetry, says Mr.\nMatthew Arnold, and no one was more qualified to speak, \"The future of\nPoetry is immense, because in Poetry, where it is worthy of its high\ndestinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer\nstay. But for Poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of\nillusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the\nidea _is_ the fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its\nunconscious Poetry. We should conceive of Poetry worthily, and more highly\nthan it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as\ncapable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies than those which in\ngeneral men have assigned to it hitherto.\"\n\nPoetry has been well called the record \"of the best and happiest moments\nof the happiest and best minds;\" it is the light of life, the very \"image\nof life expressed in its eternal truth;\" it immortalizes all that is best\nand most beautiful in the world; \"it purges from our inward sight the film\nof familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being;\" \"it is the\ncenter and circumference of knowledge;\" and poets are \"mirrors of the\ngigantic shadows which futurity caste upon the present.\"\n\nPoetry, in effect, lengthens life; it creates for us time, if time be\nrealized as the succession of ideas and not of minutes; it is the \"breath\nand finer spirit of all knowledge;\" it is bound neither by time nor space,\nbut lives in the spirit of man. What greater praise can be given than the\nsaying that life should be Poetry put into action.\n\n[1] See Lessing's _Laoco\u00f6n_.\n\n[2] Arnold.\n\n[3] Coleridge.\n\n[4] Horace.\n\n[5] Wordsworth.\n\n[6] Plato.\n\n[7] Bacon.\n\n[8] Shakespeare.\n\n[9] St. Hailare.\n\n[10] Arnold.\n\n[11] Plato styles poets the sons and interpreters of the gods.\n\n[12] Sydney, _Defence of Poetry_.\n\n[13] Scott.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMUSIC.\n\n\n    \"Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the\n    mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life\n    to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is\n    good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but\n    nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.\"--PLATO.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMUSIC.\n\n\nMusic is in one sense far more ancient than man, and the voice was from\nthe very commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as\nmusical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came\nfirst, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the\nDrum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music\nis, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters\nlong preceded the invention of notes, and tradition in such a matter can\ntell us but little.\n\nThe contest between Marsyas and Apollo is supposed by some to typify the\nstruggle between the Flute and the Lyre; Marsyas representing the archaic\nFlute, Apollo the champion of the Lyre. The latter of course was\nvictorious: it sets the voice free, and the sound\n\n  \"Of music that is born of human breath\n  Comes straighter to the soul than any strain\n  The hand alone can make.\" [1]\n\nVarious myths have grown up to explain the origin of Music. One Greek\ntradition was to the effect Grasshoppers were human beings themselves in a\nworld before the Muses; that when the Muses came, being ravished with\ndelight, they sang and sang and forgot to eat, until \"they died of hunger\nfor the love of song. And they carry to heaven the report of those who\nhonor them on earth.\" [2]\n\nThe old writers and commentators tell us that Pythagoras, \"as he was one\nday meditating on the want of some rule to guide the ear, analogous to\nwhat had been used to help the other senses, chanced to pass by a\nblacksmith's shop, and observing that the hammers, which were four in\nnumber, sounded very harmoniously, he had them weighed, and found them to\nbe in the proportion of six, eight, nine, and twelve. Upon this he\nsuspended four strings of equal length and thickness, etc., fastened\nweights in the above-mentioned proportions to each of them respectively,\nand found that they gave the same sounds that the hammers had done; viz.\nthe fourth, fifth, and octave to the gravest tone.\" [3] However this may\nbe, it would appear that the lyre had at first four strings only:\nTerpander is said to have given it three more, and an eighth was\nsubsequently added.\n\nWe have unfortunately no specimens of Greek or Roman, or even of Early\nChristian music. The Chinese indicated the notes by words or their\ninitials. The lowest was termed \"Koung,\" or the Emperor, as being the\nFoundation on which all were supported; the second was Tschang, the Prime\nMinister; the third, the Subject; the fourth, Public Business; the fifth,\nthe Mirror of Heaven. [4] The Greeks also had a name for each note. The\nso-called Gregorian notes were not invented until six hundred years after\nGregory's death. The Monastery of St. Gall possesses a copy of Gregory's\nAntiphonary, made about the year 780 by a chorister who was sent from Rome\nto Charlemagne to reform the Northern music, and in this the notes are\nindicated by \"pneumss,\" from which our notes were gradually developed, and\nfirst arranged along one line, to which others were gradually added. But I\nmust not enlarge on this interesting subject.\n\nIn the matter of music Englishmen have certainly deserved well of the\nworld. Even as long ago as 1185 Giraldus Cambrensis, Bishop of St.\nDavid's, says, \"The Britons do not sing their tunes in unison like the\ninhabitants of other countries, but in different parts. So that when a\ncompany of singers meet to sing, as is usual in this country, as many\ndifferent parts are heard as there are singers.\" [5]\n\nThe most ancient known piece of music for several voices is an English\nfour men's song, \"Summer is a coming in,\" which is considered to be at\nleast as early as 1240, and is now in the British Museum.\n\nThe Venetian Ambassador in the time of Henry VIII. said of our English\nChurch music: \"The mass was sung by His Majesty's choristers, whose voices\nare more heavenly than human; they did not chant like men, but like\nangels.\"\n\nSpeaking of Purcell's anthem, \"Be merciful to me, O God,\" Burney says it\nis \"throughout admirable. Indeed, to my conception there is no better\nmusic existing of the kind than the opening of this anthem, in which the\nverse 'I will praise God' and the last movement in C natural are, in\nmelody, harmony, and modulation, truly divine music.\"\n\nDr. Burney says that Purcell was \"as much the pride of an Englishman in\nmusic as Shakespeare in productions of the stage, Milton in epic poetry,\nLocke in metaphysics, or Sir Isaac Newton in philosophy and mathematics;\"\nand yet Purcell's music is unfortunately but little known to us now, as\nMacfarren says, \"to our great loss.\"\n\nThe authors of some of the loveliest music, and even in some cases that of\ncomparatively recent times, are unknown to us. This is the case for\ninstance with the exquisite song \"Drink to me only with thine eyes,\" the\nwords of which were taken by Jonson from Philostratus, and which has been\nconsidered as the most beautiful of all \"people's songs.\"\n\nThe music of \"God save the Queen\" has been adopted in more than half a\ndozen other countries, and yet the authorship is a matter of doubt, being\nattributed by some to Dr. John Bull, by others to Carey. It was apparently\nfirst sung in a tavern in Cornhill.\n\nBoth the music and words of \"O Death, rock me to sleep\" are said to be by\nAnne Boleyn: \"Stay, Corydon\" and \"Sweet Honey-sucking Bees\" by Wildye,\n\"the first of madrigal writers.\" \"Rule Britannia\" was composed by Arne,\nand originally formed part of his Masque of _Alfred_, first performed in\n1740 at Cliefden, near Maidenhead. To Arne we are also indebted for the\nmusic of \"Where the Bee sucks there lurk I.\" \"The Vicar of Bray\" is set to\na tune originally known as \"A Country Garden.\" \"Come unto these yellow\nsands\" we owe to Purcell; \"Sigh no more, Ladies\" to Stevens; \"Home, Sweet\nHome\" to Bishop.\n\nThere is a curious melancholy in national music which is generally in the\nminor key; indeed this holds good with the music of savage races\ngenerally. They appear, moreover, to have no love Songs.\n\nHerodotus tells us that during the whole time he was in Egypt he only\nheard one song, and that was a sad one. My own experience there was the\nsame. Some tendency to melancholy seems indeed inherent in music, and\nJessica is not alone in the feeling\n\n  \"I am never merry when I hear sweet music.\"\n\nThe epitaphs on Musicians have been in some cases very well expressed.\nSuch, for instance, is the following:\n\n  \"Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove\n  The pangs of guilty power and hapless love,\n  Rest here, distressed by poverty no more;\n  Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;\n  Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,\n  Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!\"\n\nStill more so that on Purcell, whose premature death was so irreparable a\nloss to English music--\n\n    \"Here lies Henry Purcell, who left this life, and is gone to that\n    blessed place, where only his harmony can be exceeded.\"\n\nThe histories of Music contain many curious anecdotes as to the\ncircumstances under which different works have been composed.\n\nRossini tells us that he wrote the overture to the \"Gazza Ladra\" on the\nvery day of the first performance, in the upper loft of the La Scala,\nwhere he had been confined by the manager under the guard of four\nscene-shifters, who threw the text out of the window to copyists bit by\nbit as it was composed. Tartini is said to have composed \"Il trillo del\nDiavolo,\" considered to be his best work, in a dream. Rossini, speaking of\nthe chorus in G minor in his \"Dal tuo stellato soglio,\" tells us: \"While I\nwas writing the chorus in G minor I suddenly dipped my pen into a medicine\nbottle instead of the ink. I made a blot, and when I dried this with the\nsand it took the form of a natural, which instantly gave me the idea of\nthe effect the change from G minor to G major would make, and to this blot\nis all the effect, if any, due.\" But these of course are exceptional\ncases.\n\nThere are other forms of Music, which though not strictly entitled to the\nname, are yet capable of giving intense pleasure. To the sportsman what\nMusic can excel that of the hounds themselves. The cawing of rooks has\nbeen often quoted as a sound which has no actual beauty of its own, and\nyet which is delightful from its associations.\n\nThere is, however, a true Music of Nature,--the song of birds, the whisper\nof leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or\nsea.\n\nThere was also an ancient impression that the Heavenly bodies give out\nmusic as well as light: the Music of the Spheres is proverbial.\n\n  \"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest\n  But in his motion like an angel sings,\n  Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;\n  Such harmony is in immortal souls\n  But while this muddy vesture of decay\n  Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.\" [6]\n\nMusic indeed often seems as if it scarcely belonged to this material\nuniverse, but was\n\n                      \"A tone\n  Of some world far from ours,\n  Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are one.\" [7]\n\nThere is Music in speech as well as in song. Not merely in the voice of\nthose we love, and the charm of association, but in actual melody; as\nMilton says,\n\n  \"The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear\n  So charming left his voice, that he awhile\n  Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.\"\n\nIt is remarkable that more pains are not taken with the voice in\nconversation as well as in singing, for\n\n  \"What plea so tainted and corrupt\n  But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,\n  Obscures the show of evil.\"\n\nIt may be true as a general rule that\n\n  \"The man that hath no Music in himself\n  Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds\n  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;\" [8]\n\nbut there are some notable exceptions. Dr. Johnson had no love of music.\nOn one occasion, hearing that a certain piece of music was very difficult,\nhe expressed his regret that it was not impossible.\n\nPoets, as might have been expected, have sung most sweetly in praise of\nsong. They have, moreover, done so from the most opposite points of view.\n\nMilton invokes it as a luxury--\n\n    \"And ever against eating cares\n  Lap me in soft Lydian airs;\n  Married to immortal verse\n  Such as the meeting soul may pierce,\n  In notes with many a winding bout\n  Of linked sweetness long drawn out;\n  With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,\n  The melting voice through mazes running;\n  Untwisting all the chains that tie\n  The hidden soul of harmony.\"\n\nSometimes as a temptation; so Spenser says of Phaedria,\n\n  \"And she, more sweet than any bird on bough\n    Would oftentimes amongst them bear a part,\n  And strive to passe (as she could well enough)\n    Their native musicke by her skilful art.\"\n\nOr as an element of pure happiness--\n\n  \"There is in Souls a sympathy with sounds;\n  And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased\n  With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;\n  Some chord in unison with what we hear\n  Is touched within us, and the heart replies.\n  How soft the music of those village bells,\n  Falling at intervals upon the ear\n  In cadence sweet, now dying all away,\n  Now pealing loud again and louder still\n  Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.\" [9]\n\nAs touching the human heart--\n\n  \"The soul of music slumbers in the shell,\n  Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,\n  And feeling hearts--touch them but lightly--pour\n  A thousand melodies unheard before.\" [10]\n\nAs an education--\n\n  \"I have sent books and music there, and all\n  Those instruments with which high spirits call\n  The future from its cradle, and the past\n  Out of its grave, and make the present last\n  In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,\n  Folded within their own eternity.\" [11]\n\nAs an aid to religion--\n\n  \"As from the power of sacred lays\n    The spheres began to move,\n  And sung the great Creator's praise\n    To all the blessed above,\n  So when the last and dreadful hour\n  This crumbling pageant shall devour,\n  The trumpet shall be heard on high.\n  The dead shall live, the living die,\n  And music shall untune the sky.\" [12]\n\nOr again--\n\n  \"Hark how it falls! and now It steals along,\n    Like distant bells upon the lake at eve.\n  When all is still; and now it grows more strong\n    As when the choral train their dirges weave\n  Mellow and many voiced; where every close\n    O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.\n  Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars\n    Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;\n  Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,\n    And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.\n  Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed.\"\n\nThe power of Music to sway the feelings of Man has never been more\ncleverly portrayed than by Dryden in \"The Feast of Alexander,\" though the\ncircumstances of the case precluded any reference to the influence of\nMusic in its noblest aspects.\n\nPoets have always attributed to Music--and who would wish to deny it?--a\npower even over the inanimate forces of Nature. Shakespeare accounts for\nshooting stars by the attraction of Music:\n\n  \"The rude sea grew civil at her song,\n  And certain stars shot madly from their spheres\n  To hear the Sea-maid's music.\"\n\nProse writers have also been inspired by Music to their highest eloquence.