1
10
1
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bd7476f1dfcd5742ab857e7c57fabf5e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=uAuQye1f8uoSIm8ATpgQDyyW0xyncZon%7E7cw8J2kpo7I1OtXdVsmMl-VK6GLAfkpu6EQCCv42yPT6q3S6nP6yDIpG3Y5cPbf35hYwS6JtKH9PSouAYqBkMcMOdBKk0qivxL7LilovY1MdSyYRQqsmGsbr-iJPGqxYVAS4WlZwOkSCoATzdBqukyyNDydEnjK8XZMt0PYFzO71U7E3PyW77XzXGiOUwqAFLTepkyCWGMXPd9KfOl8yLtzh59Pgqd5D5S%7E2YKd6hJjjBSgfWQo-ws%7E4mlACRFqM9MNKO5e3YyLAOrhD2A0W2FRJGfd35jHBiQIogOtWQ8oBoTPPBsnrQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
7faabb94e01617967c32587c91d457fd
PDF Text
Text
171.4
LVE
—......
=
The
Pleasures of Life
BY
THE RIGHT HON.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P.
F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
Volition
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
1899
Price Sixpence
�9omp.
‘ Give me Health and a Day, and
I will make the Pomp of Emperors Ridiculous.’—Emerson.
“ As an illustration of the BENEFICIAL EFFECTS
of Eno’s ‘ Fruit Salt,’ I give you particulars of the case
of one of my friends. His whole life was clouded by the
want of vigorous health, and SLUGGISH LIVER and
its concomitant BILIOUS HEADACHES so affected
him, that he was obliged to live upon only a few articles
of diet, and to be most sparing in their use.
This did
nothing in effecting a cure, although persevered in for
some twenty-five years, and also consulting very eminent
members of the faculty.
By the use of your simple
‘Fruit Salt,’ however, he now ENJOYS VIGOROUS
HEALTH, has NEVER had HEADACHE or CONSTI
PATION since he commenced it, and can partake of his
food in such a hearty manner as to afford great satisfac
tion to himself and friends. There are others to whom
your remedy has been SO BENEFICIAL in various kinds
of complaints that I think you may very well extend its
use pro bono publico. I find that it makes a VERY
REFRESHING and INVIGORATING drink.—I remain,
dear Sir, yours faithfully, Veritas.” {From the late Rev.
J. TV. Neil, Holy Trinity Church, North Shields.}
Experience!
‘ Vie Gather the Honey of Wisdom
From Thorns, not from Flowers.’—Lytton.
HOW TO AVOID
The INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF STIMULANTS.
THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF LIVING—
partaking of too rich foods, as pastry, saccharine and fatty
substances, alcoholic drinks, and an insufficient amount of
exercise—FREQUENTLY DERANGES THE LIVER.
I would ADVISE all BILIOUS PEOPLE, unless they are careful to keep the liver acting
freely, to exercise great care in the use of alcoholic drinks; avoid sugar, and always dilute
largely with water.
EXPERIENCE SHOWS that porter, mild ales, port wine, dark
sherries, sweet champagne, liqueurs and brandies, are ALL very APT to DISAGREE;
while light white wines, and gin or old whisky largely diluted with pure mineral water, will
be found the least objectionable. ENO’S ‘ FRUIT SALT ’ is PECULIARLY ADAPTED
for any CONSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS of the LIVER; it possesses the power of
reparation when digestion has been disturbed or lost, and PLACES the INVALID on the
RIGHT TRACK to HEALTH. A WORLD of WOES is avoided by those who KEEP
and USE ENO’S ‘FRUIT SALT.’
Therefore NO FAMILY SHOULD EVER BE
WITHOUT IT.
THE VALUE OF ENO’S ‘FRUIT SALT’ CANNOT BE TOLD.
Its Success in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia proves it.
The effect of ENO’S ‘ FRUIT SALT ’ upon any DISORDERED, SLEEPLESS,
and FEVERISH condition of the system is SIMPLY MARVELLOUS. It is, in fact,
NATURE’S OWN REMEDY, and AN UNSURPASSED ONE.
CAUTION.—See Capsule marked ENO'S 1 FRUIT SALT.' Without it you have a WORTHLESS IMITATION.
Prepared only by J. C. ENO, Ltd., at the1 FRUIT SALT ’ WORKS, London, by J. C. ENO’S Patent.
�1
If you want to preserve your hair and prevent baldness
YOU MUST USE
ROWLANDS’ MACASSAR OIL
some kind of grease ; cold water ruins the hair, and most hair restorers dry up
and wither it. All doctors will tell you that:
is the most perfect restorer, preserver, and strengthener of the hair you can use,
and being specially refined and purified, does not have the greasy effect of pomades
o’- other oils. It prevents baldness and eradicates scurf, and is also sold in a GOLDEN COLOUR
for fair and grey hair. Bottles, 3s. 6d., 7s., and 10s. 6d. Sold by Stores and Chemists.
NATIONAL PROVIDENT.
— INSTITUTION. FOR MUTUAL LIFE ASSURANCE.
PROFITS.—The whole are divided amongst the Assured; already divided, £5,400,000.
At the division in 1897 there were nearly 1000 Policies, in respect of which not only were the Premiums
entirely extinguished, but Cash Bonuses were also paid, whilst in the case of many Policies the original sums
assured are now more than doubled by the Bonus Additions.
ENDOWMENT-ASSURANCE POLICIES ARE ISSUED, COMBINING LIFE ASSURANCE AT MINIMUM COST,
WITH PROVISION FOR OLD AGE. The practical effect of these Policies in the National Provident Institution
48
is that the Member’s life is assured until he reaches the age agreed upon, and on his reaching that age the whole of
the Premiums paid are returned to him, and a considerable sum in addition, representing a by no means insignificant
rate of interest on his payments.
Applications for Agencies invited.
Gracechurch 8t., London, E.C.
Arthur smither, Actuary and secretary.
BOOKS OF
^Liberal IReligion.
PHILIP GREEN, 5 Essex Street,
Strand, W.C., will forward, post free,
on application, a NEW CATALOGUE of
BOOKS of LIBERAL RELIGION and
^THEOLOGY, containing Works by Dr.
>hartineau, Stopford A. Brooke, R. A.
Armstrong, J. Estlin Carpenter, Dr.
Brooke Herford, J. W. Chadwick, M. J.
Savage, and other English and American
Unitarian and Liberal Religious Teachers.
NO
HOUSEHOLD
BE
Philip Green, 5 Essex St., Strand, W.C.
WITHOUT
SHOULD
IT.
THE CHEAP EDITIONS OF
MRS. HENRY WOOD’S NOVELS.
Crown 8vo. in green cloth, 2s. each, or in red cloth, gilt lettered, 2s. 6d. each.
SALE OVER TWO MILLION AND A HALF COPIES.
Trevlyn Hold. 65th Thousand.
Court Netherleigh. 46 th Thousand.
East Lynne. 480th Thousand.
The Channings. 180th Thousand.
Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles.
150th Thousand.
v."’he Shadow of Ashlydyat.
100th Thousand.
Lord Oakbum’s Daughters.
105th Thousand.
Verner’s Pride. 85th Thousand.
Roland Yorke. 130th Thousand.
| Johnny Ludlow. First Series.
50th Thousand.
Mildred Arkell. 80th Thousand.
St. Martin’s Eve. 76th Thousand.
George Canterbury’s Will.
The Red Court Farm.
70th Thousand.
Within the Maze. 112th Thousand.
Elster’s Folly. 60th Thousand.
Lady Adelaide. 60th Thousand.
Oswald Cray. 60th Thousand.
Johnny Ludlow. Second Series.
35tli Thousand.
Anne Hereford. 55th Thousand.
Dene Hollow. 60th Thousand.
Edina. 40th Thousand.
A Life’s Secret. 60th Thousand.
The House of Halliwell.
15th Thousand.
The Master of Greylands.
50th Thousand.
The Story of Charles Strange.
15th Thousand.
Ashley. 15th Thousand.
Bessy Rane. 42nd Thousand.
Johnny Ludlow. Third Series.
18th Thousand,
Orville College. 33rd Thousand.
Lady Grace. 16th Thousand.
Adam Grainger.
The Unholy Wish.
Johnny Ludlow. Fourth Series.
Johnny Ludlow. Fifth Series.
Johnny Ludlow. Sixth Series.
Pomeroy Abbey. 48th Thousand.
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
70th Thousand.
��PREFACE
Those who have the pleasure of attending the opening meetings of schools and
colleges, and of giving away prizes and certificates, are generally expected at
the same time to offer such words of counsel and encouragement as the ex
perience of the world might enable them to give to those who are entering life.
Having been myself when young rather prone to suffer from low spirits,
I have at several of these gatherings taken the opportunity of dwelling on
the privileges and blessings we enjoy, and I reprint here the substance of
some of these addresses (omitting what was special to the circumstances of
each case, and freely making any alterations and additions which have since
occurred to me), hoping that the thoughts and quotations in which I have
myself found most comfort may perhaps be of use to others also.
- It is hardly necessary to say that I have not by any means referred to
all the sources of happiness open to us, some indeed of the greatest pleasures
and blessings being altogether omitted.
In reading over the proofs I feel that some sentences may appear too
dogmatic, but I hope that allowance will be made for the circumstances under
which they were delivered.
High Elms,
Down, Kent, January 1887.
�PREFACE
TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION
A lecture which I delivered three years ago at the Working Men’s College, and
which forms the fourth chapter of this book, has given rise to a good deal of
discussion. The Pall Mall Gazette took up the subject and issued a circular to many
of those best qualified to express an opinion. This elicited many interesting replies,
and some other lists of books were drawn up. When my book was translated, a
similar discussion took place in Germany. The result has been very gratifying, and
after carefully considering the suggestions which have been made, I see no reason
for any material change in the first list. I had not presumed to form a list of my
own, nor did I profess to give my own favourites. My attempt was to give those
most generally recommended by previous writers on the subject. In the various
criticisms on my list, while large additions, amounting to several hundred works in
all, have been proposed, very few omissions have been suggested. As regards those
v orks with reference to which some doubts have been expressed—namely, the few
Oriental books, Wake’s Apostolic Fathers, etc.—I may observe that I drew up the
list, not as that of the hundred best books, but, which is very different, of those
which have been most frequently recommended as best worth reading.
For instance as regards the Shelving and the Analects of Confucius°I must-humbly
confess that I do not greatly admire either ; but I recommended them because they
are held in the most profound veneration by the Chinese race, containing 400,000,000
of our fellow-men. I may add that both works are quite short.
The Ramayana and Maha Bliarata (as epitomised by Wheeler) and St. Hilaire’s
Bouddha are not only very interesting in themselves, but very important in reference
to our great oriental Empire.
The authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very short, being indeed
comprised in one small volume, and as the only works (which have come down to
us) of those who lived with and knew the Apostles, they are certainly well worth
reading.
I have been surprised at the great divergence of opinion which has been expressed.
Nine lists of some length have been published. These lists contain some three
hundred works not mentioned by me (without, however, any corresponding omissions),
and yet there is not one single book which occurs in every list, or even in half of
them, and only about half a dozen which appear in more than one of the nine.
If these authorities, or even a majority of them, had concurred in their recom
mendations, I would have availed myself of them ; but as they differ so greatly I
will allow my list to remain almost as I first proposed it. I have, however, added
Kalidasa’s Safomfato or The Lost Ring, and Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, omitting, in
consequence, Lucretius and Miss Austen : Lucretius because though his work is most
remarkable, it is perhaps too difficult and therefore less generally suitable than most
of the others in the list; and Miss Austen because English novelists were somewhat
over-represented.
High Elms,
Down, Kent, August 1890.
�CONTENTS
PART I
CHAP.
*
PAGE
I. The Duty
of
II. The Happiness
III. A Song
of
of
V. The Blessing
VI.The
.
.
Friends
.
Value of Time
VII. The Pleasures
VIII. The Pleasures
IX.Science
.
.
Books
of
1
...
Duty ......
of
Books
IV. The Choice
.
Happiness
of
of
.
.
.13
.
.
.
17
.
.
.
.
.22
.
.
.
.
.25
-
.
28
Travel
.
.
.
.
.
Home
.
.
.
.
.32
........
X. Education
7
.
.
.
.
.
36
.42
�‘ All places that the eye of Heaven visits
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens.”
Shakespeare.
“ Some murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.
And some with thankful love are fill’d
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God’s good mercy gild
The darkness of their night.
‘ ‘ In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied.
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made.”
Trench.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS1
“ If a man is unhappy, this must be his own
fault; for God made all men to be happy.”—
Epictetus.
Life is a great gift, and as we reach
years of discretion, we most of us natur
ally ask ourselves what should be the
main object of our existence. Even those
who do not accept “the greatest good
of the greatest number” as an absolute
rule, will yet admit that we should all
endeavour to contribute as far as we may
to the happiness of others. There are
many, however, who seem to doubt
whether it is right that we should try to
be happy ourselves. Our own happiness
ought not, of course, to be our main
object, nor indeed will it ever be secured
if selfishly sought. We may have many
pleasures in life, but must not let them
have rule over us, or they will soon hand
us over to sorrow; and “ into jvhat
dangerous and miserable servitude doth
he fall who suffereth pleasures and
sorrows (two unfaithful and cruel com
manders) to possess him successively 1” 2
I cannot, however, but think that the
world would be better and brighter if our
teachers would dwell on the Duty of
Happiness as well as on the Happiness of
Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as
we can, if only because to be happy our
selves, is a most effectual contribution to
the happiness of others.
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Harris Institute, Preston.
2 Seneca.
B
Every one must have felt that a cheer
ful friend is like a sunny day, shedding
brightness on all around ; and most of
us can, as we choose, make of this world
either a palace or a prison.
There is no doubt some selfish satisfac
tion in yielding to melancholy, and fancy
ing that we are victims of fate ; in brood
ing over grievances, especially if more or
less imaginary. To be bright and cheer
ful often requires an effort; there is a
certain art in keeping ourselves happy :
and in this respect, as in others, we re
quire to watch over and manage ourselves,
almost as if we were somebody else.
Sorrow and joy, indeed, are strangely
interwoven. Too often
“We look before and after,
And pine for wliat is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught ;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought. ”1
As a nation we are prone to melancholy.
It has been said of our countrymen that
they take even their pleasures sadly.
But this, if it be true at all, will, I hope,
prove a transitory characteristic. “ Merry
England ” was the old saying ; let us hope
it may become true again. We must look
to the East for real melancholy. What
can be sadder than the lines with which
Omar Khayyam opens his quatrains : 2
“ We sojourn here for one short day or two,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe ;
And then, leaving life’s problems all unsolved
And harassed by regrets, we have to go ; ”
1 Shelley.
2 I quote from Whinfield’s translation.
IE
�2
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
or the Devas’ song to Prince Siddartha, inherit ; the glories and beauties of the
in Edwin Arnold’s beautiful version :
Universe, which is our own if we choose
to have it so ; the extent to which we can
‘ ‘ We are the voices of tlie wandering wind,
Which moan for rest, and rest can never find. make ourselves what we wish to be ; or
Lo ! as the wind is, so is mortal life—
the power we possess of securing peace, of
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife. ”
triumphing over pain and sorrow.
If this indeed be true, if mortal life
Dante pointed to the neglect of oppor
be so sad and full of suffering, no wonder tunities as a serious fault:
that Nirvana—the cessation of sorrow—
“Man can do violence
should be welcomed even at the sacrifice
To himself and his own blessings, and for this
of consciousness.
He, in the second round, must aye deplore,
With unavailing penitence, his crime.
But ought we not to place before our
Whoe’er deprives himself of life and light
selves a very different ideal—a healthier,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
manlier, and nobler hope ?
And sorrows then when he should dwell in joy.”
Life is not to live merely, but to live
Ruskin has expressed this with special
well. There are some “ who live without
any design at all, and only pass in the allusion to the marvellous beauty of this
world like straws on a river : they do not glorious world, too often taken as a matter
go ; they are carried,”1—-but as Homer of course, and remembered, if at all, al
makes Ulysses say, “ How dull it is to most without gratitude. “ Holy men,” he
pause, to make an end, to rest un complains, “in the recommending of the
burnished ; not to shine in use — as love of God to us, refer but seldom to those
things in which it is most abundantly and
though to breathe were life ! ”
Goethe tells us that at thirty he resolved immediately shown; though they insist
“ to work out life no longer by halves, much on His giving of bread, and raiment,
and health (which He gives to all inferior
but in all its beauty and totality.”
creatures): they require us not to thank
“Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen
Him for that glory of His works which
Resolut zu leben.”