\n\"Music,\" says Plato, \"is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,\nwings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety\nand life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that\nis good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but\nnevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.\" \"Music,\" said\nLuther, \"is a fair and glorious gift from God. I would not for the world\nrenounce my humble share in music.\" \"Music,\" said Halevy, \"is an art that\nGod has given us, in which the voices of all nations may unite their\nprayers in one harmonious rhythm.\" Or Carlyle, \"Music is a kind of\ninarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the\ninfinite, and lets us for moments gaze into it.\"\n\nLet me also quote Helmholtz, one of the profoundest exponents of modern\nscience. \"Just as in the rolling ocean, this movement, rhythmically\nrepeated, and yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and hurries us along.\nBut whereas in the sea blind physical forces alone are at work, and hence\nthe final impression on the spectator's mind is nothing but solitude--in a\nmusical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own\nemotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently\nstirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression\nof passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into\nthe hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his\nown, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of\nwhich God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be the heralds.\"\n\n\"There are but seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen,\" says Newman,\n\"yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings\nso much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master\nin it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant\ninventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game of\nfashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it possible\nthat that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so\nsimple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should\nbe a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those\nmysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange\nyearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not\nwhence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and\ngoes, and begins and ends in itself? it is not so; it cannot be. No; they\nhave escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal\nharmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home;\nthey are the voices of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living\nlaws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they\nbesides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though\nmortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows,\nhas the gift of eliciting them.\"\n\nPoetry and Music unite in song. From the earliest ages song has been the\nsweet companion of labor. The rude chant of the boatman floats upon the\nwater, the shepherd sings upon the hill, the milkmaid in the dairy, the\nploughman at the plough. Every trade, every occupation, every act and\nscene of life, has long had its own especial music. The bride went to her\nmarriage, the laborer to his work, the old man to his last long rest, each\nwith appropriate and immemorial music.\n\nMusic has been truly described as the mother of sympathy, the handmaid of\nReligion, and will never exercise its full effect, as the Emperor Charles\nVI. said to Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to charm the ear, but to\ntouch the heart.\n\nThere are many who consider that our life at present is peculiarly prosaic\nand mercenary. I greatly doubt whether that be the case, but if so our\nneed for Music is all the more imperative.\n\nMuch as Music has already done for man, we may hope even more from it in\nthe future.\n\nIt is, moreover, a joy for all. To appreciate Science or Art requires some\ntraining, and no doubt the cultivated ear will more and more appreciate\nthe beauties of Music; but though there are exceptional individuals, and\neven races, almost devoid of any love of Music, still they are happily but\nrare.\n\nGood Music, moreover, does not necessarily involve any considerable\noutlay; it is even now no mere luxury of the rich, and we may hope that as\ntime goes on, it will become more and more the comfort and solace of the\npoor.\n\n[1] Morris.\n\n[2] Plato.\n\n[3] Crowest.\n\n[4] _Rowbotham, History of Music_.\n\n[5] Wakefield.\n\n[6] Shakespeare.\n\n[7] Swinburne.\n\n[8] Shakespeare.\n\n[9] Cowper.\n\n[10] Rogers.\n\n[11] Shelley.\n\n[12] Dryden.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.\n\n\n    \"Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.\"\n\n    JOB.\n\n\n    \"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,\n    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,\n    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.\"\n\n    SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.\n\n\nWe are told in the first chapter of Genesis that at the close of the sixth\nday \"God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.\"\nNot merely good, but very good. Yet how few of us appreciate the beautiful\nworld in which we live!\n\nIn preceding chapters I have incidentally, though only incidentally,\nreferred to the Beauties of Nature; but any attempt, however imperfect, to\nsketch the blessings of life must contain some special reference to this\nlovely world itself, which the Greeks happily called [Greek: chosmos]\n--beauty.\n\nHamerton, in his charming work on _Landscape_, says, \"There are, I\nbelieve, four new experiences for which no description ever adequately\nprepares us, the first sight of the sea, the first journey in the desert,\nthe sight of flowing molten lava, and a walk on a great glacier. We feel\nin each case that the strange thing is pure nature, as much nature as a\nfamiliar English moor, yet so extraordinary that we might be in another\nplanet.\" But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of\nNature for which description can prepare us, than those which are\naltogether beyond the power of language.\n\nMany of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in\nit, but not of it. We have \"eyes and see not, ears and hear not.\" To look\nis much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see,\nis a great gift. Ruskin maintains that \"The greatest thing a human soul\never does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a\nplain way.\" I do not suppose that his eyes are better than ours, but how\nmuch more he sees with them!\n\nWe must look before we can expect to see. \"To the attentive eye,\" says\nEmerson, \"each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same\nfield it beholds every hour a picture that was never seen before, and\nshall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment and reflect\ntheir glory or gloom on the plains beneath.\"\n\nThe love of Nature is a great gift, and if it is frozen or crushed out,\nthe character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss. I will not, indeed,\nsay that a person who does not love Nature is necessarily bad; or that one\nwho does, is necessarily good; but it is to most minds a great help. Many,\nas Miss Cobbe says, enter the Temple through the gate called Beautiful.\n\nThere are doubtless some to whom none of the beautiful wonders of Nature;\nneither the glories of the rising or setting sun; the magnificent\nspectacle of the boundless ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful\ntranquillity, at others so majestic in its mighty power; the forests\nagitated by the storm, or alive with the song of birds; nor the glaciers\nand mountains--there are doubtless some whom none of these magnificent\nspectacles can move, whom \"all the glories of heaven and earth may pass in\ndaily succession without touching their hearts or elevating their\nminds.\" [1]\n\nSuch men are indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can\nnone of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are\nbeginning to do so more and more.\n\nFor most of us the early summer has a special charm. The very life is\nluxury. The air is full of scent, and sound, and sunshine, of the song of\nbirds and the murmur of insects; the meadows gleam with golden buttercups,\nit almost seems as if one could see the grass grow and the buds open; the\nbees hum for very joy, and the air is full of a thousand scents, above all\nperhaps that of new-mown hay.\n\nThe exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer day in the country has\nnever perhaps been more truly, and therefore more beautifully, described\nthan by Jefferies in his \"Pageant of Summer.\" \"I linger,'\" he says, \"in\nthe midst of the long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the\nvery air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine\ngives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless\nleaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of\nfinch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little.... In the\nblackbird's melody one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the\nformed maze is for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a\nthousand faces have collected the kisses of the morning. Feeling with\nthem, I receive some, at least, of their fulness of life. Never could I\nhave enough; never stay long enough.... The hours when the mind is\nabsorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the\nlonger we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from\ninevitable Time.... These are the only hours that are not wasted-these\nhours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and\nall else is illusion, or mere endurance. To be beautiful and to be calm,\nwithout mental fear, is the ideal of Nature. If I cannot achieve it, at\nleast I can think it.\"\n\nThis chapter is already so long that I cannot touch on the contrast and\nvariety of the seasons, each with its own special charm and interest, as\n\n  \"The daughters of the year\n  Dance into light and die into the shade.\" [2]\n\nOur countrymen derive great pleasure from the animal kingdom, in hunting,\nshooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh air and exercise, and being\nled into much varied and beautiful scenery. Still it will probably ere\nlong be recognized that even from a purely selfish point of view, killing\nanimals is not the way to get the greatest enjoyment from them. How much\nmore interesting would every walk in the country be, if Man would but\ntreat other animals with kindness, so that they might approach us without\nfear, and we might have the constant pleasure of watching their winning\nways. Their origin and history, structure and habits, senses and\nintelligence, offer an endless field of interest and wonder.\n\nThe richness of life is wonderful. Any one who will sit down quietly on\nthe grass and watch a little will be indeed surprised at the number and\nvariety of living beings, every one with a special history of its own,\nevery one offering endless problems of great interest.\n\n\"If indeed thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a\nmirror of lifer and a book of holy doctrine.\" [3]\n\nThe study of Natural History has the special advantage of carrying us into\nthe country and the open air.\n\nNot but what towns are beautiful too. They teem with human interest and\nhistorical associations.\n\nWordsworth was an intense lover of nature; yet does he not tell us, in\nlines which every Londoner will appreciate, that he knew nothing in nature\nmore fair, no calm more deep, than the city of London at early dawn?\n\n  \"Earth has not anything to show more fair;\n  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by\n  A sight so touching in its majesty:\n  This City now doth, like a garment, wear\n  The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,\n  Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie\n  Open unto the fields, and to the sky;\n  All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.\n  Never did sun more beautifully steep\n  In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;\n  Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!\n  The river glideth at its own sweet will:\n  Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;\n  And all that mighty heart is lying still!\"\n\nMilton also described London as\n\n  \"Too blest abode, no loveliness we see\n  In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.\"\n\nBut after being some time in a great city, one feels a longing for the\ncountry.\n\n  \"The meanest floweret of the vale,\n  The simplest note that swells the gale,\n  The common sun, the air, the skies,\n  To him are opening paradise.\" [4]\n\nHere Gray justly places flowers in the first place, for when in any great\ntown we think of the country, flowers seem first to suggest themselves.\n\n\"Flowers,\" says Ruskin, \"seem intended for the solace of ordinary\nhumanity. Children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people\nlove them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them\ngathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town mark,\nas with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows of the workers in\nwhose heart rest the covenant of peace.\" But in the crowded street, or\neven in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they\nwere pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live\nand grow as they please.\n\nThere are flowers for almost all seasons and all places. Flowers for\nspring, summer, and autumn, while even in the very depth of winter here\nand there one makes its appearance. There are flowers of the fields and\nwoods and hedgerows, of the seashore and the lake's margin, of the\nmountain-side up to the very edge of the eternal snow.\n\nAnd what an infinite variety they present.\n\n  \"Daffodils,\n  That come before the swallow dares, and take\n  The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,\n  But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,\n  Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,\n  That die unmarried, ere they can behold\n  Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady\n  Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and\n  The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,\n  The flower-de-luce being one.\" [5]\n\nNor are they mere delights to the eye; they are full of mystery and\nsuggestions. They almost seem like enchanted princesses waiting for some\nprincely deliverer. Wordsworth tells us that\n\n  \"To me the meanest flower that blows can give\n  Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.\"\n\nEvery color again, every variety of form, has some purpose and\nexplanation.\n\nAnd yet, lovely as Flowers are, Leaves add even more to the Beauty of\nNature. Trees in our northern latitudes seldom own large flowers; and\nthough of course there are notable exceptions, such as the Horse-chestnut,\nstill even in these cases the flowers live only a few days, while the\nleaves last for months. Every tree indeed is a picture in itself: The\ngnarled and rugged Oak, the symbol and source of our navy, sacred to the\nmemory of the Druids, the type of strength, the sovereign of British\ntrees; the Chestnut, with its beautiful, tapering, and rich green, glossy\nleaves, its delicious fruit, and to the durability of which we owe the\ngrand and historic roof of Westminster Abbey.\n\nThe Birch is the queen of trees, with her feathery foliage, scarcely\nvisible in spring but turning to leaves of gold in autumn; the pendulous\ntwigs tinged with purple, and silver stems so brilliantly marked with\nblack and white.\n\nThe Elm forms grand masses of foliage which turn a beautiful golden yellow\nin autumn; and the Black Poplar with its perpendicular leaves, rustling\nand trembling with every breath of wind, towers over most other forest\ntrees.\n\nThe Beech enlivens the country by its tender green in spring, rich green\nin summer, and glorious gold and orange in autumn, set off by the graceful\ngray stems; and has moreover, such a wealth of leaves that in autumn there\nare enough not only to clothe the tree itself but to cover the grass\nunderneath.\n\nIf the Beech owes much to its delicate gray stem, even more beautiful is\nthe reddish crimson of the Scotch Pines, in such charming contrast with\nthe rich green of the foliage, by which it is shown off rather than\nhidden; and, with the green spires of the Firs, they keep the woods warm\nin winter.\n\nNor must I overlook the smaller trees: the Yew with its thick green\nfoliage; the wild Guelder rose, which lights up the woods in autumn with\ntranslucent glossy berries and many-tinted leaves; or the Bryonies, the\nBriar, the Traveler's Joy, and many another plant, even humbler perhaps,\nand yet each with some exquisite beauty and grace of its own, so that we\nmust all have sometimes felt our hearts overflowing with gladness and\ngratitude, as if the woods were full of music--as if\n\n  \"The woods were filled so full with song\n  There seemed no room for sense of wrong.\" [6]\n\nOn the whole no doubt, woodlands are less beautiful in the winter: yet\neven then the delicate tracery of the branches, which cannot be so well\nseen when they are clothed with leaves, has a special beauty of its own;\nwhile every now and then hoar frost or snow settles like silver on every\nbranch and twig, lighting up the forest as if by enchantment in\npreparation for some fairy festival.\n\nI feel with Jefferies that \"by day or by night, summer or winter, beneath\ntrees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life which the far sky\nmeans. The rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes\nthere because the distance seems within touch of thought.\"\n\nThe general effect of forests in tropical regions must be very different\nfrom that of those in our latitudes. Kingsley describes it as one of\nhelplessness, confusion, awe, all but terror. The trunks are very lofty\nand straight, and rising to a great height without a branch, so that the\nwood seems at first comparatively open. In Brazilian forests, for\ninstance, the trees struggle upward, and the foliage forms an unbroken\ncanopy, perhaps a hundred feet overhead. Here, indeed, high up in the air\nis the real life of the forest. Everything seems to climb, to the light.\nThe quadrupeds climb, birds climb, reptiles climb, and the variety of\nclimbing plants is far greater than anything to which we are accustomed.\n\nMany savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling\nwould be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day\nwhen I am alone in a wood one of the trees were to speak to me. Even by\nday there is something mysterious in a forest, and this is much more the\ncase at night.\n\nWith wood, water seems to be naturally associated. Without water no\nlandscape is complete, while overhead the clouds add beauty to the heavens\nthemselves. The spring and the rivulet, the brook, the river, and the\nlake, seem to give life to Nature, and were indeed regarded by our\nancestors as living entities themselves. Water is beautiful in the morning\nmist, in the broad lake, in the glancing stream or the river pool, in the\nwide ocean, beautiful in all its varied moods. Water nourishes vegetation;\nit clothes the lowlands with green and the mountains with snow. It\nsculptures the rocks and excavates the valleys, in most cases acting\nmainly through the soft rain, though our harder rocks are still grooved by\nthe ice-chisel of bygone ages.\n\nThe refreshing pour of water upon the earth is scarcely greater than that\nwhich it exercises on the mind of man. After a long spell of work how\ndelightful it is to sit by a lake or river, or on the seashore, and enjoy\n\n  \"A little murmur in mine ear,\n  A little ripple at my feet.\" [7]\n\nEvery Englishman loves the sight of the Sea We feel that it is to us a\nsecond home. It seems to vivify the very atmosphere, so that Sea air is\nproverbial as a tonic, and makes the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean\ngives an impression of freedom and grandeur more intense perhaps than the\naspect of the heavens themselves. A poor woman from Manchester, on being\ntaken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for\nthe first time something of which there was enough for everybody. The sea\ncoast is always interesting. When we think of the cliff sections with\ntheir histories of bygone ages; the shore itself teeming with seaweeds and\nanimals, waiting for the return of the tide, or thrown up from deeper\nwater by the waves; the weird cries of seabirds; the delightful feeling\nthat with every breath we are laying in a store of fresh life, and health,\nand energy, it is impossible to over-estimate all we owe to the sea.\n\nIt is, moreover, always changing. We went for our holiday this year to\nLyme Regis. Let me attempt to describe the changes in the view from our\nwindows during a single day. Our sitting-room opened on to a little lawn,\nbeyond which the ground drops suddenly to the sea, while over about two\nmiles of water were the hills of the Dorsetshire coast--Golden Cap, with\nits bright crest of yellow sand, and the dark blue Lias Cliff of Black\nVen. When I came early down in the morning the sun was rising opposite,\nshining into the room over a calm sea, along an avenue of light; by\ndegrees, as it rose, the whole sea was gilt with light, and the hills\nbathed in a violet mist. By breakfast-time all color had faded from the\nsea--it was like silver passing on each side into gray; the sky was blue,\nflecked with fleecy clouds; while, on the gentler slopes of the coast\nopposite, fields and woods, and quarries and lines of stratification begin\nto show themselves, though the cliffs are still in shadow, and the more\ndistant headlands still a mere succession of ghosts, each one fainter than\nthe one before it. As the morning advances the sea becomes blue, the dark\nwoods, green meadows, and golden cornfields of the opposite coast more\ndistinct, and the details of the cliffs come gradually into view, and\nfishing-boats with dark sails begin to appear.\n\nGradually the sun rises higher, a yellow line of shore appears under the\nopposite cliffs, and the sea changes its color, mapping itself out as it\nwere, the shallower parts turquoise blue, almost green; the deeper ones\ndeep violet.\n\nThis does not last long--a thunderstorm comes up. The wind mutters\noverhead, the rain patters on the leaves, the coast opposite seems to\nshrink into itself, as if it would fly from the storm. The sea grows dark\nand rough, and white horses appear here and there.\n\nBut the storm is soon over. The clouds break, the rain stops, the sun\nshines once more, the hills opposite come out again. They are divided now\nnot only into fields and woods, but into sunshine and shadow. The sky\nclears, and as the sun begins to descend westwards the sea becomes one\nbeautiful clear uniform azure, changing again soon to pale blue in front\nand dark violet beyond: and once more as clouds begin to gather again,\ninto an archipelago of bright blue sea and deep islands of ultramarine. As\nthe sun travels westward, the opposite hills change again. They scarcely\nseem like the same country. What was in sun is now in shade, and what was\nin shade now lies bright in the sunshine. The sea once more becomes a\nuniform solid blue, only flecked in places by scuds of wind, and becoming\npaler towards evening as the sun sinks, the cliffs which catch his setting\nrays losing their deep color and in some places looking almost as white as\nchalk, while at sunset they light up again for a moment with a golden\nglow, the sea at the same time sinking to a cold gray. But soon the hills\ngrow cold too, Golden Cap holding out bravely to the last, and the shades\nof evening settle over cliff and wood, cornfield and meadow.\n\nThese are but a part, and a very small part, of the changes of a single\nday. And scarce any two days are alike. At times a sea-fog covers\neverything. Again the sea which sleeps to-day so peacefully sometimes\nrages, and the very existence of the bay itself bears witness to its\nforce.\n\nThe night, again, varies like the day. Sometimes shrouded by a canopy of\ndarkness, sometimes lit up by millions of brilliant worlds, sometimes\nbathed in the light of a moon, which never retains the same form for two\nnights together.\n\nIf Lakes are less grand than the sea, they are in some respects even more\nlovely. The seashore is comparatively bare. The banks of Lakes are often\nrichly clothed with vegetation which comes close down to the water's edge,\nsometimes hanging even into the water itself. They are often studded with\nwell-wooded islands. They are sometimes fringed with green meadows,\nsometimes bounded by rocky promontories rising directly from comparatively\ndeep water, while the calm bright surface is often fretted by a delicate\npattern of interlacing ripples, or reflects a second, softened, and\ninverted landscape.\n\nTo water again we owe the marvellous spectacle of the rainbow--\"God's bow\nin the clouds.\" It is indeed truly a heavenly messenger, and so unlike\nanything else that it scarcely seems to belong to this world.\n\nMany things are colored, but the rainbow seems to be color itself.\n\n    \"First the flaming red\n  Sprang vivid forth; the tawny orange next,\n  And next delicious yellow; by whose side\n  Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.\n  Then the pure blue that swells autumnal skies,\n  Ethereal play'd; and then, of sadder hue\n  Emerged the deeper indigo (as when\n  The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost),\n  While the last gleamings of refracted light\n  Died in the fainting violet away.\" [8]\n\nWe do not, I think, sufficiently realize how wonderful is the blessing of\ncolor. It would have been possible, it would even seem more probable, that\nthough light might have enabled us to perceive objects, this could only\nhave been by shade and form. How we perceive color it is very difficult to\ncomprehend, and yet when we speak of beauty, among the ideas which come to\nus most naturally are those of birds and butterflies, flowers and shells,\nprecious stones, skies, and rainbows.\n\nOur minds might have been constituted exactly as they are, we might have\nbeen capable of comprehending the highest and sublimest truths, and yet,\nbut for a small organ in the head, the world of sound would have been shut\nout from us; we should have lost the sounds of nature, the charms of\nmusic, the conversation of friends, and have been condemned to perpetual\nsilence: and yet a slight alteration in the retina, which is not thicker\nthan a sheet of paper, not larger than a finger nail,--and the glorious\nspectacle of this beautiful world, the exquisite variety of form, the\nglory and play of color, the variety of scenery, of woods and fields, and\nlakes and hills, seas and mountains, the glory of the sky alike by day and\nnight, would all have been lost to us.\n\nMountains, again, \"seem to have been built for the human race, as at once\ntheir schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript\nfor the scholar, kindly in simple lessons for the worker, quiet in pale\ncloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. And of\nthese great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements\nof cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple\ntraversed by the continual stars.\" [9]\n\nAll these beauties are comprised in Tennyson's exquisite description of\nOenone's vale--the city, flowers, trees, river, and mountains.\n\n  \"There is a vale in Ida, lovelier\n  Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.\n  The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,\n  Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,\n  And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand\n  The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down\n  Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars\n  The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine\n  In cataract after cataract to the sea.\n  Behind the valley topmost Gargarus\n  Stands up and takes the morning; but in front\n  The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal\n  Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,\n  The crown of Troas.\"\n\nAnd when we raise our eyes from earth, who has not sometimes felt \"the\nwitchery of the soft blue sky;\" who has not watched a cloud floating\nupward as if on its way to heaven, or when\n\n  \"Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof\n  The mountain its columns be.\" [10]\n\nAnd yet \"if, in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to\nthe sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One\nsays, it has been wet; and another, it has been windy; and another, it has\nbeen warm. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms\nand the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the\nhorizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the\nsouth, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away\nin a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the\nsunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like\nwithered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy\nbe ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or\nwhat is extraordinary; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce\nmanifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail,\nnor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime\nare developed.\" [11]\n\nBut exquisitely lovely as is the blue arch of the midday sky, with its\ninexhaustible variety of clouds, \"there is yet a light which the eye\ninvariably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the\ndeclining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like\nwatch-fires in the green sky of the horizon.\" [12] The evening colors\nindeed soon fade away, but as night comes on,\n\n    \"How glorious the firmament\n  With living sapphires! Hesperus that led\n  The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon\n  Rising in clouded majesty, at length,\n  Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,\n  And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.\" [13]\n\nWe generally speak of a beautiful night when it is calm and clear, and the\nstars shine brightly overhead; but how grand also are the wild ways of\nNature, how magnificent when the lightning flashes, \"between gloom and\nglory;\" when\n\n  \"From peak to peak, the rattling crags among\n  Leaps the live thunder.\" [14]\n\nIn the words of Ossian--\n\n  \"Ghosts ride in the tempest to-night;\n  Sweet is their voice between the gusts of wind,\n  Their songs are of other worlds.\"\n\nNor are the wonders and beauties of the heavens limited by the clouds and\nthe blue sky, lovely as they are. In the heavenly bodies we have before us\n\"the perpetual presence of the sublime.\" They are so immense and so far\naway, and yet on soft summer nights \"they seem leaning down to whisper in\nthe ear of our souls.\" [15]\n\n\"A man can hardly lift up his eyes toward the heavens,\" says Seneca,\n\"without wonder and veneration, to see so many millions of radiant lights,\nand to observe their courses and revolutions, even without any respect to\nthe common good of the Universe.\"\n\nWho does not sympathize with the feelings of Dante as he rose from his\nvisit to the lower regions, until, he says,\n\n  \"On our view the beautiful lights of heaven\n  Dawned through a circular opening in the cave,\n  Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars.\"\n\nAs we watch the stars at night they seem so still and motionless that we\ncan hardly realize that all the time they are rushing on with a velocity\nfar far exceeding any that man has ever accomplished.\n\nLike the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven have ever been used as an\nappropriate symbol of number, and we know that there are some 75,000,000,\nmany, no doubt, with planets of their own. But this is by no means all.\nThe floor of heaven is not only \"thick inlaid with patines of bright\ngold,\" but is studded also with extinct stars, once probably as brilliant\nas our own sun, but now dead and cold, as Helmholtz tells us our sun\nitself will be some seventeen millions of years hence. Then, again, there\nare the comets, which, though but few are visible to us at once, are even\nmore numerous than the stars; there are the nebulae, and the countless\nminor bodies circulating in space, and occasionally visible as meteors.