He has permitted us alone to perceive :
Life indeed must be measured by
they tell us often to meditate in the closet,
thought and action, not by time. It
but they send us not, like Isaac, into the
certainly may be, and ought to be, bright,
fields at even : they dwell on the duty of
interesting, and happy ; for, according to
self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty
the Italian proverb, “ if all cannot live on
of delight: ” and yet, as he justly says
the Piazza, every one may feel the sun.”
elsewhere, “ each of us, as we travel the
If we do our best; if we do not mag
way of life, has the choice, according to
nify trifling troubles ; if we look resolutely,
our working, of turning all the voices of
I do not say at the bright side of things,
Nature into one song of rejoicing ; or of
but at things as they really are ; if we
withering and quenching her sympathy
avail ourselves of the manifold blessings
into a fearful withdrawn silence of con
which surround us ; we cannot but feel
demnation,—into a crying out of her
that life is indeed a glorious inheritance.
stones and a shaking of her dust against
“ More servants wait on man
us.”
Than he’ll take notice of. In every path
Must we not all admit, with Sir Henry
lie treads down that which doth befriend
Taylor, that “the retrospect of life swarms
him
When sickness makes him pale and wan. with lost opportunities ” ? “ Whoever en
Oh mighty Love ! Man is one world, and hath joys not life,” says Sir T. Browne, “ I
Another to attend him.” 2
count him but an apparition, though he
Few of us, however, realise the wonder wears about him the visible affections of
ful privilege of living, or the blessings we flesh.”
St. Bernard, indeed, goes so far as to
1 Seneca.
2 Herbert.
�CHAP. I
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS
3
and that “ rather than follow a multitude
to do evil,” one should “ stand like Pom
pey’s pillar, conspicuous by oneself, and
single in integrity.” 1 But to many this
isolation would be itself most painful, for
the heart is “ no island cut off from other
lands, but a continent that joins to them.”2
If we separate ourselves so much from
the interests of those around us that we
do not sympathise with them in their
sufferings, we shut ourselves out from
sharing their happiness, and lose far more
than we gain. If we avoid sympathy
and wrap ourselves round in a cold chain
armour of selfishness, we exclude ourselves
from many of the greatest and purest joys
of life. To render ourselves insensible to
pain we must forfeit also the possibility
of happiness.
Moreover, much of what we call evil
is really good in disguise, and we should
not “ quarrel rashly with adversities not
yet understood, nor overlook the mercies
often bound up in them.” 3 Pleasure and
pain are, as Plutarch says, the nails which
fasten body and soul together. Pain is
a signal of danger, a very necessity of
existence. But for it, but for the warnings
which our feelings give us, the very bless
ings by ■which we are surrounded would
soon and inevitably prove fatal. Many
of those who have not studied the question
are under the impression that the more
deeply-seated portions of the body must
be most sensitive. The very reverse is
the case. The skin is a continuous and
ever-watchful sentinel, always on guard
to give us notice of any approaching
danger ; while the flesh and inner organs,
where pain would be without purpose,
“ Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
are, so long as they are in health, com
These demand not that the things without paratively without sensation.
them
“We talk,” says Helps, “of the origin
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.
of evil ; . . . but what is evil ? We mostly
Bounded by themselves, and unobservant
speak of sufferings and trials as good, per
In what state God’s other works may be,
haps, in their result ; but we hardly
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”
admit that they may be good in them
selves. Yet they are knowledge—how
It is true that
else to be acquired, unless by making
“ A man is his own star ;
maintain that “nothing can work me
damage except myself; the harm that I
sustain I carry about with me, and never
am a real sufferer but by my own fault.”
Some Heathen moralists also have
taught very much the same lesson. “ The
gods,” says Marcus Aurelius, “ have put all
the means in man’s power to enable him
not to fall into real evils. Now that
which does not make a man worse, how
can it make his life worse ? ”
Epictetus takes the same line : “ If a
man is unhappy, remember that his un
happiness is his own fault; for God has
made all men to be happy.” “ I am,” he
elsewhere says, “ always content with that
which happens ; for I think that what
God chooses is better than what I choose.”
And again : “ Seek not that things should
happen as you wish ; but wish the things
which happen to be as they are, and you
will have a tranquil flow of life. ... If
you wish for anything which belongs to
another, you lose that which is your own.”
Few, however, if any, can I think go
as far as St. Bernard. We cannot but
suffer from pain, sickness, and anxiety;
from the loss, the unkindness, the faults,
even the coldness of those we love. How
many a day has been damped and dark
ened by an angry word !
Hegel is said to have calmly finished
his Phaenomenologie des Geistes at Jena, on
the 14th October 1806, not knowing any
thing whatever of the battle that was
raging round him.
Matthew Arnold has suggested that we
might take a lesson from the heavenly
bodies.
Our acts our angels are
For good or ill,”
1 Sir T. Browne.
2 Bacon.
3 Sir T. Browne.
�4
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
men. as gods, enabling them to understand
without experience. All that men go
through may be absolutely the best for
them—no such thing as evil, at least in
our customary meaning of the word.”
Indeed, “ the vale best discovereth the
hill,” 1 and “ pour sentir les grands biens,
il faut qu’il connoisse les petits maux.” 2
But even if we do not seem to get all
that we should wish, many will feel, as
in Leigh Hunt’s beautiful translation of
Filicaja’s sonnet, that —
“ So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,
And e’en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because ’twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying grants.”
Those on the other hand who do not
accept the idea of continual interferences,
will rejoice in the belief that on the whole
the laws of the Universe work out for
the general happiness.
And if it does come—
“ Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free :
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts last
ing to the end.” 3
If, however, we cannot hope that life
will be all happiness, we may at least
secure a heavy balance on the right side ;
and even events which look like mis
fortune, if boldly faced, may often be
turned to good. Oftentimes, says Seneca,
“calamity turns to our advantage; and
great ruins make way for greater glories.”
Helmholtz dates his start in science to
an attack of illness. This led to his
acquisition of a microscope, which he was
enabled to purchase, owing to his having
spent his autumn vacation of 1841 in the
hospital, prostrated by typhoid fever ;
being a pupil, he was nursed without
expense, and on his recovery he found
himself in possession of the savings of
his small resources.
“ Savonarola,” says Castelar, “ would,
1 Bacon.
2 Rousseau.
3 Aubrey de Vere.
PART I
under different circumstances, undoubtedly
have been a good husband, a tender
father; a man unknown to history,
utterly powerless to print upon the sands
of time and upon the human soul the
deep trace which he has left : but mis
fortune came to visit him, to crush his
heart, and to impart that marked melan
choly which characterises a soul in grief;
and the grief that circled his brows with
a crown of thorns was also that which
wreathed them with the splendour of
immortality.
His hopes were centred
in the woman he loved, his life was set
upon the possession of her, and when her
family finally rejected him, partly on
account of his profession, and partly on
account of his person, he believed that it
was death that had come upon him, when
in truth it was immortality.”
It is, however, impossible to deny the
existence of ewl, and the reason for it
has long exercised the human intellect.
The Savage solves it by the supposition of
evil Spirits. Even the Greeks attributed
the misfortunes of men in great measure
to the antipathies and jealousies of gods
and goddesses.
Others have imagined
two Celestial Beings, opposite and an
tagonistic—the one friendly, the other
hostile, to men.
Freedom of action, however, seems to
involve the existence of evil. If any
power of selection be left us, much must
depend on the choice we make. In the
very nature of things, two and two cannot
make five. Epictetus imagines Jupiter
addressing man as follows : “ If it had
been possible to make your body and
your property free from liability to injury,
I would have done so. As this could not
be, I have given you a small portion of
myself.”
This divine gift it is for us to use
wisely. It is, in fact, our most valuable
treasure. “ The soul is a much better
thing than all the others which you
possess. Can you then show me in what
way you have taken care of it ? For it
is not likely that you, who are so wise a
man, inconsiderately and carelessly allow
�THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS
CHAP. I
the most valuable thing that you possess
to be neglected and to perish.” 1
Moreover, even if evil cannot be alto
gether avoided, it is no doubt true that
not only whether the life we lead be good
and useful, or evil and useless, but also
whether it be happy or unhappy, is very
much in our own power, and depends
greatly on ourselves. “ Time alone re
lieves the foolish from sorrow, but reason
the wise,”2 and no one was ever yet
made utterly miserable excepting by him
self. We are, if not the masters, at any
rate almost the creators of ourselves.
With most of us it is not so much great
sorrows, disease, or death, but rather the
little “daily dyings” which cloud over
the sunshine of life.
Many of our
troubles are insignificant in themselves,
and might easily be avoided L
How happy home might generally be
made but for foolish quarrels, or mis
understandings, as they are well named !
It is our own fault if we are querulous or
ill-humoured ; nor need we, though this
is less easy, allow ourselves to be made
unhappy by the querulousness or illhumours of others.
Much of what we suffer we have
brought on ourselves, if not by actual
fault, at least by ignorance or thought
lessness. Too often we think only of the
happiness of the moment, and sacrifice
that of the life. Troubles comparatively
seldom come to us, it is we who go to
them. Many of us fritter our life away.
La Bruyere says that “ most men spend
much of their lives in making the rest
miserable • ” or, as Goethe puts it:
“ Careworn man has, in all ages,
Sown vanity to reap despair.”
Not only do we suffer much in the
anticipation of evil, as “ Noah lived many
years under the affliction of a flood, and
Jerusalem was taken unto Jeremy before
it was besieged,” but we often distress
ourselves greatly in the apprehension of
misfortunes which after all never happen
at all. We should do our best and wait
1 Epictetus.
2 Ibid.
5
calmly the result. We often hear of
people breaking down from overwork,
but in nine cases out of ten they are
really suffering from worry or anxiety.
“Nos maux moraux,” says Rousseau,
“ sont tous dans 1’opinion, hors un seul,
qui est le crime ; et celui-la depend de
nous : nos maux physiques nous detruisent, ou se detruisent. Le temps, ou la
mort, sont nos remedes.”
“ Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven.” 1
This, however, applies to the grown up.
With children of course it is different.
It is customary, but I think it is a mistake,
to speak of happy childhood. Children
are often over-anxious and acutely sensi
tive. Man ought to be man and master
of his fate ; but children are at the mercy
of those around them. Mr. Rarey, the
great horse-tamer, has told us that he has
known an angry word raise the pulse of
a horse ten beats in a minute. Think
then how it must affect a child !
It is small blame to the young if they
are over-anxious ; but it is a danger to be
striven against. “ The terrors of the storm
are chiefly felt in the parlour or the
cabin.” 2
To save ourselves from imaginary, or
at any rate problematical, evils, we often
incur real suffering. “The man,” said
Epicurus, “who is not content with little
is content with nothing.” How often do
we “ labour for that which satisfieth not.”
More than we use is more than we need,
and only a burden to the bearer.3 We
most of us give ourselves an immense
amount of useless trouble ; encumber our
selves, as it were, on the journey of life
with a dead weight of unnecessary bag
gage ; and as “a man maketh his train
longer, he makes his wings shorter.” 4 In
that delightful fairy tale, Alice through
the Looking-Glass, the “ White Knight ” is
described as having loaded himself on
starting for a journey with a variety of
odds and ends, including a mousetrap, lest
1 Shakespeare.
3 Seneca.
2 Emerson.
4 Bacon.
�6
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
he should be troubled by mice at night,
“ How is it possible,” he says, “ that a
and a bee-hive in case he came across a Inan who has nothing, who is naked,
swarm of bees.
houseless, without a hearth, squalid, with
Hearne, in his Journey to the Mouth of out a slave, without a city, can pass a life
the Coppermine River, tells us that a few that flows easily ? See, God has sent you
days after starting on his expedition he a man to show you that it is possible.
met a party of Indians, who annexed a Look at me, who am without a city,
great deal of his property, and all Hearne without a house, without possessions,
says is, “ The weight of our baggage being without a slave ; I sleep on the ground ;
so much lightened, our next day’s journey I have no wife, no children, no prsetorium,
was much pleasanter.” I ought, however, but only the earth and heavens, and one
to add that the Indians broke up the poor cloak. And what do I want ? Am
philosophical instruments, which,no doubt, I not without sorrow ? Am I not with
were rather an encumbrance.
out fear ? Am I not free ? When did
When troubles do come, Marcus Aur any of you see me failing in the object of
elius wisely tells us to “ remember on my desire ? or ever falling into that which
every occasion which leads thee to vex I would avoid ? Did I ever blame God
ation to apply this principle, that this is or man ? Did I ever accuse any man ?
not a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly Did any of you ever see me with a
is good fortune.” Our own anger indeed sorrowful countenance ? And how do I
does us more harm than the thing which meet with those whom you are afraid of
makes us angry; and we suffer much and admire ? Do not I treat them like
more from the anger and vexation which slaves ? Who, when he sees me, does not
we allow acts to rouse in us, than we do think that he sees his king and master ? ”
from the acts themselves at which we are
Think how much we have to be
angry and vexed. How much most people, thankful for. Few of us appreciate the
for instance, allow themselves to be dis number of our everyday blessings; we
tracted and disturbed by quarrels and look on them as trifles, and yet “ trifles
family disputes. Yet in nine cases out make perfection, and perfection is no
of ten one ought not to suffer from being trifle,” as Michael Angelo said. We for
found fault with. If the condemnation is get them because they are always with
just, it should be welcome as a warning ; us ; and yet for each of us, as Mr. Pater
if it is undeserved, why should we allow well observes, “ these simple gifts, and
it to distress us 1
others equally trivial, bread and wine,
Moreover, if misfortunes happen we do fruit and milk, might regain that poetic
but make them worse by grieving over and, as it were, moral significance which
them.
surely belongs to all the means of our
“ I must die,” says Epictetus. “ But daily life, could we but break through the
must I then die sorrowing ? I must be veil of our familiarity with things by no
put in chains. Must I then also lament? means vulgar in themselves.”
I must go into exile. Can I be prevented
“Let not,” says Isaak Walton, “the
from going with cheerfulness and con blessings we receive daily from God make
tentment ? But I will put you in prison. us not to value or not praise Him because
Man, what are you saying ? You may they be common; let us not forget to
put my body in prison, but my mind not praise Him for the innocent mirth and
even Zeus himself can overpower.”
pleasure we have met with since we met
If, indeed, we cannot be happy, the together. What would a blind man give
fault is generally in ourselves. Socrates to see the pleasant rivers and meadows
lived under the Thirty Tyrants. Epic and flowers and fountains ; and this and
tetus was a poor slave, and yet how much many other like blessings we enjoy daily.”
we owe him !
Contentment, we have been told by
�CHAP. I
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
Epicurus, consists not in great wealth, but
in few wants. In this fortunate country,
however, we may have many wants, and
yet, if they are only reasonable, we may
gratify them all.
Nature indeed provides without stint
the main requisites of human happiness.
“.To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms
set; to draw hard breath over plough
share or spade ; to read, to think, to love,
to pray,” these, says Ruskin, “ are the
things that make men happy.”
“ I have fallen into the hands of
thieves,” says Jeremy Taylor ; “ what
then ? They have left me the sun and
moon, fire and water, a loving wife and
many friends to pity me, and some to
relieve me, and I can still discourse ; and,
unless I list, they have not taken away
my merry countenance and my cheerful
spirit and a good conscience. . . . And
he that hath so many causes of joy, and
so great, is very much in love with
sorrow and peevishness who loses all
these pleasures, and chooses to sit down
on his little handful of thorns.”
“ When a man has such things to think
on, and sees the sun, the moon, and stars,
and enjoys earth and sea, he is not
solitary or even helpless.” 1
“ Paradise indeed might,” as Luther
said, “apply to the whole world.” What
more is there we could ask for ourselves ?
“Every sort of beauty,” says Mr. Greg,2
“has been lavished on our allotted home ;
beauties to enrapture every sense, beauties
to satisfy every taste • forms the noblest
and the loveliest, colours the most
gorgeous and the most delicate, odours
the sweetest and subtlest, harmonies the
most soothing and the most stirring : the
sunny glories of the day; the pale
Elysian grace of moonlight; the lake, the
mountain, the primeval forest, and the
boundless ocean; ‘ silent pinnacles of
aged snow ’ in one hemisphere, the
marvels of tropical luxuriance in another ;
the serenity of sunsets; the sublimity of
storms ; everything is bestowed in bound
less profusion on the scene of our exist1 Epictetus,
? The Enigmas of Life.
7
ence ; we can conceive or desire nothing
more exquisite or perfect than what is
round us every hour; and our percep
tions are so framed as to be consciously
alive to all. The provision made for our
sensuous enjoyment is in overflowing
abundance ; so is that for the other
elements of our complex nature. Who
that has revelled in the opening ecstasies
of a young Imagination, or the rich
marvels of the world of Thought, does not
confess that the Intelligence has been
dowered at least with as profuse a benefi
cence as the Senses ? Who that has truly
tasted and fathomed human Love in its
dawning and crowning joys has not
thanked God for a felicity which indeed
‘passeth understanding.’ If we had set
our fancy to picture a Creator occupied
solely in devising delight for children
whom he loved, we could not conceive
one single element of bliss which is not
here.”
CHAPTER II
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY1
“I am always content with that which
happens ; for I think that what God chooses is
better than what I choose.”
Epictetus.
“ 0 God, All conquering ! this lower earth
Would be for men the blest abode of mirth
If they were strong in Thee
As other things of this world well are seen ;
Oh then, far other than they yet have been,
How happy would men be.”