\n\nNor is it only the number of the heavenly bodies which is so overwhelming;\ntheir magnitude and distances are almost more impressive. The ocean is so\ndeep and broad as to be almost infinite, and indeed in so far as our\nimagination is the limit, so it may be. Yet what is the ocean compared to\nthe sky? Our globe is little compared to the giant orbs of Jupiter and\nSaturn, which again sink into insignificance by the side of the sun. The\nsun itself is almost as nothing compared with the dimensions of the solar\nsystem. Sirius is calculated to be a thousand times as great as the Sun,\nand a million times as far away. The solar system itself travels in one\nregion of space, sailing between worlds and worlds, and is surrounded by\nmany other systems as great and complex as itself; and we know that even\nthen we have not reached the limits of the Universe itself.\n\nThere are stars so distant that their light, though traveling 180,000\nmiles in a second, yet takes years to reach us; and beyond all these are\nother systems of stars which are so far away that they cannot be perceived\nsingly, but even in our most powerful telescopes appear only as minute\nclouds or nebulae. It is, indeed, but a feeble expression of the truth to\nsay that the infinities revealed to us by Science,--the infinitely great\nin the one direction, and the infinitely small in the other,--go far\nbeyond anything which had occurred to the unaided imagination of Man, and\nare not only a never-failing source of pleasure and interest, but seem to\nlift us out of the petty troubles and sorrows of life.\n\n[1] Beattie.\n\n[2] Tennyson.\n\n[3] Thomas \u00e0 Kempis.\n\n[4] Gray.\n\n[5] Shakespeare.\n\n[6] Tennyson.\n\n[7] Trench.\n\n[8] Thomson.\n\n[9] Ruskin.\n\n[10] Shelley.\n\n[11] Ruskin.\n\n[12] _Ibid_.\n\n[13] Wordsworth.\n\n[14] Swinburne.\n\n[15] Symonds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE TROUBLES OF LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE TROUBLES OF LIFE.\n\n\nWe have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some\nsorrows, alas, are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves,\nbut others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of\ntroubles: if we face them boldly, we find that they have no substance or\nreality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination, and that it\nis as true now as in the time of David that \"Man disquieteth himself in a\nvain shadow.\"\n\nSome, indeed, of our troubles are evils, but not real; while others are\nreal, but not evils.\n\n\"And yet, into how unfathomable a gulf the mind rushes when the troubles\nof this world agitate it. If it then forget its own light, which is\neternal joy, and rush into the outer darkness, which are the cares of this\nworld, as the mind now does, it knows nothing else but lamentations.\" [1]\n\n\"Athens,\" said Epictetus, \"is a good place,--but happiness is much better;\nto be free from passions, free from disturbance.\"\n\nWe should endeavor to maintain ourselves in\n\n               \"That blessed mood\n  In which the burden of the mystery,\n  In which the heavy and the weary weight,\n  Of all this unintelligible world\n  Is lightened.\" [2]\n\nSo shall we fear \"neither the exile of Aristides, nor the prison of\nAnaxagoras, nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the condemnation of Phocion,\nbut think virtue worthy our love even under such trials.\" [3] We should\nthen be, to a great extent, independent of external circumstances, for\n\n  \"Stone walls do not a prison make,\n    Nor iron bars a cage,\n  Minds innocent and quiet take\n    That for a hermitage.\n\n  \"If I have freedom in my love,\n    And in my soul am free;\n  Angels alone that soar above\n    Enjoy such liberty.\" [4]\n\nHappiness indeed depends much more on what is within than without us. When\nHamlet says the world is \"a goodly prison; in which there are many\nconfines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst,\" and\nRosencrantz differs from him, he rejoins wisely, \"Why then, 'tis none to\nyou: for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to\nme it is a prison.\" \"All is opinion,\" said Marcus Aurelius. \"That which\ndoes not make a man worse, how can it make his life worse? But death\ncertainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these\nthings happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us\nneither better nor worse.\"\n\n\"The greatest evils,\" says Jeremy Taylor, \"are from within us; and from\nourselves also we must look for our greatest good.\"\n\n\"The mind,\" says Milton,\n\n             \"is its own place, and in itself\n  Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.\"\n\nMilton indeed in his blindness saw more beautiful visions, and Beethoven\nin his deafness heard more heavenly music, than most of us can ever hope\nto enjoy.\n\nWe are all apt, when we know not what may happen, to fear the worst. When\nwe know the full extent of any danger, it is half over. Hence, we dread\nghosts more than robbers, not only without reason, but against reason; for\neven if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us? and in ghost stories, few,\neven those who say that they have seen a ghost, ever profess or pretend to\nhave felt one.\n\nMilton, in his description of death, dwells on this characteristic of\nobscurity:\n\n                                 \"The other shape,\n  If shape it might be call'd that shape had none\n  Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;\n  Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,\n  For each seem'd either; black he stood as night;\n  Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;\n  And shook a deadly dart. What seem'd his head\n  The likeness of a kingly crown had on.\"\n\nThe effect of darkness and night in enhancing terrors is dwelt on in one\nof the sublimest passages in Job--\n\n  \"In thoughts from the visions of the night,\n  When deep sleep falleth on men,\n  Fear came upon me, and trembling,\n  Which made all my bones to shake.\n  Then a spirit passed before my face;\n  The hair of my flesh stood up.\n  It stood still, an image was before mine eyes.\n  There was silence; and I heard a voice saying\n  Shall mortal man be more just than God?\"\n\nThus was the terror turned into a lesson of comfort and of mercy.\n\nWe often magnify troubles and difficulties, and look at them till they\nseem much greater than they really are.\n\n\"Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have\ndeceived men than forced them: nay, it were better to meet some dangers\nhalf way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch\nupon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will\nfall asleep.\" [5]\n\nForesight is very wise, but foresorrow is very foolish; and castles are at\nany rate better than dungeons, in the air.\n\nSome of our troubles, no doubt, are real enough, but yet are not evils.\n\nIt happens, unfortunately too often, that by some false step, intentional\nor unintentional, we have missed the right road, and gone wrong. Can we\nthen retrace our steps? can we recover what is lost? This may be done. It\nis too gloomy a view to affirm that\n\n  \"A word too much, or a kiss too long,\n  And the world is never the same again.\"\n\nThere are two noble sayings of Socrates, that to do evil is more to be\navoided than to suffer it; and that when a man has done evil, it is better\nfor him to be punished than to be unpunished.\n\nWe generally speak of selfishness as a fault, and as if it interfered with\nthe general happiness. But this is not altogether correct.\n\nThe pity is that so many people are foolishly selfish: that they pursue a\ncourse of action which neither makes themselves nor any one else happy.\n\n\"Every man,\" says Goethe, \"ought to begin with himself, and make his own\nhappiness first, from which the happiness of the whole world would at last\nunquestionably follow.\" It is easy to say that this is too broadly stated,\nand of course exceptions might be pointed out: but if every one would\navoid excess, and take care of his own health; would keep himself strong\nand cheerful; would make his home happy, and give no cause for the petty\nvexations which embitter domestic life; would attend to his own affairs\nand keep himself sober and solvent; would, in the words of the Chinese\nproverb, \"sweep away the snow from before his own door, and never mind the\nfrost upon his neighbor's tiles;\" though it might not be the noblest\ncourse of conduct; still, how well it would be for their family,\nrelations, and friends. But, unfortunately,\n\n  \"Look round the habitable world, how few\n  Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.\" [6]\n\nIt would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they\ncan never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong. In the case of\nchildren, indeed, we recognize this; we perceive that a spoilt child is\nnot a happy one; that it would have been far better for him to have been\npunished at first and thus saved from greater suffering in after life.\n\nIt is a beautiful idea that every man has with him a Guardian Angel; and\nit is true too: for Conscience is ever on the watch, ever ready to warn us\nof danger.\n\nWe often feel disposed to complain, and yet it is most ungrateful:\n\n                          \"For who would lose,\n  Though full of pain, this intellectual being,\n  Those thoughts that wander through Eternity;\n  To perish rather, swallowed up, and lost\n  In the wide womb of uncreated thought.\" [7]\n\nBut perhaps it will be said that we are sent here in preparation for\nanother and a better world. Well, then, why should we complain of what is\nbut a preparation for future happiness?\n\nWe ought to\n\n  \"Count each affliction, whether light or grave,\n    God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou\n    With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;\n  And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave\n  Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;\n    Then lay before him all thou hast; allow\n    No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,\n  Or mar thy hospitality; no wave\n  Of mortal tumult to obliterate\n    The soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief shall be\n  Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;\n    Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;\n  Strong to consume small troubles; to commend\n  Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.\" [8]\n\nSome persons are like the waters of Siloam, and require to be troubled\nbefore they can exercise their virtue.\n\n\"We shall get more contentedness,\" says Plutarch, \"from the presence of\nall these blessings if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time to\ntime how people when ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace,\nand strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends, and\nhow painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had them.\nFor then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great and\nvaluable when it is lost, and of no value when we have it.... And yet it\nmakes much for contentedness of mind to look for the most part at home and\nto our own condition; or if not, to look at the case of people worse off\nthan ourselves, and not, as people do, to compare ourselves with those who\nare better off.... But you will find others, Chians, or Galatians, or\nBithynians, not content with the share of glory or power they have among\ntheir fellow-citizens, but weeping because they do not wear senators'\nshoes; or, if they have them, that they cannot be praetors of Rome; or if\nthey get that office, that they are not consuls; or if they are consuls,\nthat they are only proclaimed second and not first.... Whenever, then, you\nadmire any one carried by in his litter as a greater man than yourself,\nlower your eyes and look at those that bear the litter.\" And again, \"I am\nvery taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was\ndressing with much display for a feast, 'Does not a good man consider\nevery day a feast?' ... Seeing then that life is the most complete\ninitiation into all these things, it ought to be full of ease of mind and\njoy; and if properly understood, would enable us to acquiesce in the\npresent without repining, to remember the past with thankfulness, and to\nmeet the future hopefully and cheerfully without fear of suspicion.\"\n\n[1] King Alfred's translations of the _Consolations of Boethius_.\n\n[2] Wordsworth.\n\n[3] Plutarch.\n\n[4] Lovelace.\n\n[5] Bacon.\n\n[6] Dryden.\n\n[7] Milton.\n\n[8] Aubrey de Vere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nLABOR AND REST.\n\n\n    \"Through labor to rest, through combat to victory.\"\n\n    THOMAS \u00c0 KEMPIS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nLABOR AND REST.\n\n\nAmong the troubles of life I do not, of course, reckon the necessity of\nlabor.\n\nWork indeed, and hard work, if only it is in moderation, is in itself a\nrich source of happiness. We all know how quickly time passes when we are\nwell employed, while the moments hang heavily on the hands of the idle.\nOccupation drives away care and all the small troubles of life. The busy\nman has no time to brood or to fret.\n\n  \"From toil he wins his spirits light,\n  From busy day the peaceful night;\n  Rich, from the very want of wealth,\n  In Heaven's best treasures, peace and health.\" [1]\n\nThis applies especially to the labor of the field and the workshop. Humble\nit may be, but if it does not dazzle with the promise of fame, it gives\nthe satisfaction of duty fulfilled, and the inestimable blessing of\nhealth. As Emerson reminds those entering life, \"The angels that live with\nthem, and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful brows, are toil\nand truth and mutual faith.\"\n\nLabor was truly said by the ancients to be the price which the gods set\nupon everything worth having. We all admit, though we often forget, the\nmarvellous power of perseverance, and yet all Nature, down to Bruce's\nspider, is continually impressing this lesson on us.\n\nHard writing, it has been said, makes easy reading; Plato is said to have\nrewritten the first page of the _Republic_ thirteen times; and Carlo\nMaratti, we are told, sketched the head of Antino\u00fcs three hundred times\nbefore he wrought it to his satisfaction.\n\nIt is better to wear out than to rust out, and there is \"a dust which\nsettles on the heart, as well as that which rests upon the ledge.\" [2]\n\nBut though labor is good for man, it may be, and unfortunately often is,\ncarried to excess. Many are wearily asking themselves\n\n                  \"Ah why\n  Should life all labor be?\" [3]\n\nThere is a time for all things, says Solomon, a time to work and a time to\nplay: we shall work all the better for reasonable change, and one reward\nof work is to secure leisure.\n\nIt is a good saying that where there's a will there's a way; but while it\nis all very well to wish, wishes must not take the place of work.\n\nIn whatever sphere his duty lies every man must rely mainly on himself.\nOthers can help us, but we must make ourselves. No one else can see for\nus. To profit by our advantages we must learn to use for ourselves\n\n  \"The dark lantern of the spirit\n  Which none can see by, but he who bears it.\"\n\nIt is hardly an exaggeration to say that honest work is never thrown away.\nIf we do not find the imaginary treasure, at any rate we enrich the\nvineyard.\n\n\"Work,\" says Nature to man, \"in every hour, paid or unpaid; see only that\nthou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: whether thy work be fine\nor coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done\nto thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as\nto the thought: no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The\nreward of a thing well done is to have done it.\" [4]\n\nNor can any work, however persevering, or any success, however great,\nexhaust the prizes of life.\n\nThe most studious, the most successful, must recognize that there yet\nremain\n\n  \"So much to do that is not e'en begun,\n  So much to hope for that we cannot see,\n  So much to win, so many things to be.\" [5]\n\nAt the present time, though there may be some special drawbacks, still we\ncome to our work with many advantages which were not enjoyed in olden\ntimes. We live in much greater security ourselves, and are less liable to\nhave the fruits of our labor torn violently from us.\n\nIn olden times the difficulties of study were far greater than they are\nnow. Books were expensive and cumbersome, in many cases moreover chained\nto the desks on which they were kept. The greatest scholars have often\nbeen very poor. Erasmus used to read by moonlight because he could not\nafford a candle, and \"begged a penny, not for the love of charity, but for\nthe love of learning.\" [6]\n\nWant of time is no excuse for idleness. \"Our life,\" says Jeremy Taylor,\n\"is too short to serve the ambition of a haughty prince or a usurping\nrebel; too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a\nvainglorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust\ninterest: but for the obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and\nmodesty, for the actions of religion, God gives us time sufficient, if we\nmake the outgoings of the morning and evening, that is our infancy and old\nage, to be taken into the computations of a man.\"\n\nWork is so much a necessity of existence, that it is less a question\nwhether, than how, we shall work. An old proverb tells us that the Devil\nfinds work for those who do not make it for themselves.\n\nIf we Englishmen have succeeded as a race, it has been due in no small\nmeasure to the fact that we have worked hard. Not only so, but we have\ninduced the forces of Nature to work for us. \"Steam,\" says Emerson, \"is\nalmost an Englishman.\"\n\nThe power of work has especially characterized our greatest men. Cecil\nsaid of Sir W. Raleigh that he \"could toil terribly.\"\n\nWe are most of us proud of belonging to the greatest Empire the world has\never seen. It may be said of us with especial truth in Wordsworth's words\nthat\n\n  \"The world is too much with us; late and soon\n  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.\"\n\nYes, but what world? The world will be with us sure enough, and whether we\nplease or not. But what sort of world it will be for us will depend\ngreatly on ourselves.\n\nWe are told to pray not to be taken out of the world, but to be kept from\nthe evil.\n\nThere are various ways of working. Quickness may be good, but haste is\nbad.\n\n  \"Wie das Gestirn\n  Ohne Hast\n  Ohne Rast\n  Drehe sich Jeder\n  Um die eigne Last.\" [7]\n\n\"Like a star, without haste, without rest, let every one fulfil his own\nhest.\"\n\nNewton is reported to have described as his mode of working that \"I keep\nthe subject constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open\nslowly by little and little into a full and clear light.\"\n\n\"The secret of genius,\" says Emerson, \"is to suffer no fiction to exist\nfor us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern\nlife, in Arts, in Sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith,\nreality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor\nevery truth by use.\"\n\nLastly, work secures the rich reward of rest, we must rest to be able to\nwork well, and work to be able to enjoy rest.\n\n\"We must no doubt beware that our rest become not the rest of stones,\nwhich so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder-stricken maintain\ntheir majesty; but when the stream is silent, and the storm past, suffer\nthe grass to cover them, and the lichen to feed on them, and are ploughed\ndown into the dust.... The rest which is glorious is of the chamois\ncouched breathless in its granite bed, not of the stalled ox over his\nfodder.\" [8]\n\nWhen we have done our best we may wait the result without anxiety.\n\n\"What hinders a man, who has clearly comprehended these things, from\nliving with a light heart and bearing easily the reins; quietly expecting\neverything which can happen, and enduring that which has already happened?\nWould you have me to bear poverty? Come and you will know what poverty is\nwhen it has found one who can act well the part of a poor man. Would you\nhave me to possess power? Let me have the power, and also the trouble of\nit. Well, banishment? Wherever I shall go, there it will be well with\nme.\" [9]\n\nThe Buddhists believe in many forms of future punishment; but the highest\nreward of virtue is Nirvana--the final and eternal rest.\n\nVery touching is the appeal of Ashmanezer to be left in peace, which was\nengraved on his Sarcophagus at Sidon,--now in Paris.\n\n\"In the month of Bul, the fourteenth year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer,\nKing of the Sidonians, son of King Tabuith, King of the Sidonians, spake,\nsaying: 'I have been stolen away before my time--a son of the flood of\ndays. The whilom great is dumb; the son of gods is dead. And I rest in\nthis grave, even in this tomb, in the place which I have built. My\nadjuration to all the Ruling Powers and all men: Let no one open this\nresting-place, nor search for treasure, for there is no treasure with us;\nand let him not bear away the couch of my rest, and not trouble us in this\nresting-place by disturbing the couch of my slumbers.... For all men who\nshould open the tomb of my rest, or any man who should carry away the\ncouch of my rest, or any one who trouble me on this couch: unto them there\nshall be no rest with the departed: they shall not be buried in a grave,\nand there shall be to them neither son nor seed.... There shall be to them\nneither root below nor fruit above, nor honor among the living under the\nsun.'\" [10]\n\nThe idle man does not know what it is to rest. Hard work, moreover, tends\nnot only to give us rest for the body, but, what is even more important,\npeace to the mind. If we have done our best to do, and to be, we can rest\nin peace.\n\n\"En la sua voluntade \u00e9 nostra pace.\" [11] In His will is our peace; and in\nsuch peace the mind will find its truest delight, for\n\n  \"When care sleeps, the soul wakes.\"\n\nIn youth, as is right enough, the idea of exertion, and of struggles, is\ninspiriting and delightful; but as years advance the hope and prospect of\npeace and of rest gain ground gradually, and\n\n  \"When the last dawns are fallen on gray,\n    And all life's toils and ease complete,\n  They know who work, not they who play,\n    If rest is sweet.\" [12]\n\n[1] Gray.\n\n[2] Jefferies.\n\n[3] Tennyson.\n\n[4] Emerson.\n\n[5] Morris.\n\n[6] Coleridge.\n\n[7] Goethe.\n\n[8] Ruskin.\n\n[9] Epictetus.\n\n[10] From Sir M. S. Grant Duff's _A Winter in Syria_.\n\n[11] Dante.\n\n[12] Symonds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nRELIGION.\n\n\n    \"For what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love\n    mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.\"--MICAH.\n\n\n    \"Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and\n    widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the\n    world.\"--JAMES I.\n\n\n    \"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.\"\n\n    2 CORINTHIANS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nRELIGION.\n\n\nIt would be quite out of place here to enter into any discussion of\ntheological problems or to advocate any particular doctrines. Nevertheless\nI could not omit what is to most so great a comfort and support in sorrow\nand suffering, and a source of the purest happiness.\n\nWe commonly, however, bring together under this term two things which are\nyet very different: the religion of the heart, and that of the head. The\nfirst deals with conduct, and the duties of Man; the second with the\nnature of the supernatural and the future of the soul, being in fact a\nbranch of knowledge.\n\nReligion should be a strength, guide, and comfort, not a source of\nintellectual anxiety or angry argument. To persecute for religion's sake\nimplies belief in a jealous, cruel, and unjust Deity. If we have done our\nbest to arrive at the truth, to torment oneself about the result is to\ndoubt the goodness of God, and, in the words of Bacon, \"to bring down the\nHoly Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a raven.\"\n\"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,\" and the first duty of\nreligion is to form the highest possible conception of God.\n\nMany a man, however, and still more many a woman, render themselves\nmiserable on entering life by theological doubts and difficulties. These\nhave reference, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not to what we\nshould do, but to what we should think. As regards action, conscience is\ngenerally a ready guide; to follow it is the real difficulty. Theology, on\nthe other hand, is a most abstruse science; but as long as we honestly\nwish to arrive at truth we need not fear that we shall be punished for\nunintentional error. \"For what,\" says Micah, \"doth the Lord require of\nthee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.\"\nThere is very little theology in the Sermon on the Mount, or indeed in any\npart of the Gospels; and the differences which keep us apart have their\norigin rather in the study than the Church. Religion was intended to bring\npeace on earth and goodwill toward men, and whatever tends to hatred and\npersecution, however correct in the letter, must be utterly wrong in the\nspirit.\n\nHow much misery would have been saved to Europe if Christians had been\nsatisfied with the Sermon on the Mount!\n\nBokhara is said to have contained more than three hundred colleges, all\noccupied with theology, but ignorant of everything else, and it was\nprobably one of the most bigoted and uncharitable cities in the world.\n\"Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.\"\n\nWe must not forget that\n\n  \"He prayeth best who loveth best\n    All things both great and small.\"\n\nTheologians too often appear to agree that\n\n  \"The awful shadow of some unseen power\n    Floats, though unseen, among us\"; [1]\n\nand in the days of the Inquisition many must have sighed for the cheerful\nchild-like religion of the Greeks, if they could but have had the Nymphs\nand Nereids, the Fays and Faeries, with Destiny and Fate, but without\nJupiter and Mars.\n\nSects are the work of Sectarians. No truly great religious teacher, as\nCarlyle said, ever intended to found a new Sect.\n\nDiversity of worship, says a Persian proverb, \"has divided the human race\ninto seventy-two nations.\" From among all their dogmas I have selected\none--\"Divine Love.\" And again, \"He needs no other rosary whose thread of\nlife is strung with the beads of love and thought.\"\n\nThere is more true Christianity in some pagan Philosophers than in certain\nChristian theologians. Take, for instance, Plato, Marcus Aurelius,\nEpictetus, and Plutarch.\n\n\"Now I, Callicles,\" says Socrates, \"am persuaded of the truth of these\nthings, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled\nbefore the judge in that day. Renouncing the honors at which the world\naims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and,\nwhen the time comes, to die. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all\nother men to do the same. And in return for your exhortation of me, I\nexhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of\nlife, and greater than every other earthly conflict.\"\n\n\"As to piety toward the Gods,\" says Epictetus, \"you must know that this is\nthe chief thing, to have right opinions about them, to think that they\nexist, and that they administer the All well and justly; and you must fix\nyourself in this principle (duty), to obey them, and to yield to them in\neverything which happens, and voluntarily to follow it as being\naccomplished by the wisest intelligence.\"\n\n\"Do not act,\" says Marcus Aurelius, \"as if thou wert going to live ten\nthousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in\nthy power, be good....\n\n\"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment,\nregulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from among men,\nif there be gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not\ninvolve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no\nconcern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid\nof gods, or devoid of Providence. But in truth they do exist, and they do\ncare for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power to\nenable him not to fall into real evils. And as for the rest, if there was\nanything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be\naltogether in a man's power not to fall into it.\"\n\nAnd Plutarch: \"The Godhead is not blessed by reason of his silver and\ngold, nor yet Almighty through his thunder and lightnings, but on account\nof knowledge and intelligence.\"\n\nIt is no doubt very difficult to arrive at the exact teaching of Eastern\nMoralists, but the same spirit runs through Oriental Literature. For\ninstance, in the _Toy Cart_, when the wicked Prince wishes Vita to murder\nthe Heroine, and says that no one would see him, Vita declares \"All nature\nwould behold the crime--the Genii of the Grove, the Sun, the Moon, the\nWinds, the Vault of Heaven, the firm-set Earth, the mighty Yama who judges\nthe dead, and the conscious Soul.\"\n\nTake even the most extreme type of difference. Is the man, says Plutarch,\n\"a criminal who holds there are no gods; and is not he that holds them to\nbe such as the superstitious believe them, is he not possessed with\nnotions infinitely more atrocious? I for my part would much rather have\nmen say of me that there never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to\nsay that Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger,\nrevengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at small things.\"\n\nThere is no doubt a tone of doubting sadness in Roman moralists, as in\nHadrian's dying lines to his soul--\n\n  \"Animula, vagula, blandula\n  Hospes, comesque corporis\n  Qua nunc abibis in loca:\n  Pallidula, rigida, nudula,\n  Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos.\"\n\nThe same spirit indeed is expressed in the epitaph on the tomb of the Duke\nof Buckingham in Westminster Abbey--\n\n  \"Dubius non improbus vixi\n  Incertus morior, non perturbatus;\n  Humanum est nescire et errare,\n    Deo confido\n  Omnipotenti benevolentissimo:\n  Ens entium miserere mei.\"\n\nMany things have been mistaken for religion, selfishness especially, but\nalso fear, hope, love of music, of art, of pomp; scruples often take the\nplace of love, and the glory of heaven is sometimes made to depend upon\nprecious stones and jewelry. Many, as has been well said, run after\nChrist, not for the miracles, but for the loaves.\n\nIn many cases religious differences are mainly verbal. There is an Eastern\ntale of four men, an Arab, a Persian, a Turk, and a Greek, who agreed to\nclub together for an evening meal, but when they had done so they\nquarrelled as to what it should be. The Turk proposed Azum, the Arab Aneb,\nthe Persian Anghur, while the Greek insisted on Stapylion. While they were\ndisputing\n\n  \"Before their eyes did pass,\n  Laden with grapes, a gardener's ass.\n  Sprang to his feet each man, and showed,\n  With eager hand, that purple load.\n  'See Azum,' said the Turk; and 'see\n  Anghur,' the Persian; 'what should be\n  Better.' 'Nay Aneb, Aneb 'tis,'\n  The Arab cried. The Greek said, 'This\n  Is my Stapylion.' Then they bought\n  Their grapes in peace.\n  Hence be ye taught.\" [2]\n\nIt is said that on one occasion, when Dean Stanley had been explaining his\nviews to Lord Beaconsfield, the latter replied, \"Ah! Mr. Dean, that is all\nvery well, but you must remember,--No dogmas, no Deans.\" To lose such\nDeans as Stanley would indeed be a great misfortune; but does it follow?\nReligions, far from being really built on Dogmas, are too often weighed\ndown and crushed by them. No one can doubt that Stanley has done much to\nstrengthen the Church of England.