King Alfred’s ed. of Boethius’s
Consolations of Philosophy.
We ought not to picture Duty to our
selves, or to others, as a stern taskmistress.
She is rather a kind and sympathetic
mother, ever ready to shelter us from the
cares and anxieties of this world, and to
guide us in the paths of peace.
To shut oneself up from mankind i°,
in most cases, to lead a dull, as well as a
selfish life. Our duty is to make ourselves
useful, and thus life may be made most
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Harris Institute, Preston.
�8
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
interesting, while yet comparatively free if we have done our best to make others
from anxiety.
happy; to promote “ peace on earth and
But how can we fill our lives with life, goodwill amongst men.” Nothing, again,
energy, and interest, and yet keep care can do more to release us from the cares
outside ?
of this world, which consume so much of
Many great men have made shipwreck our time, and embitter so much of our
in the attempt. “ Anthony sought for life. When we have done our best, we
happiness in love ; Brutus in glory; Cfesar should wait the result in peace ; content,
in dominion : the first found disgrace, the as Epictetus says, “with that which
second disgust, the last ingratitude, and happens, for what God chooses is better
each destruction.” 1 Riches, again, often than what I choose.”
bring danger, trouble, and temptation ■
At any rate, if we have not effected all
they require care to keep, though they we wished, we shall have influenced our
may give much happiness if wisely spent. selves. It may be true that one cannot
How then is this great object to be do much. “You are not Hercules, and
secured ? What, says Marcus Aurelius, you are not able to purge away the wicked
“ What is that which is able to conduct ness of others ; nor yet are you Theseus,
a man ? One thing and only one—philo able to drive away the evil things of
sophy. But this consists in keeping the Attica. But you may clear away your
daemon 2 within a man free from violence own. From yourself, from your own
and unharmed, superior to pains and thoughts, cast away, instead of Procrustes
pleasures, doing nothing without a pur and Sciron,1 sadness, fear, desire, envy,
pose, yet not falsely and with hypocrisy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intem
not feeling the need of another man’s perance. But it is not possible to eject
doing or not doing anything ; and besides, these things otherwise than by looking to
accepting all that happens, and all that God only, by fixing your affections on
is allotted, as coming from thence, where- Him only, by being consecrated by His
ever it is, from whence he himself came ; commands.” 2
and, finally, waiting for death with a
Duty does not imply restraint. People ’
cheerful mind, as being nothing else than sometimes think how delightful it would
a dissolution of the elements of which be to be quite free. But a fish, as Ruskin
every living being is compounded.” I con says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly,
fess I do not feel the force of these last few it is “a black incarnation of freedom.”
words, which indeed scarcely seem requisite A life of so-called pleasure and self-indul
for his argument. The thought of death, gence is not a life of real happiness or
however, certainly influences the conduct true freedom. Far from it, if we once
of life less than might have been expected. begin to give way to ourselves, we fall
Bacon truly points out that “there is under a most intolerable tyranny. Other
no passion in the mind of man so weak, temptations are in some respects like that
but it mates and masters the fear of of drink. At first, perhaps, it seems
death. . . . Revenge triumphs over death, delightful, but there is bitterness at the
love slights it, honour aspireth to it, grief bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy
flieth to it.”
the desire created by previous indulgence.
So it is in other things. Repetition soon
“Think not I dread to see my spirit fly
Through the dark gates of fell mortality;
becomes a craving, not a pleasure. Re
Death has no terrors when the life is true ;
sistance grows more and more painful;
’Tis living ill that makes us fear to die.” 3
yielding, which at first, perhaps, afforded
We need certainly have no such fear some slight and temporary gratification,
1 Colton, Lacon, or Many Things in Few soon ceases to give pleasure, and even if
JFotyZs.
2 J.e. spirit.
I
3 Omar Khayyam.
1 Two robbers destroyed by Theseus.
2 Epictetus.
�CHAP. II
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
9
for a time it procures relief, ere long have of the Universe must in some measure
damp personal ambition. What it is to be
becomes odious itself.
To resist is difficult, to give way is pain king, sheikh, tetrarch, or emperor over a
ful ; until at length the wretched victim ‘ bit of a bit ’ of this little earth ? ” “ All
to himself can only purchase, or thinks rising to great place,” says Bacon, “ is by
he can only purchase, temporary relief from a winding stair; ” and “ princes are like
intolerable craving and depression, at the heavenly bodies, which have much vener
expense of even greater suffering in the ation, but no rest.”
Plato in the Republic mentions an old
future.
On the other hand, self-control, how myth that after death every soul has to
ever difficult at first, becomes step by step choose a lot in life for the existence in the
easier and more delightful. We possess next world ; and he tells us that the wise
mysteriously a sort of dual nature, and Ulysses searched for a considerable time
there are few truer triumphs, or more for the lot of a private man. He had
delightful sensations, than to obtain some difficulty in finding it, as it was lying
neglected in a corner, but when he had
thorough command of oneself.
How much pleasanter it is to ride a secured it he was delighted ; the recollec
spirited horse, even perhaps though requir tion of all he had gone through on earth
ing some strength and skill, than to creep having disenchanted him of ambition.
along upon a jaded hack. In the one
Moreover, there is a great deal of
case you feel under you the free, re drudgery in the lives of courts. Cere
sponsive spring of a living and willing monials may be important, but they take
force ; in the other you have to spur a up much time and are terribly tedious.
dull and lifeless slave.
A man then is his own best kingdom.
To rule oneself is in reality the greatest “ He that ruleth his spirit,” says
triumph. “ He who is his own monarch,” Solomon, “ is better than he that taketh
says Sir T. Browne, “ contentedly sways a city.” But self-control, this truest and
the sceptre of himself, not envying the greatest monarchy, rarely comes by in
glory to crowned heads and Elohim of the heritance. Every one of us must conquer
earth ; ” for those are really highest who himself; and we may do so, if we take
are nearest to heaven, and those are low conscience for our guide and general.
est who are farthest from it.
No one really fails who does his best.
True greatness has little, if anything, Seneca observes that “no one saith the
to do with rank or power. “ Eurystheus three hundred Fabii were defeated, but
being what he was,” says Epictetus, “ was that they were slain,” and if you have
not really king of Argos nor of Mycenee, done your best, you will, in the words of
for he could not even rule himself ; while an old Norse ballad, have gained
Hercules purged lawlessness and intro
“ Success in thyself, which is best of all.”
duced justice, though he was both naked
and alone.”
Being myself engaged in business, I was
We are told that Cineas the philosopher rather startled to find it laid down by no
once asked Pyrrhus what he would do less an authority than Aristotle (almost as
when he had conquered Italy. “ I will if it were a self-evident proposition) that
conquer Sicily.” “And after Sicily?” commerce “ is incompatible with that
“ Then Africa.” “ And after you have dignified life which it is to be wished that
conquered the world ? ” “I will take my our citizens should lead, and totally ad
ease and be merry.” “ Then,” asked verse to that generous elevation of mind
Cineas, “ why can you not take your ease with which it is our ambition to inspire
and be merry now ? ”
them.” I know not how far that may
Moreover, as Sir Arthur Helps has really have been the spirit and tendency
wisely pointed out, “ the enlarged view we of commerce among the ancient Greeks;
�IO
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
but if so, I do not wonder that it was not
more successful.
I may, indeed, quote Aristotle against
himself, for he has elsewhere told us that
“business should be chosen for the sake
of leisure ; and things necessary and useful
for the sake of the beautiful in conduct.”
It is not true that the ordinary duties
of life in a country like ours—agriculture,
manufactures, and commerce,—the pur
suits to which the vast majority are and
must be devoted—are incompatible with
the dignity or nobility of life. Whether
a life is noble or ignoble depends, not on
the calling which is adopted, but on the
spirit in which it is followed. The
humblest life may be noble, while that of
the most powerful monarch or the greatest
genius may be contemptible. Commerce,
indeed, is not only compatible, but I
would almost go further and say that it
will be most successful, if carried on in
happy union with noble aims and generous
aspirations. What Ruskin says of art is,
with due modification, true of life gener
ally. It does not matter whether a man
“ paint the petal of a rose or the chasms
of a precipice, so that love and admiration
attend on him as he labours, and wait for
ever on his work. It does not matter
whether he toil for months on a few
inches of his canvas, or cover a palace
front with colour in a day ; so only that
it be with a solemn purpose, that he have
filled his heart with patience, or urged his
hand to haste.’’
It is true that in a subsequent volume
he refers to this passage, and adds, “ But
though all is good for study, and all is
beautiful, some is better than the rest for
the help and pleasure of others ; and this
it is our duty always to choose if we have
opportunity,” adding, however, “ being
quite happy with what is within our
reach if we have not.”
We read of and admire the heroes of
old, but every one of us has to fight his
ow’n Marathon and ThermopyIse ; every
one meets the Sphinx sitting by the road
he has to pass ; to each of us, as to
Hercules, is offered the choice of Vice or
PART I
Virtue; we may, like Paris, give the apple
of life to Venus, or Juno, or Minerva.
There are many who seem to think that
we have fallen on an age in the world
when life is especially difficult and anxious,
when there is less leisure than of yore,
and the struggle for existence is keener
than ever.
On the other hand, we must remember
how much we have gained in security?
It may be an age of hard work, but -when
this is not carried to an extreme, it is by
no means an evil. If we have less leisure,
one reason is because life is so full of
interest. Cheerfulness is the daughter of
employment, and on the whole I believe
there never was a time when modest
merit and patient industry were more
sure of reward.
We must not, indeed, be discouraged if
success be slow in coming, nor puffed up
if it comes quickly. We often complain
of the nature of things when the fault is
all in ourselves. Seneca, in one of his
letters, mentions that his wife’s maid,
Harpaste, had nearly lost her eyesight,
but “ she knoweth not she is blind, she
saith the house is dark. This that seemeth
ridiculous unto us in her, happeneth unto
us all. No man understandeth that he is
covetous, or avaricious. He saith, I am
not ambitious, but no man can otherwise
live in Rome ; I am not sumptuous, but
the city requireth great expense.”
Newman, in perhaps the most beautiful
of his hymns, “ Lead, kindly light,” says :
“ Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me. ”
But we must be sure that we are really
following some trustworthy guide, and not
out of mere laziness allowing ourselves to
drift. We have a guide within us which
will generally lead us straight enough.
Religion, no doubt, is full of difficulties,
but if we are often puzzled what to think,
we need seldom be in doubt what to do.
“ To say well is good, but to do well is better ;
Do well is the spirit, and say well the letter ;
If do well and say well were fitted in one frame,
All were won, all were done, and. got were all
the gain.”
�THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
CHAP. II
il
Cleanthes, who appears to have well every fourth. But if you have inter
merited the statue erected to him at mitted thirty days, make a sacrifice to
God. For the habit at first begins to be
Assos, says :
weakened, and then is completely de
“ Lead me, 0 Zeus, and thou, 0 Destiny,
stroyed. When you can say, ‘ I have not
The way that I am bid by you to go :
To follow I am ready. If I choose not,
been vexed to-day, nor the .day before, nor
I make myself a wretch ;—and still must yet on any succeeding day during two or
follow.”
three months ; but I took care when some
If we are ever in doubt what to do, it exciting things happened,’ be assured that
is a good rule to ask ourselves what we you are in a good way.” 1
Emerson closes his Conduct of Life
shall wish on the morrow that we had
with a striking allegory.
The young
done.
Moreover, the result in the long run Mortal enters the Hall of the Firmament.
will depend not so much on some single The Gods are sitting there, and he is
resolution, or on our action in a special alone with them. They pour on him
case, but rather on the preparation of gifts and blessings, and beckon him to
daily life. Battles are often won before their thrones. But between him and
they are fought. To control our passions them suddenly appear snow-storms of
we must govern our habits, and keep illusions. He imagines himself in a vast
watch over ourselves in the small details crowd, whose behests he fancies he must
obey. The mad crowd drives hither and
of everyday life.
The importance of small things has thither, and sways this way and that.
been pointed out by philosophers over What is he that he should resist ? He
and over again from jEsop downwards. lets himself be«carried about. How can
“ Great without small makes a bad wall,” he think or act for himself? But the
says a quaint Greek proverb, which seems clouds lift, and there are the Gods still
to go back to cyclopean times. In an old sitting on their thrones ; they alone with
Hindoo story Ammi says to his son, him alone.
“ The great man,” he elsewhere says,
“ Bring me a fruit of that tree and break
it open. What is there ? ” The son said, “is he who in the midst of the crowd
“ Some small seeds.” “ Break one of keeps with perfect sweetness the serenity
them and what do you see ? ” “ Nothing, of solitude.”
We may all, indeed, if we will, secure
my lord.”
“ My child,” said Ammi,
“where you see nothing there dwells a peace of mind for ourselves.
“ Men seek retreats,” says Marcus Au
mighty tree.” It may almost be questioned
whether anything can be truly called relius, “ houses in the country, sea-shores,
and mountains ; and thou too art wont
small.
to desire such things very much. But
“ There is no great and no small
this is altogether a mark of the most
To the soul that maketh all ;
common sort of men ; for it is in thv
And where it cometh all things are,
And it cometh everywhere.” 1
power whenever thou shalt choose, to
We should therefore watch ourselves in retire into thyself. For nowhere either
small things. If “ you wish not to be of with more quiet or more freedom from
an angry temper, do not feed the habit: trouble does a man retire, than into his
throw nothing on it which will increase own soul, particularly when he has within
it: at first keep quiet, and count the days him such thoughts that by looking into
on which you have not been angry. I them he is immediately in perfect tran
used to be in a passion every day ; now quillity.”
Happy indeed is he who has such a
every second day ; then every third ; then
sanctuary in his own soul. “He who is
1 Emerson.
1 Epictetus.
�12
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
virtuous is wise ; and he who is wise is
good ; and he who is good is happy.” 1
But we cannot expect to be happy if
we do not lead pure and useful lives. To
be good company for ourselves we must
store our minds well ; fill them with pure
and peaceful thoughts ; with pleasant
memories of the past, and reasonable
hopes for the future. We must, as far
as may be, protect ourselves from selfreproach, from care, and from anxiety. We
shall make our lives pure and peaceful,
by resisting evil, by placing restraint upon
our appetites, and perhaps even more by
strengthening and developing our tend
encies to good. We must be careful, then,
on what we allow our minds to dwell.
The soul is dyed by its thoughts; we
cannot keep our minds pure if we allow
them to be sullied by detailed accounts
of crime and sin. Peace of mind, as
Ruskin beautifully observes, “ must come
in its own time, as the waters settle
themselves into clearness as well as quiet
ness ; you can no more filter your mind
into purity than you can compress it into
calmness ; you must keep it pure if you
would have it pure, and throw no stones
into it if you would have it quiet.”
The penalty of injustice, said Socrates,
is not death or stripes, but the fatal neces
sity of becoming more and more unjust.
Few men have led a wiser or more
virtuous life than Socrates himself, of
whom Xenophon gives us the following
description :—“ To me, being such as I
have described him, so pious that he did
nothing without the sanction of the gods;
so just, that he wronged no man even in
the most trifling affair, but was of service
in the most important matters to those
who enjoyed his society ; so temperate
that he never preferred pleasure to virtue;
so wise, that he never erred in distinguish
ing better from worse ; needing no counsel
from others, but being sufficient in himself
to discriminate between them ; so able to
explain and settle such questions by argu
ment ; and so capable of discerning the
character of others, of confuting those
1 King Alfred’s Boethius.
PART I
who were in error, and of exhorting them
to virtue and honour, he seemed to be
such as the best and happiest of men
would be. But if any one disapproves
of my opinion let him compare the con
duct of others with that of Socrates, and
determine accordingly.”
Marcus Aurelius again has drawn for us
a most instructive lesson in his character
of Antoninus:—“Remember his constancy
in every act which was conformable to
reason, his evenness in all things, his
piety, the serenity of his countenance,
his sweetness, his disregard of empty
fame, and his efforts to understand things ;
how he would never let anything pass
without having first most carefully ex
amined it and clearly understood it ; how
he bore with those who blamed him
unjustly without blaming them in return;
how he did nothing in a hurry; how he
listened not to calumnies, and how exact
an examiner of manners and actions he
was ; not given to reproach people, nor
timid, nor suspicious, nor a sophist; with
how little he was satisfied, such as lodging,
bed, dress, food, servants ; how laborious
and patient ; how sparing he was in his
diet; his firmness and uniformity in his
friendships ; how he tolerated freedom of
speech in those who opposed his opinions;
the pleasure that he had when any man
showed him anything better ; and how
pious he was without superstition. Imi
tate all this that thou mayest have as
good a conscience, when thy last hour
comes, as he had.”
Such peace of mind is indeed an in
estimable boon, a rich reward of duty
fulfilled. Well then does Epictetus ask,
“Is there no reward? Do you seek a
reward greater than that of doing what
is good and just ? At Olympia you wish
for nothing more, but it seems to you
enough to be crowned at the games.