\n\nWe may not always agree with Spinoza, but is he not right when he says,\n\"The first precept of the divine law, therefore, indeed its sum and\nsubstance, is to love God unconditionally as the supreme\ngood--unconditionally, I say, and not from any love or fear of aught\nbesides\"? And again, that the very essence of religion is belief in \"a\nSupreme Being who delights in justice and mercy, whom all who would be\nsaved are bound to obey, and whose worship consists in the practice of\njustice and charity toward our neighbors\"?\n\nDoubt is of two natures, and we often confuse a wise suspension of\njudgment with the weakness of hesitation. To profess an opinion for which\nwe have no sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but when it is\nnecessary to act we must do so on the best evidence available, however\nslight that may be. Herein lies the importance of common sense, the\ninstincts of a General, the sagacity of a Statesman. Pyrrho, the\nrecognized representative of doubt, was often wise in suspending his\njudgment, however foolish in hesitating to act, and in apologizing when,\nafter resisting all the arguments of philosophy, an angry dog drove him\nfrom his position.\n\nCollect from the Bible all that Christ thought necessary for his\ndisciples, and how little Dogma there is. \"Pure religion and undefiled is\nthis, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep\nhimself unspotted from the world.\" \"By this shall all men know that ye are\nmy disciples, if ye have love one to another.\" \"Suffer little children to\ncome unto me.\" And one lesson which little children have to teach us is\nthat religion is an affair of the heart and not of the mind only.\n\nWhy should we expect Religion to solve questions with reference to the\norigin and destiny of the Universe? We do not expect the most elaborate\ntreatise to tell us the origin of electricity or of heat. Natural History\nthrows no light on the origin of life. Has Biology ever professed to\nexplain existence?\n\n\"Simonides was asked at Syracuse by Hiero, who or what God was, when he\nrequested a day's time to think of his answer. On subsequent days he\nalways doubled the period required for deliberation; and when Hiero\ninquired the reason, he replied that the longer he considered the subject,\nthe more obscure it appeared.\"\n\nThe Vedas say, \"In the midst of the sun is the light, in the midst of\nlight is truth, and in the midst of truth is the imperishable being.\"\nDeity has been defined as a circle whose centre is everywhere, and whose\ncircumference is nowhere, but the \"God is love\" of St. John appeals more\nforcibly to the human soul.\n\nThe Church is not a place for study or speculation. Few but can sympathize\nwith Eug\u00e9nie de Gur\u00e9in in her tender affection for the little Chapel at\nCahuze where she tells us she left \"tant de mis\u00e8res.\"\n\nDoubt does not exclude Faith.\n\n  \"Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds\n  At last he beat his music out.\n  There lies more faith in honest doubt,\n  Believe me, than in half the creeds.\" [3]\n\nAnd if we must admit that many points are still, and probably long will be\ninvolved in obscurity, we may be pardoned if we indulge ourselves in\nvarious speculations both as to our beginning and our end.\n\n  \"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;\n  The soul that rises with us, our life's star\n  Hath had elsewhere its setting,\n  And cometh from afar;\n  Not in entire forgetfulness,\n  And not in utter nakedness,\n  But trailing clouds of glory do we come\n  From God who is our home.\" [4]\n\nUnfortunately many have attempted to compound for wickedness in life by\npurity of belief, a vain and fruitless effort. To do right is the sure\nladder which leads up to Heaven, though the true faith will help us to\nfind and to climb it.\n\n  \"It is my duty to have loved the highest,\n  It surely was my profit had I known,\n  It would have been my pleasure had I seen.\"\n\nBut though religious truth can justify no bitterness, it is well worth any\namount of thought and study.\n\nI hope I shall not be supposed to depreciate any honest effort to arrive\nat truth, or to undervalue the devotion of those who have died for their\nreligion. But surely it is a mistake to regard martyrdom as a merit, when\nfrom their own point of view it was in reality a privilege.\n\nLet every man be persuaded in his own mind\n\n  \"Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.\" [5]\n\nTo arrive at truth we should spare ourselves no pain, but certainly\ninflict none on others.\n\nWe may be sure that quarrels will never advance religion, and that to\npersecute is no way to convert. No doubt those who consider that all who\ndo not agree with them will suffer eternal torments, seem logically\njustified in persecution even unto death. Such a course, if carried out\nconsistently, might stamp out a particular sect, and any sufferings which\ncould be inflicted here would on this hypothesis be as nothing in\ncomparison with the pains of Hell. Only it must be admitted that such a\nview of religion is incompatible with any faith in the goodness of God,\nand seems quite irreconcilable with the teaching of Christ.\n\nMoreover, the Inquisition has even from its own point of view proved\ngenerally a failure. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.\n\n\"In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415) the remains\nof Wickliffe were exhumed and burnt to ashes, and these cast into the\nSwift, a neighboring brook running hard by, and thus this brook hath\nconveyed his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow\nseas; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the\nemblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.\" [6]\n\nThe Talmud says that when a man once asked Shamai to teach him the Law in\none lesson, Shamai drove him away in anger. He then went to Hillel with\nthe same request. Hillel said, \"Do unto others as you would have others do\nunto you. This is the whole Law; the rest, merely Commentaries upon it.\"\n\nThe Religion of the lower races is almost as a rule one of terror and of\ndread. Their deities are jealous and revengeful, cruel, merciless, and\nselfish, hateful and yet childish. They require to be propitiated by\nfeasts and offerings, often even by human sacrifices. They are not only\nexacting, but so capricious that, with the best intentions, it is often\nimpossible to be sure of pleasing them. From such evil beings Sorcerers\nand Witches derived their hellish powers. No one was safe. No one knew\nwhere danger lurked. Actions apparently the most trifling might be fraught\nwith serious risk: objects apparently the most innocent might be fatal.\n\nIn many cases there are supposed to be deities of Crime, of Misfortunes,\nof Disease. These wicked Spirits naturally encourage evil rather than\ngood. An energetic friend of mine was sent to a district in India where\nsmallpox was specially prevalent, and where one of the principal Temples\nwas dedicated to the Goddess of that disease. He had the people\nvaccinated, in spite of some opposition, and the disease disappeared, much\nto the astonishment of the natives. But the priests of the Deity of\nSmallpox were not disconcerted; only they deposed the Image of their\ndiscomfited Goddess, and petitioned my friend for some emblem of himself\nwhich they might install in her stead.\n\nWe who are fortunate enough to live in this comparatively enlightened\ncentury hardly realize how our ancestors suffered from their belief in the\nexistence of mysterious and malevolent beings; how their life was\nembittered and overshadowed by these awful apprehensions.\n\nAs men, however, have risen in civilization, their religion has risen with\nthem; they have by degrees acquired higher and purer conceptions of divine\npower.\n\nWe are only just beginning to realize that a loving and merciful Father\nwould not resent honest error, not even perhaps the attribution to him of\nsuch odious injustice. Yet what can be clearer than Christ's teaching on\nthis point. He impressed it over and over again on his disciples. \"The\nletter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.\"\n\n\"If,\" says Ruskin, \"for every rebuke that we titter of men's vices, we put\nforth a claim upon their hearts; if, for every assertion of God's demands\nfrom them, we should substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side\nby side, with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises\nof immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful\nDeity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always\nunwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive; we were to show them a near,\nvisible, inevitable, out all-beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the\nearth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting\nin the market-place.\"\n\nBut it must not be supposed that those who doubt whether the ultimate\ntruth of the Universe can be expressed in human words, or whether, even if\nit could, we should be able to comprehend it, undervalue the importance of\nreligious study. Quite the contrary. Their doubts arise not from pride,\nbut from humility: not because they do not appreciate divine truth, but on\nthe contrary they doubt whether we can appreciate it sufficiently, and are\nsceptical whether the infinite can be reduced to the finite.\n\nWe may be sure that whatever may be right about religion, to quarrel over\nit must be wrong. \"Let others wrangle,\" said St. Augustine, \"I will\nwonder.\"\n\nThose who suspend their judgment are not on that account sceptics, and it\nis often those who think they know most, who are especially troubled by\ndoubts and anxiety.\n\nIt was Wordsworth who wrote\n\n      \"Great God, I had rather be\n    A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn;\n  So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,\n    Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn.\"\n\nIn religion, as with children at night, it is darkness and ignorance which\ncreate dread; light and love cast out fear.\n\nIn looking forward to the future we may fairly hope with Ruskin that \"the\ncharities of more and more widely extended peace are preparing the way for\na Christian Church which shall depend neither on ignorance for its\ncontinuance, nor on controversy for its progress, but shall reign at once\nin light and love.\"\n\n[1] Shelley.\n\n[2] Arnold. _Pearls of the Faith_.\n\n[3] Tennyson.\n\n[4] Wordsworth.\n\n[5] Chaucer.\n\n[6] Fuller.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE HOPE OF PROGRESS.\n\n\n    \"To what then may we not look forward, when a spirit of scientific\n    inquiry shall have spread through those vast regions in which the\n    progress of civilization, its sure precursor, is actually commenced\n    and in active progress? And what may we not expect from the exertions\n    of powerful minds called into action under circumstances totally\n    different from any which have yet existed in the world, and over an\n    extent of territory far surpassing that which has hitherto produced\n    the whole harvest of human intellect.\"\n\n    HERSCHEL.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE HOPE OF PROGRESS.\n\n\nThere are two lines, if not more, in which we may look forward with hope\nto progress in the future. In the first place, increased knowledge of\nnature, of the properties of matter, and of the phenomena which surround\nus, may afford to our children advantages far greater even than those\nwhich we ourselves enjoy. Secondly, the extension and improvement of\neducation, the increasing influence of Science and Art, of Poetry and\nMusic, of Literature and Religion,--of all the powers which are tending to\ngood, will, we may reasonably hope, raise man and make him more master of\nhimself, more able to appreciate and enjoy his advantages, and to realize\nthe truth of the Italian proverb, that wherever light is, there is joy.\n\nOne consideration which has greatly tended to retard progress has been the\nfloating idea that there was some sort of ingratitude, and even impiety,\nin attempting to improve on what Divine Providence had arranged for us.\nThus Prometheus was said to have incurred the wrath of Jove for bestowing\non mortals the use of fire; and other improvements only escaped similar\npunishment when the ingenuity of priests attributed them to the special\nfavor of some particular deity. This feeling has not even yet quite died\nout. Even I can remember the time when many excellent persons had a\nscruple or prejudice against the use of chloroform, because they fancied\nthat pain was ordained under certain circumstances.\n\nWe are told that in early Saxon days Edwin, King of Northumbria, called\nhis nobles and his priests around him, to discuss whether a certain\nmissionary should be heard or not. The king was doubtful. At last there\nrose an old chief, and said:--\"You know, O King, how, on a winter evening,\nwhen you are sitting at supper in your hall, with your company around you,\nwhen the night is dark and dreary, when the rain and the snow rage\noutside, when the hall inside is lighted and warm with a blazing fire,\nsometimes it happens that a sparrow flies into the bright hall out of the\ndark night, flies through the hall and then flies out at the other end\ninto the dark night again. We see him for a few moments, but we know not\nwhence he came nor whither he goes in the blackness of the storm outside.\nSo is the life of man. It appears for a short space in the warmth and\nbrightness of this life, but what came before this life, or what is to\nfollow this life, we know not. If, therefore, these new teachers can\nenlighten us as to the darkness that went before, and the darkness that is\nto come after, let us hear what they have to teach us.\"\n\nIt is often said, however, that great and unexpected as recent discoveries\nhave been, there are certain ultimate problems which must ever remain\nunsolved. For my part, I would prefer to abstain from laying down any such\nlimitations. When Park asked the Arabs what became of the sun at night,\nand whether the sun was always the same, or new each day, they replied\nthat such a question was foolish, being entirely beyond the reach of human\ninvestigation.\n\nM. Comte, in his _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, as recently as 1842,\nlaid it down as an axiom regarding the heavenly bodies, \"We may hope to\ndetermine their forms, distances, magnitude, and movements, but we shall\nnever by any means be able to study their chemical composition or\nmineralogical structure.\" Yet within a few years this supposed\nimpossibility has been actually accomplished, showing how unsafe it is to\nlimit the possibilities of science. [1]\n\nIt is, indeed, as true now as in the time of Newton, that the great ocean\nof truth lies undiscovered before us. I often wish that some President of\nthe Royal Society, or of the British Association, would take for the theme\nof his annual address \"The things we do not know.\" Who can say on the\nverge of what discoveries we are perhaps even now standing! It is\nextraordinary how slight a margin may stand for years between Man and some\nimportant improvement. Take the case of the electric light, for instance.\nIt had been known for years that if a carbon rod be placed in an exhausted\nglass receiver, and a current of electricity be passed through it the\ncarbon glowed with an intense light, but on the other hand it became so\nhot that the glass burst. The light, therefore, was useless, because the\nlamp burst as soon as it was lighted. Edison hit on the idea that if you\nmade the carbon filament fine enough, you would get rid of the heat and\nyet have abundance of light. Edison's right to his patent has been\ncontested on this very ground. It has been said that the mere introduction\nof so small a difference as the replacement of a thin rod by a fine\nfilament was so slight an item that it could not be patented. The\nimprovements by Swan, Lane Fox, and others, though so important as a\nwhole, have been made step by step.\n\nOr take again the discovery of anaesthetics. At the beginning of the\ncentury Sir Humphrey discovered laughing gas, as it was then called. He\nfound that it produced complete insensibility to pain and yet did not\ninjure health. A tooth was actually taken out under its influence, and of\ncourse without suffering. These facts were known to our chemists, they\nwere explained to the students in our great hospitals, and yet for half a\ncentury the obvious application occurred to no one. Operations continued\nto be performed as before, patients suffered the same horrible tortures,\nand yet the beneficent element was in our hands, its divine properties\nwere known, but it never occurred to any one to make use of it.\n\nI may give one more illustration. Printing is generally said to have been\ndiscovered in the fifteenth century; and so it was for all practical\npurposes. But in fact printing was known long before. The Romans used\nstamps; on the monuments of Assyrian kings the name of the reigning\nmonarch may be found duly printed. What then is the difference? One\nlittle, but all-important step. The real inventor of printing was the man\ninto whose mind flashed the fruitful idea of having separate stamps for\neach letter, instead of for separate words. How slight seems the\ndifference, and yet for 3000 years the thought occurred to no one. Who can\ntell what other discoveries, as simple and yet as far-reaching, lie at\nthis very moment under our very eyes!\n\nArchimedes said that if you would give him room to stand on, he would move\nthe earth. One truth leads to another; each discovery renders possible\nanother, and, what is more, a higher.\n\nWe are but beginning to realize the marvelous range and complexity of\nNature. I have elsewhere called attention to this with special reference\nto the problematical organs of sense possessed by many animals. [2]\n\nThere is every reason to hope that future studies will throw much light on\nthese interesting structures. We may, no doubt, expect much from the\nimprovement in our microscopes, the use of new re-agents, and of\nmechanical appliances; but the ultimate atoms of which matter is composed\nare so infinitesimally minute, that it is difficult to foresee any manner\nin which we may hope for a final solution of these problems.\n\nLoschmidt, who has since been confirmed by Stoney and Sir W. Thomson,\ncalculates that each of the ultimate atoms of matter is at most 1/50000000\nof an inch in diameter. Under these circumstances we cannot, it would\nseem, hope at present for any great increase of our knowledge of atoms by\nimprovements in the microscope. With our present instruments we can\nperceive lines ruled on glass which are 1/90000 of an inch apart; but\nowing to the properties of light itself, it would appear that we cannot\nhope to be able to perceive objects which are much less than 1/100000 of\nan inch in diameter. Our microscopes may, no doubt, be improved, but the\nlimitation lies not in the imperfection of our optical appliances, but in\nthe nature of light itself.\n\nIt has been calculated that a particle of albumen 1/80000 of an inch in\ndiameter contains no less than 125,000,000 of molecules. In a simpler\ncompound the number would be much greater; in water, for instance, no less\nthan 8,000,000,000. Even then, if we could construct microscopes far more\npowerful than any which we now possess, they could not enable us to obtain\nby direct vision any idea of the ultimate organization of matter. The\nsmallest sphere of organic matter which could be clearly defined with our\nmost powerful microscopes may be, in reality, very complex; may be built\nup of many millions of molecules, and it follows that there may be an\nalmost infinite number of structural characters in organic tissues which\nwe can at present foresee no mode of examining. [3]\n\nAgain, it has been shown that animals hear sounds which are beyond the\nrange of our hearing, and I have proved they can perceive the ultra-violet\nrays, which are invisible to our eyes. [4]\n\nNow, as every ray of homogeneous light which we can perceive at all,\nappears to us as a distinct color, it becomes probable that these\nultra-violet rays must make themselves apparent to animals as a distinct\nand separate color (of which we can form no idea), but as different from\nthe rest as red is from yellow, or green from violet. The question also\narises whether white light to these creatures would differ from our white\nlight in containing this additional color.\n\nThese considerations cannot but raise the reflection how different the\nworld may--I was going to say must--appear to other animals from what it\ndoes to us. Sound is the sensation produced on us when the vibrations of\nthe air strike on the drum of our ear. When they are few, the sound is\ndeep; as they increase in number, it becomes shriller and shriller; but\nwhen they reach 40,000 in a second, they cease to be audible. Light is the\neffect produced on us when waves of light strike on the eye. When 400\nmillions of millions of vibrations of ether strike the retina in a second,\nthey produce red, and as the number increases the color passes into\norange, then yellow, green, blue, and violet. But between 40,000\nvibrations in a second and 400 millions of millions we have no organ of\nsense capable of receiving the impression. Yet between these limits any\nnumber of sensations may exist. We have five senses, and sometimes fancy\nthat no others are possible. But it is obvious that we cannot measure the\ninfinite by our own narrow limitations.\n\nMoreover, looking at the question from the other side, we find in animals\ncomplex organs of sense, richly supplied with nerves, but the function of\nwhich we are as yet powerless to explain. There may be fifty other senses\nas different from ours as sound is from sight; and even within the\nboundaries of our own senses there may be endless sounds which we cannot\nhear, and colors, as different as red from green, of which we have no\nconception. These and a thousand other questions remain for solution. The\nfamiliar world which surrounds us may be a totally different place to\nother animals. To them it may be full of music which we cannot hear, of\ncolor which we cannot see, of sensations which we cannot conceive. To\nplace stuffed birds and beasts in glass cases, to arrange insects in\ncabinets, and dried plants in drawers, is merely the drudgery and\npreliminary of study; to watch their habits, to understand their relations\nto one another, to study their instincts and intelligence, to ascertain\ntheir adaptations and their relations to the forces of Nature, to realize\nwhat the world appears to them; these constitute, as it seems to me at\nleast, the true interest of natural history, and may even give us the clue\nto senses and perceptions of which at present we have no conception. [5]\n\nFrom this point of view the possibilities of progress seem to me to be\nalmost unlimited.\n\nSo far again as the actual condition of man is concerned, the fact that\nthere has been some advance cannot, I think, be questioned.\n\nIn the Middle Ages, for instance, culture and refinement scarcely existed\nbeyond the limits of courts, and by no means always there. The life in\nEnglish, French, and German castles was rough and almost barbarous. Mr.\nGalton has expressed the opinion, which I am not prepared to question,\nthat the population of Athens, taken as a whole, was as superior to us as\nwe are to Australian savages. But even if that be so, our civilization,\nsuch as it is, is more diffused, so that unquestionably the general\nEuropean level is much higher.\n\nMuch, no doubt, is owing to the greater facility of access to the\nliterature of our country, to that literature, in the words of Macaulay,\n\"the brightest, the purest, the most durable of all the glories of our\ncountry; to that Literature, so rich in precious truth and precious\nfiction; to that Literature which boasts of the prince of all poets, and\nof the prince of all philosophers; to that Literature which has exercised\nan influence wider than that of our commerce, and mightier than that of\nour arms.\"\n\nFew of us make the most of our minds. The body ceases to grow in a few\nyears; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.\n\nThe onward progress of the future will not, we may be sure, be confined to\nmere material discoveries. We feel that we are on the road to higher\nmental powers; that problems which now seem to us beyond the range of\nhuman thought will receive their solution, and open the way to still\nfurther advance. Progress, moreover, we may hope, will be not merely\nmaterial, not merely mental, but moral also.\n\nIt is natural that we should feel a pride in the beauty of England, in the\nsize of our cities, the magnitude of our commerce, the wealth of our\ncountry, the vastness of our Empire. But the true glory of a nation does\nnot consist in the extent of its dominion, in the fertility of the soil,\nor the beauty of Nature, but rather in the moral and intellectual\npre-eminence of the people.\n\nAnd yet how few of us, rich or poor, have made ourselves all we might be.\nIf he does his best, as Shakespeare says, \"What a piece of work is man!\nHow noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and movement, how\nexpress and admirable!\" Few indeed, as yet, can be said to reach this high\nideal.\n\nThe Hindoos have a theory that after death animals live again in a\ndifferent form; those that have done well in a higher, those that have\ndone ill in a lower grade. To realize this is, they find, a powerful\nincentive to a virtuous life. But whether it be true of a future life or\nnot, it is certainly true of our present existence. If we do our best for\na day, the next morning we shall rise to a higher life; while if we give\nway to our passions and temptations, we take with equal certainty a step\ndownward toward a lower nature.\n\nIt is an interesting illustration of the Unity of Man, and an\nencouragement to those of us who have no claims to genius, that, though of\ncourse there have been exceptions, still on the whole, periods of progress\nhave generally been those when a nation has worked and felt together; the\nadvance has been due not entirely to the efforts of a few great men, but\nalso of a thousand little men; not to a single genius, but to a national\neffort.\n\nThink, indeed, what might be.\n\n           \"Ah! when shall all men's good\n  Be each man's rule, and universal Peace\n  Lie like a shaft of light across the land,\n  And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,\n  Thro' all the circle of the golden year.\" [6]\n\nOur life is surrounded with mystery, our very world is a speck in\nboundless space; and not only the period of our own individual life, but\nthat of the whole human race is, as it were, but a moment in the eternity\nof time. We cannot imagine any origin, nor foresee the conclusion.\n\nBut though we may not as yet perceive any line of research which can give\nus a clue to the solution, in another sense we may hold that every\naddition to our knowledge is one small step toward the great revelation.\n\nProgress may be more slow, or more rapid. It may come to others and not to\nus. It will not come to us if we do not strive to deserve it. But come it\nsurely will.\n\n  \"Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay,\n  Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright.\" [7]\n\nThe future of man is full of hope, and who can foresee the limits of his\ndestiny?\n\n[1] Lubbock. _Fifty Years of Science_.\n\n[2] _The Senses of Animals_.\n\n[3] Lubbock. _Fifty Years of Science_.\n\n[4] _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_.\n\n[5] Lubbock. _The Senses of Animals_.\n\n[6] Tennyson.\n\n[7] Swinburne.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE DESTINY OF MAN.\n\n\n    \"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy\n    to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.\"--ROMANS\n    viii. 18.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE DESTINY OF MAN.\n\n\nBut though we have thus a sure and certain hope of progress for the race,\nstill, as far as man is individually concerned, with advancing years we\ngradually care less and less, for many things which gave us the greatest\npleasure in youth. On the other hand, if our time has been well used, if\nwe have warmed both hands wisely \"before the fire of life,\" we may gain\neven more than we lose. If our strength becomes less, we feel also the\nless necessity for exertion. Hope is gradually replaced by memory: and\nwhether this adds to our happiness or not depends on what our life has\nbeen.\n\nThere are of course some lives which diminish in value as old age\nadvances, in which one pleasure fades after another, and even those which\nremain gradually lose their zest; but there are others which gain in\nrichness and peace all, and more, than that of which time robs them.\n\nThe pleasures of youth may excel in keenness and in zest, but they have at\nthe best a tinge of anxiety and unrest; they cannot have the fulness and\ndepth which may accompany the consolations of age, and are amongst the\nrichest rewards of an unselfish life.\n\nFor as with the close of the day, so with that of life; there may be\nclouds, and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening may be beautiful.\n\nOld age has a rich store of memories. Life is full of\n\n  \"Joys too exquisite to last,\n  And yet more exquisite when past.\" [1]\n\nSwedenborg imagines that in heaven the angels are advancing continually to\nthe spring-time of their youth, so that those who have lived longest are\nreally the youngest; and have we not all had friends who seem to fulfil\nthis idea? who are in reality--that is in mind--as fresh as a child: of\nwhom it may be said with more truth than of Cleopatra that\n\n  \"Age cannot wither nor custom stale\n  Their infinite variety.\"\n\n\"When I consider old age,\" says Cicero, \"I find four causes why it is\nthought miserable: one, that it calls us away from the transaction of\naffairs; the second, that it renders the body more feeble; the third, that\nit deprives us of almost all pleasures; the fourth, that it is not very\nfar from death. Of these causes let us see, if you please, how great and\nhow reasonable each of them is.\"\n\nTo be released from the absorbing affairs of life, to feel that one has\nearned a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in itself no evil.\n\nTo the second complaint against old age, I have already referred in\nspeaking of Health.\n\nThe third is that it has no passions. \"O noble privilege of age! if indeed\nit takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect.\" But the\nhigher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather,\nthey may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements\nof our lower nature.\n\nThen, indeed, it might be said that \"Man is the sun of the world; more\nthan the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and\nheat worth gauge or measure.\" [2]\n\n\"Single,\" says Manu, \"is each man born into the world; single he dies;\nsingle he receives the rewards of his good deeds; and single the\npunishment of his sins. When he dies his body lies like a fallen tree upon\nthe earth, but his virtue accompanies his soul. Wherefore let Man harvest\nand garner virtue, that so he may have an inseparable companion in that\ngloom which all must pass through, and which it is so hard to traverse.\"\n\nIs it not extraordinary that many men will deliberately take a road which\nthey know is, to say the least, not that of happiness? That they prefer to\nmake others miserable, rather than themselves happy?\n\nPlato, in the Phaedrus, explains this by describing Man as a Composite\nBeing, having three natures, and compares him to a pair of winged horses\nand a charioteer. \"Of the two horses one is noble and of noble origin, the\nother ignoble and of ignoble origin; and the driving, as might be\nexpected, is no easy matter.\" The noble steed endeavors to raise the\nchariot, but the ignoble one struggles to drag it down.\n\n\"Man,\" says Shelly, \"is an instrument over which a series of external and\ninternal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing\nwind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing\nmelody.