Does it then seem to you so small and
worthless a thing to be good and happy?”
In Bernard of Morlaix’s beautiful
lines —
“ Pax erit ilia fidelibus, ilia beata
Irrevocabilis, Invariabilis, Intemerata.
�A SONG OF BOOKS
CHAP. Ill .
13
Pax sine crimine, pax sine turbine, pax sine himself to-be a zealous follower of truth,
rixa,
of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or
Meta Laboribus, inque tumultibus anchora
even of the faith, must of necessity make
fixa ;
Pax erit omnibus unica. Sed quibus ? Im- himself a lover of books.” But if the
maculatis
debt were great then, how much more
Pectore niitibus, ordine stantibus, ore sacratis.” now.
What greater reward can we have than
this ; than the “peace which passeth all
understanding,” which “ cannot be gotten
for gold, neither shall silver be weighed
for the price thereof.” 1
CHAPTER III
A SONG OF BOOKS2
“ Oil for a booke and a sliadie nooke,
Eyther in doore or out;
With the grene leaves whispering overhead
Or the streete cryes all about.
Where I maie reade all at my ease,
Both of the newe and old ;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde.”
Old English Song.
Of all the privileges we enjoy in this
nineteenth century there is none, perhaps,
for which we ought to be more thankful
than for the easier access to books.
The debt we owe to books -was well
expressed by Richard de Bury, Bishop of
Durham, author of Philobiblon, written
as long ago as 1344, published in 1473,
and the earliest English treatise on the
delights of literature :—“ These,” he says,
“ are the masters who instruct us without
rods and ferules, without hard words and
anger, without clothes or money. If you
approach them, they are not asleep; if
investigating you interrogate them, they
conceal nothing ; if you mistake them,
they never grumble ; if you are ignorant,
they cannot laugh at you. The library,
therefore, of wisdom is more precious
than all riches, and nothing that can be
wished for is worthy to be compared with
it. Whosoever therefore acknowledges
1 Job.
2 Delivered at the Working Men’s College.
This feeling that books are real friends
is constantly present to all who love read
ing. “ I have friends,” said Petrarch,
“ whose society is extremely agreeable to
me ; they are of all ages, and of every
country. They have distinguished them
selves both in the cabinet and in the
field, and obtained high honours for their
knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to
gain access to them, for they are always
at my service, and I admit them to my
company, and dismiss them from it,
whenever I please. They are never
troublesome, but immediately answer every
question I ask them. Some relate to me
the events of past ages, while others
reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some
teach me how to live, and others how to
die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away
my cares and exhilarate my spirits ; while
others give fortitude to my mind, and
teach me the important lesson how to
restrain my desires, and to depend wholly
on myself. They open to me, in short,
the various avenues of all the arts and
sciences, and upon their information I
may safely rely in all emergencies. In
return for all their services, they only ask
me to accommodate them with a con
venient chamber in some corner of my
humble habitation, where they may
repose in peace; for these friends are
more delighted by the tranquillity of
retirement than with the tumults of
society.”
“ He that loveth a book,” says Isaac
Barrow, “ will never want a faithful
friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheer
ful companion, an effectual comforter.
By study, by reading, by thinking, one
may innocently divert and pleasantly
entertain himself, as in all weathers, so
in all fortunes.”
Southey took a rather more melancholy
view :
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
“My days among the dead are pass’d,
Around me I_beliold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.”
Imagine, in the words of Aikin, “ that
we had it in our power to call up the
shades of the greatest and wisest men
that ever existed, and oblige them to con
verse with us on the most interesting
topics—what an inestimable privilege
should we think it !—how superior to all
common enjoyments! But in a wellfurnished library we, in fact, possess this
power. We can question Xenophon and
Csesar on their campaigns, make Demos
thenes and Cicero plead before us, join in
the audiences of Socrates and Plato, and
receive demonstrations from Euclid and
Newton. In books we have the choicest
thoughts of the ablest men in their best
dress.”
“Books,” says Jeremy Collier, “are a
guide in youth and an entertainment for
age. They support us under solitude,
and keep us from being a burthen to
ourselves. They help us to forget the
crossness of men and things ; compose
our cares and our passions ; and lay our
disappointments asleep. When we are
weary of the living, we may repair to
the dead, who have nothing of peevish
ness, pride, or design in their conversa
tion.”
Sir John Herschel tells an amusing
anecdote illustrating the pleasure derived
from a book, not assuredly of the first
order. In a certain village the black
smith having got hold of Richardson’s
novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, used
to sit on his anvil in the long summer
evenings and read it aloud to a large and
attentive audience. It is by no means a
short book, but they fairly listened to it
alL At length, when the happy turn of
fortune arrived, which brings the hero
and heroine together, and sets them living
long and happily together according to
the most approved rules, the congregation
were so delighted as to raise a great shout,
PART I
and procuring the church keys, actually
set the parish bells a-ringing.
“The lover of reading,” says Leigh
Hunt, “will derive agreeable terror from
Sir Bertram and the Haunted Chamber;
will assent with delighted reason to every
sentence in Mrs. Barbauld’s Essay; will
feel himself wandering into solitudes with
Gray; shake honest hands with Sir Roger
de Coverley; be ready to embrace Parson
Adams, and to chuck Pounce out of the
window instead of the hat ; will travel
with Marco Polo and Mungo Parle; stay
at home with Thomson; retire with
Cowley; be industrious with Hutton;
sympathising with Gay and Mrs. Inch
bald; laughing with (and at) Buncle;
melancholy, and forlorn, and self-restored
with the shipwrecked mariner of De Foe.”
Carlyle has wisely said that a collection
of books is a real university.
The importance of books has been
appreciated in many quarters where we
might least expect it. Among the hardy
Norsemen runes were supposed to be
endowed with miraculous power. There
is an Arabic proverb, that “a wise man’s
day is worth a fool’s life,” and another—
though it reflects, perhaps, rather the
spirit of the Califs than of the Sultans,—
that “ the ink of science is more precious
than the blood of the martyrs.”
Confucius is said to have described
himself as a man who “ in his eager pur
suit of knowledge forgot his food, who
in the joy of its attainment forgot his
sorrows, and did not even perceive that
old age was coming on.”
Yet, if this could be said by the Arabs
and the Chinese, what language can be
strong enough to express the gratitude we
ought to feel for the advantages we enjoy !
We do not appreciate, I think, our good
fortune in belonging to the nineteenth
century. Sometimes, indeed, one may
even be inclined to wish that one had not
lived quite so soon, and to long for a
glimpse of the books, even the school
books, of one hundred years hence. A
hundred years ago not only were books
extremely expensive and cumbrous, but
�CHAP .III
A SONG OF BOOKS
many of the most delightful were still
uncreated—such as the works of Scott,
Thackeray, Dickens, Shelley, and Byron,
not to mention living authors. How
much more interesting science has become
especially, if I were to mention only one
name, through the genius of Darwin!
Renan has characterised this as a most
amusing century; I should rather have
described it as most interesting : present
ing us as it does with an endless vista of
absorbing problems ; with infinite oppor
tunities ; with more interest and less
danger than surrounded our less fortunate
ancestors.
Cicero described a room without books,
as a body without a soul. But it is by no
means necessary to be a philosopher to
love reading.
Reading, indeed, is by no means neces
sarily study. Far from it. “ I put,” says
Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent
article on the “ Choice of Books,” “ I
put the poetic and emotional side of
literature as the most needed for daily
use.”
In the prologue to the Legende of Goode
Women, Chaucer says :
“ And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to him give I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have him in reverence,
So hertely, that tlier is game noon,
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seidome on the holy day,
Save, certynly, when that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farwel my boke and my devocion.”
But I doubt whether, if he had enjoyed
our advantages, he could have been so
certain of tearing himself away, even in
the month of May.
Macaulay, who had all that wealth and
fame, rank and talents could give, yet, we
are told, derived his greatest happiness
from books. Sir G. Trevelyan, in his
charming biography, says that—“of the
feelings which Macaulay entertained to
wards the great minds of bygone ages it is
not for any one except himself to speak.
He has told us how his debt to them was
IS
incalculable; how they guided him to
truth; how they filled his mind with
noble and graceful images ; how they stood
by him in all vicissitudes—comforters in
sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in
solitude, the old friends who are never
seen with new faces ; who are the same in
wealth and in poverty, in glory and in
obscurity. Great as were the honours and
possessions which Macaulay acquired by his
pen, all who knew him were well aware
that the titles and rewards which he gained
by his own works were as nothing in the
balance compared with the pleasure he
derived from the works of others.”
There was no society in London so agree
able that Macaulay would have preferred
it at breakfast or at dinner “ to the com
pany of Sterne or Fielding, Horace Wal
pole or Boswell.” The love of reading
which Gibbon declared he would not ex
change for all the treasures of India was,
in fact, with Macaulay “ a main element of
happiness in one of the happiest lives that
it has ever fallen to the lot of the bio
grapher to record.”
“History,” says Fuller, “maketh a
young man to be old without either
wrinkles or gray hair, privileging him
with the experience of age without either
the infirmities or the inconveniences
thereof.”
So delightful indeed are books that we
must be careful not to forget other duties
for them; in cultivating the mind we
must not neglect the body.
To the lover of literature or science,
exercise often presents itself as an irksome
duty, and many a one has felt like “ the
fair pupil of Ascham (Lady Jane Grey),
who, while the horns were sounding and
dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel,
with eyes riveted to that immortal page
which tells how meekly and bravely
(Socrates) the first martyr of intellectual
liberty took the cup from his weeping
jailer.” 1
Still, as the late Lord Derby justly ob
served,2 those who do not find time for
1 Macaulay.
2 Address, Liverpool College, 1873.
�i6
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
exercise will have to find time for ill
ness.
Books, again, are now so cheap as to be
within the reach of almost every one.
This was not always so. It is quite a
recent blessing. Mr. Ireland, to whose
charming little Book Lover's Enchiridion,
in common with every lover of reading, I
am greatly indebted, tells us that when
a boy he was so delighted with White’s
Natural History of Selborne, that in order
to possess a copy of his own he actually
copied out the whole work.
Mary Lamb gives a pathetic description
of a studious boy lingering at a bookstall :
“ I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he’d devour it all;
Which, when the*stall man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
‘ You, sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look.’
The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl’s books he should have
had no need.”
Such snatches of literature have, indeed,
a special and peculiar charm. This is, I
believe, partly due to the very fact of
their being brief. Many readers miss
much of the pleasure of reading by forceing themselves to dwell too long con
tinuously on one subject. In a long
railway journey, for instance, many persons
take only a single book. The consequence
is that, unless it is a story, after half an
hour or an hour they are quite tired of it.
Whereas, if they had two, or still better
three books, on different subjects, and one
of them of an amusing character, they
would probably find that, by changing as
soon as they felt at all weary, they would
come back again and again to each with
renewed zest, and hour after hour would
pass pleasantly away. Every one, of
course, must judge for himself, but such
at least is my experience.
I quite agree, therefore, with Lord
Iddesleigh as to the charm of desultory
reading, but the wider the field the more
important that we should benefit by the
very best books in each class. Not that we
PART I
need confine ourselves to them, but that
we should commence with them, and they
will certainly lead us on to others. There
are of course some books which we must
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
But these are exceptions. As regards by
far the larger number, it is probably
better to read them quickly, dwelling only
on the best and most important passages.
In this way, no doubt, we shall lose much,
but we gain more by ranging over a wider
field. We may, in fact, I think, apply to
reading Lord Brougham’s wise dictum as
regards education, and say that it is well
to read everything of something, and
something of everything. In this way
only we can ascertain the bent of our
own tastes, for it is a general, though not
of course an invariable, rule, that we
profit little by books which we do not enjoy.
Every one, however, may suit himself.
The variety is endless.
Not only does a library contain “in
finite riches in a little room,” 1 but we
may sit at home and yet be in all quarters
of the earth. We may travel round the
world with Captain Cook or Darwin,
with Kingsley or Ruskin, who will show
us much more perhaps than ever we
should see for ourselves.
The world
itself has no limits for us ; Humboldt
and Herschel will carry us far away to
the mysterious nebulas, beyond the sun
and even the stars : time has no more
bounds than space; history stretches out
behind us, and geology will carry us back
for millions of years before the creation
of man, even to the origin of the material
Universe itself. Nor are we limited to
one plane of thought.
Aristotle and
Plato will transport us into a sphere none
the less delightful because we cannot
appreciate it without some training.
Comfort and consolation, peace and
happiness, may indeed be found in his
library by any one “ who shall bring the
golden key that unlocks its silent door.” 2
A library is true fairyland, a very palace
of delight, a haven of repose from the
storms and troubles of the world. Rich
1 Marlowe.
2 Matthews.
�THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
CHAP. IV
and poor can enjoy it alike, for here, at
least, wealth gives no advantage. We
may make a library, if we do but rightly
use it, a true paradise on earth, a garden
of Eden without its one drawback ; for
all is open to us, including, and especially,
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for
which we are told that our first mother
sacrificed all the Pleasures of Paradise.
Here we may read the most important
histories, the most exciting volumes of
travels and adventures, the most interest
ing stories, the most beautiful poems ; we
may meet the most eminent statesmen,
poets, and philosophers, benefit by the
ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy
the grandest creations of human genius.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS 1
“ All round the room my silent servants wait—
My friends in every season, bright and dim,
Angels and Seraphim
Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,
And spirits of the skies all come and go
Early and Late.”
Proctor.
And yet too often they wait in vain.
One reason for this is, I think, that people
are overwhelmed by the crowd of books
offered to them.
In old days books were rare and dear.
Now on the contrary, it may be said with
greater truth than ever that
“Words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think.”2
Our ancestors had great difficulty in pro
curing books. Ours now is what to select.
We must be careful what we read, and
not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags
of wind for sacks of treasure—not only
lest we should even now fall into the
error of the Greeks, and suppose that
1 Delivered at the London Working Men’s
College.
2 Byron.
c
17
language and definitions can be instru
ments of investigation as well as of
thought, but lest, as too often happens,
we should waste time over trash. There
are many books to which one may apply,
in the sarcastic sense, the ambiguous
remark which Lord Beaconsfield made to
an unfortunate author, “ I will lose no
time in reading your book.”
There are, indeed, books and books ;
and there are books which, as Lamb said,
are not books at all. It is wonderful
how much innocent happiness we thought
lessly throw away. An Eastern proverb
says that calamities sent by heaven may
be avoided, but from those we bring on
ourselves there is no escape.
Many, I believe, are deterred from
attempting what are called stiff books for
fear they should not understand them ;
but there are few* who need complain of
the narrowness of their minds, if only
they would do their best with them.
In reading, however, it is most im
portant to select subjects in which one is
interested. I remember years ago con
sulting Mr. Darwin as to the selection of
a course of study. He asked me what
interested me most, and advised me to
choose that subject. This, indeed, applies
to the work of life generally.
I am sometimes disposed to think that
the great readers of the next generation
will be, not our lawyers and doctors,
shopkeepers and manufacturers, but the
labourers and mechanics. Does not this
seem natural1? The former work mainly
with their head ; when their daily duties
are over, the brain is often exhausted, and
of their leisure time much must be de
voted to air and exercise. The labourer
and mechanic, on the contrary, besides
working often for much shorter hours,
have in their work-time taken sufficient
bodily exercise, and could therefore give
any leisure they might have to reading
and study. They have not done so as
yet, it is true ; but this has been for
obvious reasons. Now, however, in the
first place, they receive an excellent edu
cation in elementary schools, and in the
�i8
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
second have more easy access to the best
books.
Ruskin has observed that he is not sur
prised at what men suffer, but he often
wonders at what they lose. We suffer
much, no doubt, from the faults of others,
but we lose much more by our own
ignorance.
“ If,” says Sir John Herschel, “ I were
to pray for a taste which should stand
me in stead under every variety of cir
cumstances, and be a source of happiness
and cheerfulness to me through life, and
a shield against its ills, however things
might go amiss and the world frown upon
me, it would be a taste for reading. I
speak of it of course only as a worldly
advantage, and not in the slightest degree
as superseding or derogating from the
higher office and surer and stronger
panoply of religious principles—but as
a taste, an instrument, and a mode of
pleasurable gratification.
Give a man
this taste, and the means of gratifying it,
and you can hardly fail of making a
happy man, unless, indeed, you put into
his hands a most perverse selection of
books.”
It is one thing to own a library ; it
is quite another to use it wisely. I
have often been astonished how little care
people devote to the selection of ■what
they read. Books, we know, are almost
innumerable ; our hours for reading are,
alas ! very few. And yet many people
read almost by hazard. They will take
any book they chance to find in a room
at a friend’s house ; they will buy a novel
at a railway-stall if it has an attractive
title ; indeed, I believe in some cases even
the binding affects their choice.
The
selection is, no doubt, far from easy. I
have often wished some one would re
commend a list of a hundred good books.
If we had such lists drawn up by a few
good guides they would be most useful.
I have indeed sometimes heard it said
that in reading every one must choose for
himself, but this reminds me of the re
commendation not to go into the water
till you can swim.