\"\n\nCicero mentions the approach of death as the fourth drawback of old age.\nTo many minds the shadow of the end is ever present, like the coffin in\nthe Egyptian feast, and overclouds all the sunshine of life. But ought we\nso to regard death?\n\nShelly's beautiful lines,\n\n  \"Life, like a Dome of many-colored glass,\n  Stains the white radiance of Eternity,\n  Until death tramples it to fragments,\"\n\ncontain, as it seems to me at least, a double error. Life need not stain\nthe white radiance of eternity; nor does death necessarily trample it to\nfragments.\n\nMan has, says Coleridge,\n\n              \"Three treasures,--love and light\n  And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;\n  And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,\n  Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.\"\n\nDeath is \"the end of all, the remedy of many, the wish of divers men,\ndeserving better of no men than of those to whom she came before she was\ncalled.\" [3]\n\nIt is often assumed that the journey to\n\n  \"The undiscovered country from whose bourne\n  No traveler returns\"\n\nmust be one of pain and suffering. But this is not so. Death is often\npeaceful and almost painless.\n\nBede during his late illness was translating St. John's Gospel into\nAnglo-Saxon, and the morning of his death his secretary, observing his\nweakness, said, \"There remains now only one chapter, and it seems\ndifficult to you to speak.\" \"It is easy,\" said Bede; \"take your pen and\nwrite as fast as you can,\" At the close of the chapter the scribe said,\n\"It is finished,\" to which he replied, \"Thou hast said the truth,\n_consummatum est_.\" He then divided his little property among the\nbrethren, having done which he asked to be placed opposite to the place\nwhere he usually prayed, said \"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and\nto the Holy Ghost,\" and as he pronounced the last words he expired.\n\nGoethe died without any apparent suffering, having just prepared himself\nto write, and expressed his delight at the return of spring.\n\nWe are told of Mozart's death that \"the unfinished requiem lay upon the\nbed, and his last efforts were to imitate some peculiar instrumental\neffects, as he breathed out his life in the arms of his wife and their\nfriend S\u00fcssmaier.\"\n\nPlato died in the act of writing; Lucan while reciting part of his book on\nthe war of Pharsalus; Blake died singing; Wagner in sleep with his head on\nhis wife's shoulder. Many have passed away in their sleep. Various high\nmedical authorities have expressed their surprise that the dying seldom\nfeel either dismay or regret. And even those who perish by violence, as\nfor instance in battle, feel, it is probable, but little suffering.\n\nBut what of the future? There may be said to be now two principal views.\nThere are some who believe indeed in the immortality of the soul, but not\nof the individual soul: that our life is continued in that of our children\nwould seem indeed to be the natural deduction from the simile of St. Paul,\nas that of the grain of wheat is carried on in the plant of the following\nyear.\n\nSo long indeed as happiness exists it is selfish to dwell too much on our\nown share in it. Admit that the soul is immortal, but that in the future\nstate of existence there is a break in the continuity of memory, that one\ndoes not remember the present life, and from this point of view is not the\nimportance of identity involved in that of continuous memory? But however\nthis may be according to the general view, the soul, though detached from\nthe body, will retain its conscious identity, and will awake from death,\nas it does from sleep; so that if we cannot affirm that\n\n  \"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth,\n  Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep,\" [4]\n\nat any rate they exist somewhere else in space, and we are indeed looking\nat them when we gaze at the stars, though to our eyes they are as yet\ninvisible.\n\nIn neither case, however, can death be regarded as an evil. To wish that\nyouth and strength were unaffected by time might be a different matter.\n\n\"But if we are not destined to be immortal, yet it is a desirable thing\nfor a man to expire at his fit time. For, as nature prescribes a boundary\nto all other things, so does she also to life. Now old age is the\nconsummation of life, just as of a play: from the fatigue of which we\nought to escape, especially when satiety is super-added.\" [5]\n\nFrom this point of view, then, we need\n\n  \"Weep not for death,\n    'Tis but a fever stilled,\n  A pain suppressed,--a fear at rest,\n    A solemn hope fulfilled.\n  The moonshine on the slumbering deep\n  Is scarcely calmer. Wherefore weep?\"\n\n  \"Weep not for death!\n    The fount of tears is sealed,\n  Who knows how bright the inward light\n    To those closed eyes revealed?\n  Who knows what holy love may fill\n  The heart that seems so cold and still.\"\n\nMany a weary soul will have recurred with comfort to the thought that\n\n  \"A few more years shall roll,\n    A few more seasons come,\n  And we shall be with those that rest\n    Asleep within the tomb.\n\n  \"A few more struggles here,\n    A few more partings o'er,\n  A few more toils, a few more tears,\n    And we shall weep no more.\"\n\nBy no one has this, however, been more grandly expressed than by Shelley.\n\n  \"Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep!\n    He hath awakened from the dream of life.\n  'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep\n    With phantoms an unprofitable strife,\n  He has outsoared the shadows of our night.\n    Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,\n  And that unrest which men miscall delight,\n    Can touch him not and torture not again.\n    From the contagion of the world's slow stain\n  He is secure, and now can never mourn\n    A heart grown cold, a head grown gray, in vain--\"\n\nMost men, however, decline to believe that\n\n  \"We are such stuff\n  As dreams are made of, and our little life\n  Is rounded with a sleep.\" [6]\n\nAccording to the more general view death frees the soul from the\nencumbrance of the spirit, and summons us to the seat of judgment. In\nfact,\n\n  \"There is no Death! What seems so is transition;\n    This life of mortal breath\n  Is but a suburb of the life elysian,\n    Whose portal we call Death.\" [7]\n\nWe have bodies, \"we are spirits.\" \"I am a soul,\" said Epictetus, \"dragging\nabout a corpse.\" The body is the mere perishable form of the immortal\nessence. Plato concluded that if the ways of God are to be justified,\nthere must be a future life.\n\nTo the aged in either case death is a release. The Bible dwells most\nforcibly on the blessing of peace. \"My peace I give unto you: not as the\nworld giveth, give I unto you.\" Heaven is described as a place where the\nwicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.\n\nBut I suppose every one must have asked himself in what can the pleasures\nof heaven consist.\n\n                    \"For all we know\n  Of what the blessed do above\n  Is that they sing, and that they love.\" [8]\n\nIt would indeed accord with few men's ideal that there should be any\n\"struggle for existence\" in heaven. We should then be little better off\nthan we are now. This world is very beautiful, if we could only enjoy it\nin peace. And yet mere passive existence--mere vegetation--would in itself\noffer few attractions. It would indeed be almost intolerable.\n\nAgain, the anxiety of change seems inconsistent with perfect happiness;\nand yet a wearisome, interminable monotony, the same thing over and over\nagain forever and ever without relief or variety, suggests dulness rather\nthan bliss.\n\nI feel that to me, said Greg, \"God has promised not the heaven of the\nascetic temper, or the dogmatic theologian, or of the subtle mystic, or of\nthe stern martyr ready alike to inflict and bear; but a heaven of purified\nand permanent affections--of a book of knowledge with eternal leaves, and\nunbounded capacities to read it--of those we love ever round us, never\nmisconceiving us, or being harassed by us--of glorious work to do, and\nadequate faculties to do it--a world of solved problems, as well as of\nrealized ideals.\"\n\n  \"For still the doubt came back,--Can God provide\n    For the large heart of man what shall not pall,\n  Nor through eternal ages' endless tide\n    On tired spirits fall?\n\n  \"These make him say,--If God has so arrayed\n    A fading world that quickly passes by,\n  Such rich provision of delight has made\n    For every human eye,\n\n  \"What shall the eyes that wait for him survey\n    When his own presence gloriously appears\n  In worlds that were not founded for a day,\n    But for eternal years?\" [9]\n\nHere science seems to suggest a possible answer: the solution of problems\nwhich have puzzled us here; the acquisition of new ideas; the unrolling\nthe history of the past; the world of animals and plants; the secrets of\nspace; the wonders of the stars and of the regions beyond the stars. To\nbecome acquainted with all the beautiful and interesting spots of our own\nworld would indeed be something to look forward to, and our world is but\none of many millions. I sometimes wonder as I look away to the stars at\nnight whether it will ever be my privilege as a disembodied spirit to\nvisit and explore them. When we had made the great tour fresh interests\nwould have arisen, and we might well begin again.\n\nHere there is an infinity of interest without anxiety. So that at last the\nonly doubt may be\n\n  \"Lest an eternity should not suffice\n    To take the measure and the breadth and height\n  Of what there is reserved in Paradise\n    Its ever-new delight.\" [10]\n\nCicero surely did not exaggerate when he said, \"O glorious day! when I\nshall depart to that divine company and assemblage of spirits, and quit\nthis troubled and polluted scene. For I shall go not only to those great\nmen of whom I have spoken before, but also to my son Cato, than whom never\nwas better man born, nor more distinguished for pious affection; whose\nbody was burned by me, whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that mine\nshould be burned by him. But his soul not deserting me, but oft looking\nback, no doubt departed to these regions whither it saw that I myself was\ndestined to come. Which, though a distress to me, I seemed patiently to\nendure: not that I bore it with indifference, but I comforted myself with\nthe recollection that the separation and distance between us would not\ncontinue long. For these reasons, O Scipio (since you said that you with\nLaelius were accustomed to wonder at this), old age is tolerable to me,\nand not only not irksome, but even delightful. And if I am wrong in this,\nthat I believe the souls of men to be immortal, I willingly delude myself:\nnor do I desire that this mistake, in which I take pleasure, should be\nwrested from me as long as I live; but if I, when dead, shall have no\nconsciousness, as some narrow-minded philosophers imagine, I do not fear\nlest dead philosophers should ridicule this my delusion.\"\n\nNor can I omit the striking passage in the _Apology_, when pleading before\nthe people of Athens, Socrates says, \"Let us reflect in another way, and\nwe shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for\none of two things--either death is a state of nothingness and utter\nunconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the\nsoul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no\nconsciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even\nby the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person\nwere to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by\ndreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his\nlife, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in\nthe course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think\nthat any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will\nnot find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if\ndeath is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a\nsingle night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as\nmen say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be\ngreater than this?\n\n\"If, indeed, when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered\nfrom the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges,\nwho are said to give judgment there,--Minos, and Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus,\nand Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own\nlife,--that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if\nhe might converse with Orpheus, and Musaeus, and Hesiod, and Homer? Nay,\nif this be true, let me die again and again. I myself, too, shall have a\nwonderful interest in there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and\nAjax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death\nthrough an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I\nthink, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then\nbe able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this\nworld, so also in that; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends\nto be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to\nexamine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or\nSisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight\nwould there be in conversing with them and asking them questions. In\nanother world they do not put a man to death for asking questions;\nassuredly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they\nwill be immortal, if what is said be true.\n\n\"Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a\ncertainty that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after\ndeath. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own\napproaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and\nbe released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For\nwhich reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my\naccusers; they have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me\nany good; and for this I may gently blame them. The hour of departure has\narrived, and we go our ways--I to die and you to live. Which is better God\nonly knows.\"\n\nIn the _Wisdom of Solomon_ we are promised that--\n\n\"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no\ntorment touch them.\n\n\"In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; and their departure is\ntaken for misery.\n\n\"And their going from us to be utter destruction; but they are in peace.\n\n\"For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full\nof immortality.\n\n\"And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for\nGod proved them, and found them worthy for himself.\"\n\nAnd assuredly, if in the hour of death the conscience is at peace, the\nmind need not be troubled. The future is full of doubt, indeed, but fuller\nstill of hope.\n\nIf we are entering upon a rest after the struggles of life,\n\n  \"Where the wicked cease from troubling,\n  And the weary are at rest,\"\n\nthat to many a weary soul will be a welcome bourne, and even then we may\nsay,\n\n  \"O Death! where is thy sting?\n  O Grave! where is thy victory?\"\n\nOn the other hand, if we are entering on a new sphere of existence, where\nwe may look forward to meet not only those of whom we have heard so often,\nthose whose works we have read and admired, and to whom we owe so much,\nbut those also whom we have loved and lost; when we shall leave behind us\nthe bonds of the flesh and the limitations of our earthly existence; when\nwe shall join the Angels, and Archangels, and all the company of\nHeaven,--then, indeed, we may cherish a sure and certain hope that the\ninterests and pleasures of this world are as nothing compared to those of\nthe life that awaits us in our Eternal Home.\n\n[1] Montgomery.\n\n[2] Emerson.\n\n[3] Seneca.\n\n[4] Milton.\n\n[5] Cicero.\n\n[6] Shakespeare.\n\n[7] Longfellow.\n\n[8] Waller.\n\n[9] Trench.\n\n[10] Trench.","title":"The Pleasures of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":69393}