PART I
In the absence of such lists I have
picked out the books most frequently
mentioned with approval by those who
have referred directly or indirectly to the
pleasure of reading, and have ventured to
include some which, though less frequently
mentioned, are especial favourites of my
own. Every one who looks at the list
will wish to suggest other books, as indeed
I should myself, but in that case the
number would soon run up.1
I have abstained, for obvious reasons,
from mentioning works by living authors,
though from many of them I have myself
derived the keenest enjoyment; and I
have omitted works on science, with one
or two exceptions, because the subject is
so progressive.
I feel that the attempt is over bold,
and I must beg for indulgence, while
hoping for criticism ; indeed one object
which I have had in view is to stimu
late others more competent than I am to
give us the advantage of their opinions.
Moreover, I must repeat that I suggest
these works rather as those which, as far
as I have seen, have been most frequently
recommended, than as suggestions of my
own, though I have slipped in a few of
my own special favourites.
In any such selection much weight
should, I think, be attached to the general
verdict of mankind. There is a “ struggle
for existence ” and a “ survival of the
fittest” among books, as well as among
animals and plants. As Alonzo of Aragon
said, “Age is a recommendation in four
things—old wood to burn, old wine to
drink, old friends to trust, and old books
to read.” Still, this cannot be accepted
without important qualifications.
The
most recent books of history and science
contain, or ought to contain, the most
accurate information and the most trust
worthy conclusions. Moreover, while the
1 Several longer lists have been given ; for
instance, by Comte, Catechism of Positive Philo
sophy ; Pycroft, Course of English Pleading;
Baldwin, The, Book Lover; Perkins, The Best
Reading ; and by Ireland, Books for General
Readers.
�CHAP. IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
books of other races and times have an
interest from their very distance, it must
be admitted that many will still more
enjoy, and feel more at home with, those
of our own century and people.
Yet the oldest books of the world are
remarkable and interesting on account
of their very age; and the works which
have influenced the opinions, or charmed
the leisure hours, of millions of men in
distant times and far-away regions are
well worth reading on that very account,
even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve
their reputation.
It is true that to
many, such works are accessible only in
translations ; but translations, though
they can never perhaps do justice to the
original, may yet be admirable in them
selves. The Bible itself, which must
stand first in the list, is a conclusive
case.
At the head of all non- Christian
moralists, I must place the Enchiridion
of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius, certainly two of the noblest
books in the whole of literature ; and
which, moreover, have both been admir
ably translated. The Analects of Con
fucius will, I believe, prove disappointing
to most English readers, but the effect it
has produced on the most numerous race
of men constitutes in itself a peculiar
interest. The Ethics of Aristotle, per
haps, appear to some disadvantage from
the very fact that they have so profoundly
influenced our views of morality. The
Koran, like the Analects of Confucius,
will to most of us derive its principal
interest from the effect it has exercised,
and still exercises, on so many millions of
our fellow-men. I doubt whether in any
other respect it will seem to repay per
usal, and to most persons probably certain
extracts, not too numerous, would appear
sufficient.
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers
have been collected in one volume by
Wake. It is but a small one, and though
I must humbly confess that I vas dis
appointed, they are perhaps all the more
curious from the contrast they afford to
19
those of the Apostles themselves. Of the
later Fathers I have included only the
Confessions of St. Augustine, which Dr.
Pusey selected for the commencement of
the Library of the Fathers, and which, as
he observes, has “ been translated again
and again into almost every European
language, and in all loved ; ” though
Luther was of opinion that St. Augustine
“ wrote nothing to the purpose concerning
faith.” But then Luther was no great
admirer of the Fathers. St. Jerome, he
says, “ writes, alas ! very coldly ; ” Chrys
ostom “ digresses from the chief points ; ”
St. Jerome is “very poor;” and in fact,
he says, “ the more I read the. books of the
Fathers the more I find myself offended ; ”
while Renan, in his interesting auto
biography, compared theology to a Gothic
Cathedral, “ elle a la grandeur, les vides
immenses, et le peu de solidite.”
Among other devotional works most
frequently recommended are Thomas a
Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Pascal’s
Pensees, Spinoza’s Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus, Butler’s Analogy of Religion,
Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying,
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and last, not
least, Keble’s beautiful Christian Year.
Aristotle and Plato stand at the head
of another class. The Politics of Aristotle,
and Plato’s Dialogues, if not the whole,
at any rate the Phcedo, the Apology, and
the Republic, will be of course read by all
who wish to know anything of the history
of human thought, though I am heretical
enough to doubt whether the latter repays
the minute and laborious study often
devoted to it.
Aristotle being the father, if not the
creator, of the modern scientific method,
it has followed naturally—indeed, almost
inevitably—that his principles have be
come part of our very intellectual being,
so that they seem now almost self-evident
while his actual observations, though very
remarkable—as, for instance, when he
observes that bees on one journey confine
themselves to one kind of flower—still
have been in many cases superseded by
others, carried on under more favourable
�20
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
conditions. We must not be ungrateful
to the great master, because his own
lessons have taught us how to advance.
Plato, on the other hand, I say so with
all respect, seems to me in some cases to
play on words : his arguments are very
able, very philosophical, often very noble ;
but not always conclusive ; in a language
differently constructed they might some
times tell in exactly the opposite sense.
If his method has proved less fruitful, if
in metaphysics we have made but little
advance, that very fact in one point of
view leaves the Dialogues of Socrates as
instructive now as ever they were; while
the problems with which they deal will
always rouse our interest, as the calm
and lofty spirit which inspires them
must command our admiration.
Of
the Apology and the Phcedo especially
it would be impossible to speak too grate
fully.
I would also mention Demosthenes’s
De Corona, which Lord Brougham pro
nounced the greatest oration of the
greatest of orators ; Lucretius, Plutarch’s
Lives, Horace, and at least the De Officiis,
De Amicitia, and De Senectute of Cicero.
The great epics of the world have
always constituted one of the most popu
lar branches of literature. Yet how few,
comparatively, ever read Homer or Virgil
after leaving school.
The Nibelungenlied, our great AngloSaxon epic, is perhaps too much neglected,
no doubt on account of its painful char
acter. Brunhild and Kriemhild, indeed,
are far from perfect, but we meet with few
such “ live ” women in Greek or Roman
literature. Nor must I omit to mention
Sir T. Malory’s Morte d’A rthur, though I
confess I do so mainly in deference to the
judgment of others.
Among the Greek tragedians I include
zEschylus, if not all his works, at any rate
Prometheus, perhaps the sublimest poem
in Greek literature, and the Trilogy (Mr.
Symonds in his Greek Poets speaks of the
“ unrivalled majesty ” of the Agamemnon,
and Mark Pattison considered it “the
grandest work of creative genius in the
PART I
whole range of literature”); or, as Sir
M. E. Grant Duff recommends, the Persce;
Sophocles (CEdipus Tyrannus), Euripides
(Medea), and Aristophanes (The Knights and
Clouds') ; unfortunately, as Schlegel says,
probably even the greatest scholar does
not understand half his jokes ; and I think
most modern readers will prefer our own
poets.
I should like, moreover, to say a word
for Eastern poetry, such as portions of the
Maha Bharata and Ramayana (too long
probably to be read through, but of which
Taiboys Wheeler has given a most interest
ing epitome in the first two volumes of
his History of India); the Shali-nameh, the
work of the great Persian poet Firdusi;
Kalidasa’s Sakuntala, and the Sheking, the
classical collection of ancient Chinese odes.
Many I know, will think I ought to have
included Omar Khayyam.
In history we are beginning to feel that
the vices and vicissitudes of kings and
queens, the dates of battles and wars, are
far less important than the development
of human thought, the progress of art, of
science, and of law, and the subject is on
that very account even more interesting
than ever. I will, however, only mention,
and that rather from a literary than a his
torical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon
(the Anabasis), Thucydides, and Tacitus
(Germania); and of modern historians,
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (“ the splendid
bridge from the old world to the new ”),
Hume’s History of England, Carlyle’s
French Revolution, Grote’s History of Greece,
and Green’s Short History of the English
People.
Science is so rapidly progressive that,
though to many minds it is the most
fruitful and interesting subject of all, I
cannot here rest on that agreement which,
rather than my own opinion, I take as the
basis of my list. I will therefore only
mention Bacon’s Novum Organum, Mill’s
Logic, and Darwin’s Origin of Species; in
Political Economy, which some of our
rulers do not now sufficiently value, Mill,
and parts of Smith’s Wealth of Nations,
for probably those who do not intend to
�CHAP. IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
make a special study of political economy
would scarcely read the whole.
Among voyages and travels, perhaps
those most frequently suggested are Cook’s
Voyages, Humboldt’s Travels, and Darwin’s
Naturalist’s Journal; though I confess I
should like to have added many more.
Mr. Bright not long ago specially re
commended the less known American poets,
but he probably assumed that every one
would have read Shakespeare, Milton
(Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus and minor
poems), Chaucer, Dante, Spenser, Dryden,
Scott, Wordsworth, Pope, Byron, and
others, before embarking on more doubtful
adventures.
Among other books most frequently re
commended are Goldsmith’s Vicar of
Wakefield, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Don
Quixote, Boswell’s Life of Johnson, White’s
Natural History of Selborne, Burke’s Select
Works (Payne), the Essays of Bacon,
Addison, Hume, Montaigne, Macaulay, and
Emerson, Carlyle’s Past and Present,
Smiles’s Self-Help, and Goethe’s Faust and
Autobiography.
Nor can one go wrong in recommending
Berkeley’s Human Knowledge, Descartes’s
Discours sur la Methode, Locke’s Conduct
of the Understanding Lewes’s History of
Philosophy ; while, in order to keep within
the number one hundred, I can only
mention Moliere ,and Sheridan among
dramatists. Macaulay considered Mari
vaux’s La Vice de Marianne the best novel
in any language, but my number is so
nearly complete that I must content my
self with English: and will suggest
Thackeray (Vanity Fair and Pendennis'),
Dickens (Pickwick and David Copperfield),
G. Eliot (Adam Bede or The Mill on the
Floss), Kingsley (Westward Ho!), Lytton
(Last Days of Pompeii), and last, not least,
those of Scott, which indeed constitute a
library in themselves, but which I must
ask, in return for my trouble, to be allowed,
as a special favour, to count as one.
To any lover of books the very mention
of these names brings back a crowd of de
licious memories, grateful recollections of
21
peaceful home hours, after the labours and
anxieties of the day. How thankful we
ought to be for these inestimable blessings,
for this numberless host of friends who
never weary, betray, or forsake us !
LIST OF 100 BOOKS
Works by Living Authors are omitted
The Bible
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Epictetus
Aristotle’s Ethics
Analects of Confucius
St. Hilaire’s “Le Bouddha et sa religion”
Wake’s Apostolic Fathers
Thos. a Kempis’s Imitation of Christ
Confessions of St. Augustine (Dr. Pusey)
The Koran (portions of)
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Pascal’s Pensees
Butler’s Analogy of Religion
Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
Keble’s Christian Year
Plato’s Dialogues ; at any rate, the Apology,
Crito, and Pheedo
Xenophon’s Memorabilia
Aristotle’s Politics
Demosthenes’s De Corona
Cicero’s De Officiis, De Amicitia, and De
Senectute
Plutarch’s Lives
Berkeley’s Human Knowledge
Descartes’s Discours sur la Methode
Locke s On the Conduct of the Understanding
Homer
Hesiod
Virgil
Maha Bliarata
Ramayana
Epitomised in Taiboys
Wheeler’s History of
India, vols. i. and ii.
The Shahnameh
The Nibelungenlied
Malory’s Morte d’Arthur
The Sheking
Kalidasa’s Sakuntala or The Lost Ring
Alschylus’s Prometheus
Trilogy of Orestes
Sophocles’s (Edipus
Euripides’s Medea
Aristophanes’s The Knights and Clouds
Horace
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (perhaps in
Morris’s edition ; or, if expurgated, in C.
Clarke’s, or Mrs. Haweis’s)
�22
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Shakespeare *
Milton’s Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus, and
the shorter poems
Dante’s Divina Commedia
Spenser’s Fairie Queen
Dryden’s Poems
Scott’s Poems
Wordsworth (Mr. Arnold’s selection)
Pope’s Essay on Criticism
Essay on Man
Rape of the Lock
Burns
Byron’s Childe Harold
Gray’s Poems
Tennyson’s Idylls and smaller poems
PART I
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
Pendennis
Dickens’s Pickwick
David Copperfield
Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii
George Eliot’s Adam Bede
Kingsley’s Westward Ho >.
Scott’s Novels
CHAPTER V
THE BLESSING OF FRIENDS1
Herodotus
Xenophon’s Anabasis
Thucydides
Tacitus’s Germania
Livy
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall
Hume’s History of England
Grote’s History of Greece
Carlyle’s French Revolution
Green’s Short History of England
Lewes’s History of Philosophy
“They seem to take away the sun from the
world who withdraw friendship from life ; for
we have received nothing better from the Im
mortal Gods, nothing more delightful.”—Cicero.
Most of those who have written in praise
of books have thought they could say
nothing more conclusive than to compare
them to friends.
All men, said Socrates, have their
different objects of ambition—horses, dogs,
Arabian Nights
money, honour, as the case may be ; but
Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
for his own part he would rather have a
Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield
good friend than all these put together.
Cervantes’s Don Quixote
And again, men know “ the number of
Boswell’s Life of Johnson
their other possessions, although they
Moliere
Schiller’s William Tell
might be very numerous, but of their
Sheridan’s The Critic, School for Scandal, and friends, though but few, they were not
The Rivals
only ignorant of the number, but even
Carlyle’s Past and Present
when they attempted to reckon it to such
as asked them, they set aside again some
Bacon’s Novum Organum
that they had previously counted among
Smith’s Wealth of Nations (part of)
Mill’s Political Economy
their friends; so little did they allow
Cook’s Voyages
their friends to occupy their thoughts.
Humboldt’s Travels
Yet in comparison with what possession,
White’s Natural History of Selborne
of all others, would not a good friend
Darwin’s Origin of Species
Naturalist’s Voyage
appear far more valuable ? ”
Mill’s Logic
“ As to the value of other things,” says
Cicero, “most men differ; concerning
Bacon’s Essays
friendship all have the same opinion.
Montaigne’s Essays
What can be more foolish than, when
Hume’s Essays
Macaulay’s Essays
men are possessed of great influence by
Addison’s Essays
their wealth, power, and resources, to
Emerson’s Essays
procure other things which are bought
Burke’s Select Works
by money—horses, slaves, rich apparel,
Smiles’s Self-Help
costly vases—and not to procure friends,
Voltaire’s Zadig and Micromegas
Goethe’s Faust, and Autobiography
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
London Working Men’s College.
�CHAP. V
THE BLESSING OF. EE ZENDS
the most valuable and fairest furniture of
life?” And yet, he continues, “every
man can tell how many goats or sheep
he possesses, but not how many friends.”
In the choice, moreover, of a dog or of a
horse, we exercise the greatest care : we
inquire into its pedigree, its training and
character, and yet we too often leave the
selection of our friends, which is of in
finitely greater importance—by whom our
whole life will be more or less influenced
either for good or evil—almost to chance.
It is no doubt true, as the Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table says, that all men are
bores except when we want them. And
Sir Thomas Browne quaintly observes
that “ unthinking heads who have not
learnt to be alone, are a prison to them
selves if they be not with others ; whereas,
on the contrary, those whose thoughts are
in a fair and hurry within, are sometimes
fain to retire into company to be out of
the crowd of themselves.” Still I do not
quite understand Emerson’s idea that
“men descend to meet.” In another
place, indeed, he qualifies the statement,
and says, “ Almost all people descend to
meet.” Even so I should venture to
question it, especially considering the
context.
“ All association,” he adds,
“must be a compromise, and, what is
worse, the very flower and aroma of the
flower of each of the beautiful natures
disappears as they approach each other.”
What a sad thought! Is it really so ;
Need it be so ? And if it were, would
friends be any real advantage ? I should
have thought that the influence of friends
was exactly the reverse : that the flower
of a beautiful nature would expand, and
the colours grow brighter, when stimu
lated by the warmth and sunshine of
friendship.
It has been said that it is wise always
to treat a friend, remembering that he
may become an enemy, and an enemy,
remembering that he may become a
friend ; and whatever may be thought
of the first part of the adage, there is
certainly much wisdom in the latter.
Many people seem to take more pains
23
and more pleasure in making enemies,
than in making friends. Plutarch, in
deed, quotes with approbation the. advice
of Pythagoras “ not to shake hands with
too many,” but as long as friends are
well chosen, it is true rather that
“ He who has a thousand friends,
Has never a one to spare,
And he who has one enemy,
Will meet him everywhere,”
and unfortunately, while there are few
great friends there is no little enemy.
I guard myself, however, by saying
again—As long as they are well chosen.
One is thrown in life with a great many
people who, though not actively bad,
though they may not wilfully lead us
astray, yet take no pains with themselves,
neglect their own minds, and direct the
conversation to petty puerilities or mere
gossip ; who do not seem to realise that
conversation may by a little effort be
made instructive and delightful, without
being in any way pedantic ; or, on the
other hand, in ay be allowed to drift into
a mere morass of muddy thought and
weedy words. There are few from ■whom
we may not learn something, if only they
will trouble themselves to tell us. Nay,
even if they teach us nothing, they may
help us by the stimulus of intelligent
questions, or the warmth of sympathy.
But if they do neither, then indeed their
companionship, if companionship it can
be called, is mere waste of time, and of
such we may well say, “ I do desire that
we be better strangers.”
Much certainly of the happiness and
purity of our lives depends on our making
a wise choice of our companions and
friends. If badly chosen they will in
evitably drag us down ; if well they will
raise us up. Yet many people seem to
trust in this matter to the chapter of
accident. It is well and right, indeed, to
be courteous and considerate to every one
with whom we are brought into contact,
but to choose them as real friends is an
other matter. Some seem to make a man
a friend, or try to do so, because he lives
near, because he is in the same business,
�24
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
travels on the same line of railway, or for
some other trivial reason. There cannot
be a greater mistake. These are only, in
the words of Plutarch “ the idols and
images of friendship.”
To be friendly with every one is
another matter ; we must remember that
there is no little enemy, and those who
have ever really loved any one will have
some tenderness for all. There is indeed
some good in most men. “ I have heard
much,” says Mr. Nasmyth in his charming
autobiography, “ about the ingratitude
and selfishness of the world. It may
have been ray good fortune, but I have
never experienced either of these unfeel
ing conditions.” Such also has been my
own experience.
“ Men talk of unkind hearts, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has ofteuer left me mourning.”
I cannot, then, agree with Emerson
when he says that “we walk alone in the
world. Friends such as we desire are
dreams and fables. But a sublime hope
cheers ever the faithful heart, that else
where in other regions of the universal
power souls are now acting, enduring,
and daring, which can love us, and which
we can love.”
No doubt, much as worthy friends
add to the happiness and value of life,
we must in the main depend on ourselves,
and every one is his own best friend
or worst enemy.
Sad, indeed, is Bacon’s assertion that
“ there is little friendship in the world,
and least of all between equals, which
was wont to be magnified. That that is,
is between superior and inferior, whose
fortunes may comprehend the one to the
other.” But this can hardly be taken as
his deliberate opinion, for he elsewhere
says, “ but we may go farther, and affirm
most truly, that it is a mere and miser
able solitude to want true friends, without
which the world is but a wilderness.”
Not only, he adds, does friendship intro
duce “ daylight in the understanding out
of darkness and confusion of thoughts;”
PART I
it “ maketh a fair day in the affections
from storm and tempests:” in consultation
with a friend a man “ tosseth his thoughts
more easily; he marshalleth them more
orderly ; he seeth how they look when
they are turned into words ; finally, he
waxeth wiser than himself, and that more
by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s
meditation.” . . . “ But little do men
perceive what solitude is, and how far it
extendeth, for a crowd is not company,
and faces are but a gallery of pictures,
and talk but a tinkling cymbal where
there is no love.”
With this last assertion I cannot alto
gether concur. Surely even strangers may
be most interesting ! and many will agree
with Dr. Johnson when, describing a
pleasant evening, he summed it up—“ Sir,
we had a good talk.”
Epictetus gives excellent advice when
he dissuades from conversation on the
very subjects most commonly chosen, and
advises that it should be on “ none of
the common subjects—not about gladi
ators, nor horse-races, nor about athletes,
nor about eating or drinking, which are
the usual subjects ; and especially not
about men, as blaming them ; ” but when
he adds, “or praising them,” the injunction
seems to me of doubtful value. Surely
Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that
“when thou wishest to delight thyself,
think of the virtues of those who live
with thee ; for instance, the activity of
one, and the modesty of another, and the
liberality of a third, and some other good
quality of a fourth. For nothing delights
so much as the examples of the virtues,
when they are exhibited in the morals of
those who live with us and present them
selves in abundance, as far as is possible.
Wherefore we must keep them before us.”
Yet how often we know merely the sight
of those we call our friends, or the sound
of their voices, but nothing whatever of
their mind or soul.
We must, moreover, be as careful to
keep friends as to make them. If every
one knew what one said of the other,
Pascal assures us that “ there would not
�THE VALUE OF TIME
CHAP. V
be four friends in the world.” This I
hope and think is too strong, but at
any rate try to be one of the four. And
when you have made a friend, keep
him. Hast thou a friend, says an Eastern
proverb, “ visit him often, for thorns and
brushwood obstruct the road which no
one treads.” The affections should not be
mere “tents of a night.”
Still less does Friendship confer any
privilege to make ourselves disagreeable.
Some people never seem to appreciate
their friends till they have lost them.
Anaxagoras described the Mausoleum as
the ghost of wealth turned into stone.
“ But he who has once stood beside the
grave to look back on the companionship
which has been for ever closed, feeling
how impotent then are the wild love and
the keen sorrow, to give one instant’s
pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
in the lowest measure to the departed
spirit for the hour of unkindness, will
scarcely for the future incur that debt to
the heart which can only be discharged
to the dust.” 1
Death, indeed, cannot sever friendship.
“Friends,” says Cicero, “though absent,
are still present ; though in poverty they
are rich ; though weak, yet in the enjoy
ment of health ; and, what is still more
difficult to assert, though dead they are
alive.” This seems a paradox, yet is
there not much truth in his explanation ?
“ To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and
will always live ; for I love the virtue of
that man, and that worth is not yet ex
tinguished. . . . Assuredly of all things
that either fortune or time has bestowed
on me, I have none which I can compare
with the friendship of Scipio.”
If, then, we choose our friends for
what they are, not for what they have,
and if we deserve so great a blessing, then
they will be always with us, preserved in
absence, and even after death, in the
amber of memory.
25
CHAPTER VI
THE VALUE OF TIME1
Each day is a little life
All other good gifts depend on time
for their value. What are friends, books,
or health, the interest of travel or the de
lights of home, if we have not time for
their enjoyment ? Time is often said to
be money, but it is more—it is life ; and
yet many who would cling desperately to
life, think nothing of wasting time.
Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord
Sherbrooke’s translation,
‘ ‘ The moments we forego
Eternity itself cannot retrieve. ”
And, in the words of Dante,
“ For who knows most, him loss of time most
grieves.”
Not that a life of drudgery should be our
ideal. Far from it. Time spent in
innocent and rational enjoyments, in
healthy games, in social and family inter
course, is well and wisely spent. Games
not only keep the body in health, but give
a command over the muscles and limbs
which cannot be over-valued. Moreover,
there are temptations which strong exercise
best enables us to resist.
It is the idle who complain they cannot
find time to do that which they fancy
they wish. In truth, people can generally
make time for what they choose to do ; it
is not really the time but the will that is
wanting: and the advantage of leisure is
mainly that we may have the power of
choosing our own wTork, not certainly that
it confers any privilege of idleness.
“ Time travels in divers paces with
divers persons. I’ll tell you who time
ambles withal, who time trots withal, who
time gallops withal, and who he stands
still withal.” 2
1 Ruskin.
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Polytechnic Institution.
2 Shakespeare.
�26
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
For it is not so much the hours that Devil tempts the busy man, but the idle
tell, as the way we use them.
man tempts the Devil. I remember, says
Hillard, “a satirical poem, in which the
“ Circles are praised, not that excel
In largeness, but th’ exactly framed ;
Devil is represented as fishing for men,
So life we praise, that does excel
and adapting his bait to the tastes and
Not in much time, but acting well.” 1
temperaments of his prey ; but the idlers
“Idleness,” says Jeremy Taylor, “is were the easiest victims, for they swallowed
the greatest prodigality in the world ; it even the naked hook.”
throws away that which is invaluable in
The mind of the idler indeed preys upon
respect of its present use, and irreparable itself. “ The human heart is like a mill
when it is past, being to be recovered by stone in a mill; when you put wheat
no power of art or nature.”
under it, it turns and grinds and bruises
Life must be measured rather by depth the wheat to flour ; if you put no wheat,
than by length, by thought and action it still grinds on—and grinds itself away.” 1
rather than by time. “ A counted number
It is not work, but care, that kills, and
of pulses only,” says Pater, “is given to us it is in this sense, I suppose, that we are
of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may told to “ take no thought for the morrow.”
we see in them all that is to be seen by To “ consider the lilies of the field, how
the finest senses 1 How can we pass most they grow ; they toil not, neither do they
swiftly from point to point, and be present spin : and yet even Solomon, in all his
always at the focus where the greatest glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
number of vital forces unite in their Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of
purest energy ? To burn always with this the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow
hard gem-like flame, to maintain this is cast into the oven, shall he not much
ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to more clothe you, O ye of little faith 1 ” It
form habits, for habit is relation to a would indeed be a mistake to suppose that
stereotyped world ; . . . while all melts lilies are idle or imprudent. On the
under our feet, we may well catch at any contrary, plants are most industrious, and
exquisite passion, or any contribution to lilies store up in their complex bulbs a
knowledge, that seems, by a lifted horizon, great part of the nourishment of one year to
to set the spirit free for a moment.”
quicken the growth of the next. Care, on
I would not quote Lord Chesterfield as the other hand, they certainly know not.2
generally a safe guide, but there is certainly
“ Hours have wings, fly up to the author
much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his of time, and carry news of our usage.
son with reference to time. “ Every All our prayers cannot entreat one of them
moment you now lose, is so much character either to return or slacken his pace. The
and advantage lost ; as, on the other hand, misspents of every minute are a new record
every moment you now employ usefully, against us in heaven. Sure if we thought
is so much time wisely laid out, at pro thus, we should dismiss them with better
digious interest.”
reports, and not suffer them to fly away
And again, “ It is astonishing that any empty, or laden with dangerous intelli
one can squander away in absolute idleness gence. How happy is it when they carry
one single moment of that small portion up not only the message, but the fruits of
of time which is allotted to us in the world. good, and stay with the Ancient of Days
. . . Know the true value of time ; snatch, to speak for us before His glorious
seize, and enjoy every moment of it.”
throne! ” 3
‘ Are you in earnest ? seize this very minute,
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.” 2
There is a Turkish proverb that
1 Waller.
2 Faust.
1 Luther.
2 The word used iiepifiv-qa-qTe is translated in
the Liddell and Scott “to be anxious about, to be
distressed in mind, to be cumbered with many
cares.”
3 Milton.
�CHAP. VI
THE VALUE OF TIME
Time is often said to fly : but it is not
so much the time that flies ; as we that
waste it, and wasted time is worse than no
time at all; “ I wasted time,” Shake
speare makes Richard II. say, “and now
doth time waste me.”
“He that is choice of his time,” says
Jeremy Taylor, “ will also be choice of
his company, and choice of his actions ;
lest the first engage him in vanity and
loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be
a throwing his time and himself away,
and a going back in the accounts of
eternity.”
The life of man is seventy years, but
how little of this is actually our own.
We must deduct the time required for
sleep, for meals, for dressing and undress
ing, for exercise, etc., and then how little
remains really at our own disposal!
“ I have lived,” said Lamb, “ nominally
fifty years, but deduct from them the
hours I have lived for other people, and
not for myself, anct you will find me still
a young fellow.”
The hours we live for other people,
however, are not those which should be
deducted, but rather those which benefit
neither oneself nor any one else ; and
these, alas 1 are often very numerous.
“ There are some hours which are taken
from us, some which are stolen from us,
and some which slip from us.”1 But
however we may lose them, we can never
get them back. It is wonderful, indeed,
how much innocent happiness we thought
lessly throw away. An Eastern proverb
says that calamities sent by heaven may
be avoided, but from those we bring on
ourselves there is no escape.
Some years ago I paid a visit to the
sites of the ancient lake villages of Switzer
land in company with a distinguished
archseologist, M. Morlot. To my surprise
I found that his whole income was £100
a year, part of which, moreover, he spent
in making a small museum. I asked him
whether he contemplated accepting any
post or office, but he said certainly not.
He valued his leisure and opportunities
1 Seneca.
27
as priceless possessions far more than
silver or gold, and would not waste any
of his time in making money.
Time, indeed, is a sacred gift, and each
day is a little life. Just think of our
advantages here in London ! We have
access to the whole literature of the
world ; we may see in our National
Gallery the most beautiful productions of
former generations, and in the Royal
Academy and other galleries the works of
the greatest living artists. Perhaps there
is no one who has ever found time to
see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet
consider what it contains ; or rather, what
does it not contain ? The most perfect
collection of living and extinct animals;
the marvellous monsters of geological
ages ; the most beautiful birds, shells, and
minerals ; precious stones and fragments
from other worlds ; the most interesting
antiquities ; curious and fantastic speci
mens illustrating different races of men ;
exquisite gems, coins, glass, and china ;
the Elgin marbles; the remains of the
Mausoleum ; of the temple of Diana of
Ephesus; ancient monuments of Egypt
and Assyria ; the rude implements of our
predecessors in England, who were coeval
with the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, the
musk-ox, and the mammoth ; and beauti
ful specimens of Greek and Roman art.
Suffering may be unavoidable, but no
one has any excuse for being dull. And
yet some people are dull. They talk of
a better world to come, while whatever
dulness there may be here is all their
own. Sir Arthur Helps has well said :
“ What! dull, when you do not know
what gives its loveliness of form to the
lily, its depth of colour to the violet, its
fragrance to the rose; when you do not
know in what consists the venom of the
adder, any more than you can imitate the
glad movements of the dove. What !
<jull, when earth, air, and water are all
alike mysteries to you, and when as you
stretch out your hand you do not touch
anything the properties of which you have
mastered ; while all the time Nature is
inviting you to talk earnestly with her,
�28
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
part I
to understand her, to subdue
be blessed by her 1 Go away,
something, do something,
something, and let me hear
your dulness.”
her, and to
Surely no one who has the opportunity
man ; learn should omit to travel. The world belongs
understand to him who has seen it. “ But he that
no more of would make his travels delightful must
first make himself delightful.” 1
According to the old proverb, “ the fool
wanders, the wise man travels.” Bacon
tells us that “the things to be seen and
observed are the courts of princes, especi
CHAPTER VII
ally when they give audience to ambas
THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 1
sadors ; the courts of justice while they
sit and hear causes ; and so of consistories
“I ain a part of all that I have seen.”
ecclesiastic • the churches and monasteries,
with the monuments which are therein
I AM sometimes disposed to think that
extant; the walls and fortifications of
there are few things in which we of this cities and towns ; and so the havens and
generation enjoy greater advantages over harbours, antiquities and ruins, libraries,
our ancestors than in the increased facili colleges, disputations and lectures, when
ties of travel; but I hesitate to say this, any are; shipping and navies ; houses
not because our advantages are not great, and gardens of state and pleasure near
but because I have already made the same great cities; armouries, arsenals, maga
remark with reference to several other zines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exer
aspects of life.
cises of horsemanship, fencing, training of
The very word “ travel ” is suggestive. soldiers, and the like; comedies, such
It is a form of “travail”—excessive labour; whereunto the better sort of persons do
and, as Skeat observes, it forcibly recalls resort; treasuries of jewels and robes;
the toil of travel in olden days. How cabinets and rarities ; and, to conclude,
different things are now !
whatsoever is memorable in the places
It is sometimes said that every one where they go.”
should travel on foot “ like Thales, Plato,
But this depends on the time at our
and Pythagoras ” ; we are told that in disposal, and the object with which we
these days of railroads people rush through travel. If we are long enough in any
countries and see nothing. It may be so, one place Bacon’s advice is no doubt
but that is not the fault of the railways. excellent; but for the moment I am
They confer upon us the inestimable ad thinking rather of an annual holiday,
vantage of being able, so rapidly and with taken for the sake of rest and health ;
so little fatigue, to visit countries which for fresh air and exercise rather than for
were much less accessible to our ancestors. study. Yet even so, if we have eyes to
What a blessing it is that not our own see, we cannot fail to lay in a stock of
islands only—our smiling fields and rich new ideas as well as a store of health.
woods, the mountains that are full of
We may have read the most vivid and
peace and the rivers of joy, the lakes and accurate description, we may have pored
heaths and hills, castles and cathedrals, over maps and plans and pictures, and yet
and many a spot immortalised in the the reality will burst on us like a revela
history of our country :—not these only, tion. This is true not only of mountains
but the sun and scenery of the South, and glaciers, of palaces and cathedrals,
the Alps the palaces of Nature, the blue but even of the simplest examples.
Mediterranean, and the cities of Europe,
For instance, like every one else, I had
with all their memories and treasures, are read descriptions and seen photographs
now brought within a few hours of us.
and pictures of the Pyramids. Their
1 The substance of this was delivered at Oldham.
1 Seneca.
�CHAP. VII
THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL
form is simplicity itself. I do not know
that I could put into words any character
istic of the original for -which I was not
prepared. It was not that they were
larger ; it was not that they differed in
form, in colour, or situation. And yet,
the moment I saw them, I felt that my
previous impression had been but a faint
shadow of the reality. The actual sight
seemed to give life to the idea.
Every one who has been in the East
will agree that a -week of oriental travel
brings out, with more than stereoscopic
effect, the pictures of patriarchal life as
given us in the Old Testament. And
what is true of the Old Testament is true
of history generally. To those who have
been in Athens or Rome, the history of
Greece or Italy becomes far more interest
ing ; -while, on the other hand, some
knowledge of the history and literature
enormously enhances the interest of the
scenes themselves.
Good descriptions and pictures, how
ever, help us to see much more than we
should perhaps perceive for ourselves. It
may even be doubted whether some
persons do not derive a more correct im
pression from a good drawing or descrip
tion, which brings out the salient points,
than they would from actual, but unaided,
inspection. The idea may gain in ac
curacy, in character, and even in detail,
more than it misses in vividness. But,
however this may be, for those who cannot
travel, descriptions and pictures have an
immense interest; while to those who
have travelled, they will afford an inex
haustible delight in reviving the memories
of beautiful scenes and interesting expedi
tions.
It is really astonishing how little most
of us see of the beautiful world in which
we live. Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me
that while travelling on a scientific mission
in the Rocky Mountains, he w’as astonished
to meet an aged French Abbe, and could
not help showing his surprise. The Abbd
observed this, and in the course of con
versation explained his presence in that
distant region.
29
“You were,” he said, “I easily saw,
surprised to find me here. The fact is,
that some months ago I was very ill. My
physicians gave me up : one morning I
seemed to faint and thought that I was
already in the arms of the Bon Dieu. I
fancied one of the angels came and asked
me, ‘Well, M. l’Abbe, and how did you
like the beautiful world you have just
left?’ And then it occurred to me that
I who had been all my life preaching
about heaven, had seen almost nothing
of the world in which I was living. I
determined therefore, if it pleased Provi
dence to spare me, to see something of
this world ; and so here I am.”
Few of us are free, however much we
might wish it, to follow the example of
the worthy Abbe. But although it may
not be possible for us to reach the Rocky
Mountains, there are other countries nearer
home which most of us might find time
to visit.
Though it is true that no descriptions
can come near the reality, they may at
least persuade us to give ourselves this
great advantage. Let me then try to
illustrate this by pictures in words, as
realised by some of our most illustrious
countrymen; I will select references to
foreign countries only, not that we have
not equal beauties here, but because every
where in England one feels oneself at
home.
The following passage from Tyndall’s
Hours of Exercise in the Alps, is almost as
good as an hour in the Alps themselves :
“ I looked over this wondrous scene
towards Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin,
the Dent Blanche, the Weissliorn, the
Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks which
seemed to join in the celebration of the
risen day. I asked myself, as on previous
occasions, How was this colossal work
performed ? Who chiselled these mighty
and picturesque masses out of a mere
protuberance of the earth ? And the
answer was at hand. Ever young, ever
mighty—with the vigour of a thousand
worlds still within him—the real sculptor
was even then climbing up the eastern
�30
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
i
sky. It was lie wlio raised aloft the
waters which cut out these ravines; it
was he who planted the glaciers on the
mountain-slopes, thus giving gravity a
plough to open out the valleys ; and it is
he who, acting through the ages, will
finally lay low these mighty monuments,
rolling them gradually seaward, sowing
the seeds of continents to be ; so that the
people of an older earth may see mould
spread, and corn wave over the hidden
rocks which at this moment bear the
weight of the Jungfrau.” And the Alps
lie within twenty-four hours of London !
Tyndall’s writings also contain many
vivid descriptions of glaciers ; those
“ silent and solemn causeways . . . broad
enough for the march of an army in line
of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in
a buried city.” 1 I do not, however, borrow
from him or from any one else any descrip
tion of glaciers, for they are so unlike any
thing else, that no one who has not seen,
can possibly visualise them.
The history of European rivers yet
remains to be written, and is most inter
esting. They did not always run in their
present courses. The Rhone, for instance,
appears to have been itself a great traveller.
At least there seems reason to believe
that the upper waters of the Valais fell
at first into the Danube, and so into
the Black Sea ; subsequently joined the
Rhine and the Thames, and so ran far
north over the plains which once connected
the mountains of Scotland and of Norway
—to the Arctic Ocean ; and have only
comparatively of late years adopted their
present course into the Mediterranean.
But, however this may be, the Rhine
of Germany and the Rhine of Switzerland
are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaff
hausen seems to alter the whole character
of the river, and no wonder. “ Stand for
half an hour,” says Ruskin, “beside the
Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side
where the rapids are long, and watch how '
the vault of water first bends, unbroken,
in pure polished velocity, over the arching
rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering ,
1 Ruskin.
' them with a dome of crystal twenty feet
j thick, so swift that its motion is unseen
i except when a foam globe from above
, darts over it like a falling star ; . . . and
, how ever and anon, startling you with its
white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing
out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in
the wind and driven away in dust, filling
the air with light; and how, through the
curdling wreaths of the restless crushing
abyss below, the blue of the water, paled
by the foam in its body, shows purer
than the sky through white rain-cloud •
. . . their dripping masses lifted at inter
vals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some
stronger gush from the cataract, and
bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its
roar dies away.”
But much as we may admire the
majestic grandeur of a mighty river,
either in its eager rush or its calmer
moments, there is something which
fascinates even more in the free life, the
young energy, the sparkling transparence,
and merry music of smaller streams.
“ The upper Swiss valleys,” as the
same great Seer says, “ are sweet with
perpetual streamlets, that seem always to
have chosen the steepest places to come
down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering
their handfuls of crystal this way and
that, as the wind takes them, with all the
grace, but with none of the formalism, of
fountains . . . until at last . . . they
find their way down to the turf, and lose
themselves in that, silently ; with quiet
depth of clear water furrowing among the
grass blades, and looking only like their
shadow, but presently emerging again in
little startled gushes and laughing hurries,
as if they had remembered suddenly that
the day was too short for them to get
down the hill.”
How vividly does Symonds bring before
us the sunny shores of the Mediterranean,
which he loves so well, and the contrast
between the scenery of the North and
the South.
“ In northern landscapes the eye travels
through vistas of leafy boughs to still,
secluded crofts and pastures, where slow-
�CHAP. VII
THE PLEASURES OF TRA VEL
moving oxen graze. The mystery of
dreams and the repose of meditation haunt
our massive bowers. But in the South,
the lattice-work of olive boughs and foliage
scarcely veils the laughing sea and bright
blue sky, while the hues of the landscape
find their climax in the dazzling radiance
of the sun upon the waves, and the pure
light of the horizon. There is no conceal
ment and no melancholy here. Nature
seems to hold a never-ending festival and
dance, in which the waves and sunbeams
and shadows join. Again, in northern
scenery, the rounded forms of full-foliaged
trees suit the undulating country, with its
gentle hills and brooding clouds ; but in
the South the spiky leaves and sharp
branches of the olive carry out the defined
outlines which are everywhere observable
through the broader beauties of mountain
and valley and sea-shore. Serenity and
intelligence characterise this southern
landscape, in which a race of splendid men
and women lived beneath the pure light
of Phoebus, their ancestral god. Pallas
protected them, and golden Aphrodite
favoured them with beauty. Olives are
not, however, by any means the only trees
which play a part in idyllic scenery. The
tall stone pine is even more important. . . .
Near Massa, by Sorrento, there are two
gigantic pines so placed that, lying on the
grass beneath them, one looks on Capri
rising from the sea, Baiae, and all the bay
of Naples sweeping round to the base of
Vesuvius. Tangled growths of olives,
oranges, and rose-trees fill the garden
ground along the shore, while far away in
the distance pale Inarime sleeps, with
her exquisite Greek name, a virgin island
on the deep.
“ On the wilder hills you find patches
of ilex and arbutus glowing with crimson
berries and white waxen bells, sweet myrtle
rods and shafts of bay, frail tamarisk and
tall tree-heaths that wave their frosted
houghs above your head. Nearer the
shore the lentisk grows, a savoury shrub,
with cytisus and aromatic rosemary.
Clematis and polished garlands of tough
sarsaparilla wed the shrubs with clinging,
3i
climbing arms ; and here and there in
sheltered nooks the vine shoots forth
luxuriant tendrils bowed with grapes,
stretching from branch to branch of mul
berry or elm, flinging festoons on which
young loves might sit and swing, or
weaving a lattice-work of leaves across the
open shed. Nor must the sounds of this
landscape be forgotten,—sounds of bleat
ing flocks, and murmuring bees, and
nightingales, and doves that moan, and
running streams, and shrill cicadas, and
hoarse frogs, and whispering pines. There
is not a single detail which a patient
student may not verify from Theocritus.
“ Then too it is a landscape in which
sea and country are never sundered. The
higher we climb upon the mountain-side
the more marvellousis the beauty of the sea,
which seems to rise as we ascend, and
stretch into the sky. Sometimes a little
flake of blue is framed by olive boughs,
sometimes a turning in the road reveals
the whole broad azure calm below. Or,
after toiling up a steep ascent we fall
upon the undergrowth of juniper, and
lo ! a double sea, this way and that,
divided by the sharp spine of the jutting
hill, jewelled with villages along its shore,
and smiling with fair islands and silver
sails.”
To many of us the mere warmth of the
South is a blessing and a delight. The
very thought of it is delicious. I have
read over again and again Wallace’s graphic
description of a tropical sunrise—of the
sun of the early morning that turneth all
into gold.
“ Up to about a quarter past five o’clock,”
he says, “ the darkness is complete ; but
about that time a few cries of birds begin
to break the silence of night, perhaps
indicating that signs of dawn are percept
ible in the eastern horizon. A little later
the melancholy voices of the goatsuckers
are heard, varied croakings of frogs, the
plaintive whistle of mountain thrushes,
and strange cries of birds or mammals
peculiar to each locality. About half-past
five the first glimmer of light becomes
perceptible ; it slowly becomes lighter, and
�32
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
then, increases so rapidly that at about a
quarter to six it seems full daylight. For
the next quarter of an hour this changes
very little in character ; when, suddenly,
the sun’s rim appears above the horizon,
decking the dew-laden foliage with glitter
ing gems, sending gleams of golden light
far into the woods, and waking up all
nature to life and activity. Birds chirp
and flutter about, parrots scream, monkeys
chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and
gorgeous butterflies flutter lazily along or
sit with full expanded wings exposed to
the warm and invigorating rays. The
first hour of morning in the equatorial
regions possesses a charm and a beauty
that can never be forgotten. All nature
seems refreshed and strengthened by the
coolness and moisture of the past night,
new leaves and buds unfold almost before
the eye, and fresh shoots may often be
observed to have grown many inches since
the preceding day. The temperature is
the most delicious conceivable. The slight
chill of early dawn, which was itself
agreeable, is succeeded by an invigorating
warmth ; and the intense sunshine lights
up the glorious vegetation of the tropics,
and realises all that the magic art of the
painter or the glowing words of the poet
have pictured as their ideals of terrestrial
beauty.”
Or take Dean Stanley’s description of
the colossal statues of Amenophis III., the
Memnon of the Greeks, at Thebes—“The
sun was setting, the African range glowed
red behind them ; the green plain was
dyed with a deeper green beneath them,
and the shades of evening veiled the vast
rents and fissures in their aged frames.
As I looked back at them in the sunset,
and they rose up in front of the background
of the mountain, they seemed, indeed, as
if they were part of it,—as if they belonged
to some natural creation.”
But I must not indulge myself in more
quotations, though it is difficult to stop.
Such pictures recall the memory of many
glorious days : for the advantages of travels
last through life ; and often, as we sit at
home, “some bright and perfect view of
PART I
Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes
back on you, as full of repose as a day
wisely spent in travel.” 1
So far is a thorough love and enjoyment
of travel from interfering with the love of
home, that perhaps no one can thoroughly
enjoy his home who does not sometimes
wander away. They are like exertion and
rest, each the complement of the other ; so
that, though it may seem paradoxical, one
of the greatest pleasures of travel is the
return ; and no one who has not roamed
abroad, can realise the devotion which the
wanderer feels for Domiduca—the sweet
and gentle goddess who watches over our
coming home.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PLEASURES OF HOME
“There’s no place like Home.”—
Old English Song.
It may ■well be doubted which is more
delightful,—to start for a holiday which
has been fully earned, or to return home
from one which has been thoroughly
enjoyed ; to find oneself, with renewed
vigour, with a fresh store of memories
and ideas, back once more by one’s own
fireside, with one’s family, friends, and
books.
“ To sit at home,” says Leigh Hunt,
“with an old folio (?) book of romantic
yet credible voyages and travels to read,
an old bearded traveller for its hero, a
fireside in an old country house to read it
by, curtains drawn, and just wind enough
stirring out of doors to make an accom
paniment to the billows or forests we are
reading of—this surely is one of the
perfect moments of existence.”
It is no doubt a great privilege to
visit foreign countries; to travel say
in Mexico or Peru, or to cruise among
the Pacific Islands ; but in some respects
the narratives of early travellers, the
histories of Prescott or the voyages of
1 Helps.
�CHAP. VIII
THE PLEASURES OF HOME
Captain Cook, are even more interesting ;
describing to us, as they do, a state of
society which was then so unlike ours,
but which has now been much changed
and Europeanised.
Thus we may make our daily travels
interesting, even though, like those of the
Vicar of Wakefield, all 'our adventures
are by our own fireside, and all our migra
tions from one room to another.
Moreover, even if the beauties of home
are humble, they are still infinite, and a
man “ may lie in his bed, like Pompey
and his sons, in all quarters of the
earth.” 1
It is, then, wise to “ cultivate a talent
very fortunate for a man of my dis
position, that of travelling in my easy
chair ; of transporting myself, without
stirring from my parlour, to distant places
and to absent friends ; of drawing scenes
in my mind’s eye ; and of peopling them
with the groups of fancy, or the society
of remembrance.” 2
We may indeed secure for ourselves
endless variety without leaving our own
firesides.
In the first place, the succession of
seasons multiplies every home.
How
different is the view from our windows as
we look on the tender green of spring, the
rich foliage of summer, the glorious tints
of autumn, or the delicate tracery of
winter.
Our climate is so happy, that even in
the worst months of the year, “ calm
mornings of sunshine visit us at times,
appearing like glimpses of departed spring
amid the wilderness of wet and windy
days that lead to winter. It is pleasant,
when these interludes of silvery light
occur, to ride into the woods and see how
wonderful are all the colours of decay.
Overhead, the elms and chestnuts hang
their wealth of golden leaves, while the
beeches darken into russet tones, and the
wild cherry glows like blood-red wine.
In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet
hips are wreathed with hoary clematis or
1 Sir T. Browne.
2 Mackenzie, The Lounger.
D
33
necklaces of coral briony-berries ; the
brambles burn with many-coloured flames ;
the dog-wood is bronzed to purple ; and
here and there the ’ spindle-wood puts
forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds,
on delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie
fallen leaves, and the brown bracken
rises to our knees as we thread the forest
paths.”1
Nay, every day gives us a succession of
glorious pictures in never-ending variety.
It is remarkable how few people seem
to derive any pleasure from the beauty of
the sky. Gray, after describing a sunrise
—how it began, with a slight whitening,
just tinged with gold and blue, lit up
all at once by a little line of insufferable
brightness which rapidly grew to half an
orb, and so to a whole one too glorious
to be distinctly seen—adds, “ I wonder
whether any one ever saw it before. I
hardly believe it.” 2
No doubt from the dawn of poetry, the
splendours of the morning and evening
skies have delighted all those who have
eyes to see.
But we are especially
indebted to Ruskin for enabling us more
vividly to realise these glorious sky
pictures. As he says, in language almost
as brilliant as the sky itself, the whole
heaven, “from the zenith to the horizon,
becomes one molten, mantling sea of
color and fire ; every black bar turns
into massy gold, every ripple and wave
into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and
purple, and scarlet, and colors for which
there are no words in language, and
no ideas in the mind—things which can
only be conceived while they are visible ;
the intense hollow blue of the upper sky
melting through it all, showing here deep
and pure, and lightness ; there, modulated
by the filmy, formless body of the trans
parent vapour, till it is lost imperceptibly
in its crimson and gold.”
' It is in some cases indeed “ not color
but conflagration,” and though the tints
are richer and more varied towards morn
ing and at sunset, the glorious kaleidoscope
goes on all day long. Yet “ it is a strange
1 J. A. Symonds.
2 Gray’s Letters.
�THE PLEASURES OE LIRE
34
thing how little in general people know
about the sky. It is the part of creation
in which Nature has done more for the
sake of pleasing man, more for the sole
and evident purpose of talking to him and
teaching him, than in any other of her
works, and it is just the part in which we
least attend to her. There are not many
of her other works in which some more
material or essential purpose than the
mere pleasing of man is not answered by
every part of their organisation ; but
every essential purpose of the sky might,
so far as we know, be answered, if once
in three days, or thereabouts, a great,
ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up
over the blue, and everything well
watered, and so all left blue again till
next time, with perhaps a film of morning
and evening mist for dew. And instead
of this, there is-not a moment of any day
of our lives when Nature is not producing
scene after scene, picture after picture,
glory after glory, and working still upon
such exquisite and constant principles of
the most perfect beauty, that it is quite
certain it is all done for us, and intended
for our perpetual pleasure.” 1
Nor does the beauty end with the day.
“ Is it nothing to sleep under the canopy
of heaven, where we have the globe of
the earth for our place of repose, and the
glories of the heavens for our spectacle? ”2
For my part I always regret the custom
of shutting up our rooms in the evening,
as though there was nothing worth seeing
outside. What, however, can be more
beautiful than to “ look how the floor of
heaven is thick inlaid with patines of
bright gold,” or to watch the moon
journeying in calm and silver glory
through the night. And even if we do
not feel that “ the man who has seen the
rising moon break out of the clouds at
midnight, has been present like an Arch
angel at the creation of light and of the
world,”3 still “ the stars say something
significant to all of us : and each man
has a whole hemisphere of them, if he
r Ruskin.
2 Seneca.
3 Emerson.
PART I
will but look up, to counsel and befriend
him ” ;1 for it is not so much, as Helps
elsewhere observes, “in guiding us over
the seas of our little planet, but out of
the dark waters of'our own perturbed
minds, that we may make to ourselves
the most of their significance.” Indeed,
“ How beautiful is night !
A dewy freshness fills the silent air ;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor
stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven :
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths ;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky ;
How beautiful is night ! ” 2
I have never wondered at those who
worshipped the sun and moon.
On the other hand, when all outside is
dark and cold ; when perhaps
“ Outside fall the snowflakes lightly ;
Through the night loud raves the storm ;
In my room the fire glows brightly,
And ’tis cosy, silent, warm.
Musing sit I on the settle
By the firelight’s cheerful blaze,
Listening to the busy kettle
Humming long-forgotten lays.” 3
For after all the true pleasures of home
are not without, but within ; and “ the
domestic man who loves no music so well
as his -own kitchen clock and the airs
which the logs sing to him as they burn
on the hearth, has solaces which others
never dream of.” 4
We love the ticking of the clock, and
the flicker of the fire, like the sound of
the cawing of rooks, not so much for any
beauty of their own as for their associations.
It is a great truth that when we re
tire into ourselves we can call up what
memories we please.
“ How dear to this heart are the scenes of my
childhood,
When fond recollection recalls them to view.—
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled
wildwood
And every lov’d spot which my infancy knew.” 5
1 Helps.
2 Southey.
3 Heine, trans, by E. A. Bowring.
4 Emerson,
8 Woodworth.
�THE PLEASURES OF HOME
CHAP. VIII
It is not so much the
“ Fireside enjoyments,
And all the comforts of the lowly roof,” 1
but rather, according to the higher and
better ideal of Keble,
“ Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look,
When hearts are of each other sure ;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household
nook,
The haunt of all affections pure.”
In ancient times, not only among
savage races, but even among the Greeks
themselves, there seems to have been but
little family life.
What a contrast was the home life of
the Greeks, as it seems to have been, to
that, for instance, described by Cowley—
a home happy “ in books and gardens,”
and above all, in a
“ Virtuous wife, where thou dost meet
Both pleasures more refined and sweet;
The fairest garden in her looks
And in her mind the wisest books.”
No one who has ever loved mother or
wife, sister or daughter, can read without
astonishment and pity St. Chrysostom’s
description of woman as “a necessary
evil, a natural temptation, a desirable
calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascina
tion, and a painted ill.”
In few respects has mankind made a
greater advance than in the relations of
men and women. It is terrible to think
how women suffer in savage life; and
even among the intellectual Greeks, with
rare exceptions, they seem to have been
treated rather as housekeepers or play
things than as the Angels who make a
Heaven of home.
The Hindoo proverb that you should
“ never strike a wife, even with a flower,”
though a considerable advance, tells a
melancholy tale of what must previously
have been.
In The Origin of Civilisation I have
given many cases showing how small a
part family affection plays in savage life.
Here I will only mention one case
in illustration. The Algonquin (North i
1 Cowper.
|
35
America) language contained no word
for “ love,” so that when the missionaries
translated the Bible into it they were
obliged to invent one. What a life, and
what a language, without love.
Yet in marriage even the rough passion
of a savage may contrast favourably with
any cold calculation, which, like the en
chanted hoard of the Nibelungs, is almost
sure to bring misfortune. In the Kalevala,
the Finnish epic, the divine smith, Ilmarinnen, forges a bride of gold and silver
for Wainamoinen, who was pleased at first
to have so rich a wife, but soon found
her intolerably cold, for, in spite of fires
and furs, whenever he touched her she
froze him.
Moreover, apart from mere coldness,
how much we suffer from foolish quarrels
about trifles ; from mere misunderstand
ings ; from hasty words thoughtlessly
repeated, sometimes without the context
or tone which would have deprived them
of any sting. How much would that
charity which “beareth all things, believeth all things, bopeth all things,
endureth all things,” effect to smooth
away the sorrows of life and add to the
happiness of home. Home indeed may
be a sure haven of repose from the storms
and perils of the world. But to secure
this we must not be content to pave it
with good intentions, but must make it
bright and cheerful.
If our life be one of toil and of suffer
ing, if the world outside be cold and
dreary, what a pleasure to return to
the sunshine of happy faces and the
warmth of hearts we love.
�36
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
’Twas she discovered that the world was
young,
And taught a language to its lisping tongue.”
CHAPTER IX
SCIENCE 1
“Happy is he that findeth wisdom,
And the man that getteth understanding :
For the merchandise of it is better than silver,
And the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies :
And all the things thou canst desire are not to
be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
And in her left hand riches and honour.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.”
Proverbs
of
PART I
Solomon.
Those who have not tried for themselves
can hardly imagine how much Science
adds to the interest and variety of life.
It is altogether a mistake to regard it as
dry, difficult, or prosaic—-much of it is
as easy as it is interesting. A wise in
stinct of old united the prophet and the
“ seer.” “ The wise man’s eyes are in
his head, but the fool walketh in dark
ness.” Technical works, descriptions of
species, etc., bear the same relation to
science as dictionaries do to literature.
Occasionally, indeed, Science may de
stroy some poetical myth of antiquity,
such as the ancient Hindoo explanation
of rivers, that “ Indra dug out their beds
with his thunderbolts, and sent them
forth by long continuous paths ; ” but
the real causes of natural phenomena are
far more striking, and contain more true
poetry, than those which have occurred
to the untrained imagination of mankind.
In endless aspects science is as wonder
ful and interesting as a fairy tale.
‘ ‘ There are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairyland ; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O’er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse.” 2
Mackay justly exclaims :
“Blessings on Science! When the earth
seemed old,
When Faith grew doting, and our reason cold,
1 The substance of this was delivered at
Mason College, Birmingham.
2 Byron.
Botany, for instance, is by many re
garded as a dry science. Yet though
without it we may admire flowers and
trees, it is only as strangers, only as one
may admire a great man or a beautiful
woman in a crowd. The botanist, on the
contrary—nay, I will not say the botanist,
but one with even a slight knowledge of
that delightful science—when he goes
out into the woods, or into one of those
fairy forests which we call fields, finds
himself welcomed by a glad company of
friends, every one with something inter
esting to tell. Dr. Johnson said that, in
his opinion, when you had seen one
green field you had seen them all; and a
greater even than Johnson—Socrates—
the very type of intellect without science,
said he was always anxious to learn, and
from fields and trees he could learn
nothing.
It has, I know, been said that botanists
“Love not the flower they pluck and know it
not,
And all their botany is but Latin names. ”
Contrast this, however, with the language
of one who would hardly claim to be a
master in botany, though he is certainly a
loving student. “Consider,” says Ruskin,
“ what we owe to the meadow grass, to
the covering of the dark ground by that
glorious enamel, by the companies of
those soft, countless, and peaceful spears
of the field ! Follow but for a little
time the thought of all that we ought to
recognise in those words. All spring and
summer is in them—the walks by silent
scented paths, the rest in noonday heat,
the joy of the herds and flocks, the power
of all shepherd life and meditation; the
life of the sunlight upon the world, fall
ing in emerald streaks and soft blue
shadows, when else it would have struck
on the dark mould or scorching dust;
pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft
banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy
slopes of down overlooked by the blue
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
line of lifted sea ; crisp lawns all dim
with early dew, or smooth in evening
warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by
happy feet, softening in their fall the
sound of loving voices.”
My own tastes and studies have led
me mainly in the direction of Natural
History and Archaeology ; but if you
love one science, you cannot but feel in
tense interest in them all. How grand
are the truths of Astronomy ! Prudhomme, in a sonnet, beautifully trans
lated by Arthur O’Shaugnessy, has
pictured an Observatory. He says—
“ ’Tis late ; the astronomer in his lonely height,
Exploring all the dark, descries afar
Orbs that like distant isles of splendour are.”
He notices a comet, and calculating its
orbit, finds that it will return in a
thousand years—
“ The star will come. It dare not by one hour
Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation ;
Men will have passed, but, watchful in the
tower,
Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation ;
And should all men have perished in their
turn,
Truth in their place would watch that star’s
return.”
Ernest Rhys well says of a student’s
chamber—
“ Strange things pass nightly in this little room,
All dreary as it looks by light of day ;
Enchantment reigns here when at evening
play
Red fire-light glimpses through the pallid
gloom.”
And the true student, in Ruskin’s words,
stands on an eminence from which he
looks back on the universe of God and
forward over the generations of men.
Even if it be true that science was dry
when it was buried in huge folios, that is
certainly no longer the case now ; and
Lord Chesterfield’s wise wish, that Minerva
might have three Graces as well as Venus,
has been amply fulfilled.
The study of natural history indeed
seems destined to replace the loss of what
is, not very happily I think, termed
“ sport; ” engraven in us as it is by the
37
operation of thousands of years, during
which man lived greatly on the produce
of the chase. Game is gradually becoming
“small by degrees and beautifully less.”
Our prehistoric ancestors hunted the
Mammoth, the woolly-haired Rhinoceros,
and the Irish Elk ; the ancient Britons
had the wild ox, the deer, and the wolf.
We have still the pheasant, the partridge,
the fox, and the hare; but even these are
becoming scarcer, and must be preserved
first, in order that they may be killed
afterwards. Some of us even now—and
more, no doubt, will hereafter—satisfy
instincts, essentially of the same origin, by
the study of birds, or insects, or even
infusoria—of creatures which more than
make up by their variety what they want
in size.
Emerson avers that when a naturalist
has “got all snakes and lizards in his
phials, science has done for him also, and
has put the man into a bottle.” I do not
deny that there are such cases, but they
are quite exceptional. The true naturalist
is no mere dry collector.
I cannot resist, although it is rather
long, quoting the following description
from Hudson and Gosse’s beautiful work
on the Rotifera :—
“ On the Somersetshire side of the Avon,
and not far from Clifton, is a little combe,
at the bottom of which lies an old fish-pond,
Its slopes are covered with plantations of
beech and fir, so as to shelter the pond on
three sides, and yet leave it open to the
soft south-western breezes, and to the
afternoon sun. At the head of the combe
wells up a clear spring, which sends a
thread of water, trickling through a bed
of osiers, into the upper end of the pond.
A stout stone wall has been drawn across
the combe from side to side, so as to dam
up the stream ; and there is a gap in one
corner through which the overflow finds
its way in a miniature cascade, down into
the lower plantation.
“ If we approach the pond by the game
keeper’s path from the cottage above, we
shall pass through the plantation, and
come unseen right on the corner of the
�38
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
wall; so that one quiet step will enable
us to see at a glance its whole surface,
without disturbing any living thing that
may be there.
“Far off at the upper end a water-hen
is leading her little brood among the
willows ; on the fallen trunk of an old
beech, lying half way across the pond, a
vole is sitting erect, rubbing his right ear,
and the splash of a beech husk just at our
feet tells of a squirrel who is dining some
where in the leafy crown above us.
“ But see, the water-rat has spied us out,
and is making straight for his hole in the
bank, while the ripple above him is the
only thing that tells of his silent flight.
The water-hen has long ago got under
cover, and the squirrel drops no more
husks. It is a true Silent Pond, and
without a sign of life.
“But if, retaining sense and sight, we
could shrink into living atoms and plunge
under the water, of what a world of
wonders should we then form part ! We
should find this fairy kingdom peopled
with the strangest creatures—creatures
that swim with their hair, that have ruby
eyes blazing deep in their necks, with
telescopic limbs that now are withdrawn
wholly within their bodies and now
stretched out to many times their own
length. Here are some riding at anchor,
moored by delicate threads spun out from
their toes ; and there are others flashing
by in glass armour, bristling with sharp
spikes or ornamented with bosses and
flowing curves ; while fastened to a green
stem is an animal convolvulus that, by
some invisible power, draws a neverceasing stream of victims into its gaping
cup, and tears them to death with hooked
jaws deep down within its body.
“ Close by it, on the same stem, is some
thing that looks like a filmy heart’s-ease.
A curious wheelwork runs round its four
outspread petals ; and a chain of minute
things, living and dead, is winding in and
out of their curves into a gulf at the back
of the flower. What happens to them
there we cannot see ; for round the stem
is raised a tube of golden-brown balls, all j
PART I
regularly piled on each other. Some
creature dashes by, and like a flash the
flower vanishes within its tube.
“We sink still lower, and now see on
the bottom slow gliding lumps of jelly
that thrust a shapeless arm out where they
will, and grasping their prey with these
chance limbs, wrap themselves round their
food to get a meal; for they creep without
feet, seize without hands, eat without
mouths, and digest without stomachs.”
Too many, however, still feel only in
Nature that which we share “ with the
weed and the worm ; ” they love birds as
boys do—that is, they love throwing
stones at them ; or wonder if they are good
to eat, as the Esquimaux asked about the
watch ; or treat them as certain devout
Afreedee villagers are said to have treated
a descendant of the Prophet—killed him
in order to worship at his tomb: but
gradually we may hope that the love of
Science—the notes “we sound upon the
strings of nature ”1—-will become to more
and more, as already it is to many, a
“ faithful and sacred element of human
feeling.”
Science summons us
“ To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon
supply ;
Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
Its dome the sky.” 2
Where the untrained eye will see
nothing but mire and dirt, Science will
often reveal exquisite possibilities. The
mud we tread under our feet in the street
is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot
and water. Separate the sand, however,
as Ruskin observes—-let the atoms arrange
themselves in peace according to their
nature—and you have the opal. Separate
the clay, and it becomes a white earth,
fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still
further purifies itself, you have a sapphire.
Take the soot, and if properly treated it
will give you a diamond. While, lastly,
the water, purified and distilled, will
become a dew-drop, or crystallise into a
lovely star. Or, again, you may see as
1 Emerson.
2 H. Smith.
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
39
you will in any shallow pool either the many years ago by Professor Huxley to
mud lying at the bottom, or the image the South London Working Men’s College
of the heavens above.
which struck me very much at the time,
Nay, even if we imagine beauties and and which puts this in language more
charms which do not really exist ; still if forcible than any which I could use.
we err at all, it is better to do so on the
“Suppose,” he said, “it were perfectly
side of charity; like Nasmyth, who tells certain that the life and fortune of every
us in his delightful autobiography, that one of us would, one day or other, depend
he used to think one of his friends had a upon his winning or losing a game of
charming and kindly twinkle, and was chess. Don’t you think that we should
one day surprised to discover that he all consider it to be a primary duty to
had a glass eye.
learn at least the names and the moves of
But I should err indeed were I to the pieces ? Do you not think that we
dwell exclusively on science as lending should look with a disapprobation amount
interest and charm to our leisure hours. ing to scorn upon the father who allowed
Far from this, it would be impossible his son, or the State which allowed its
to overrate the importance of scientific members, to grow up without knowing a
training on the wise conduct of life.
pawn from a knight ? Yet it is a very
“ Science,” said the Royal Commission plain and elementary truth that the life,
of 1861, “quickens and cultivates directly the fortune, and the happiness of every
the faculty of observation, which in very one of us, and more or less of those who
many persons lies almost dormant through are connected with us, do depend upon
life, the power of accurate and rapid our knowing something of the rules of a
generalisation, and the mental habit of game infinitely more difficult and compli
method and arrangement; it accustoms cated than chess. It is a game which
young persons to trace the sequence of has been played for untold ages, every
cause and effect; it familiarises them with man and woman of us being one of the
a kind of reasoning which interests them, two players in a game of his or her own.
and which they can promptly compre The chessboard is the world, the pieces
hend • and it is perhaps the best correc are the phenomena of the Universe, the
tive for that indolence which is the vice rules of the game are what we call the
of half-awakened minds, and which shrinks laws of Nature. The player on the other
from any exertion that is not, like an side is hidden from us. We know that
effort of memory, merely mechanical.”
his play is always fair, just, and patient.
Again, when we contemplate the gran But also we know to our cost that he
deur of science, if we transport ourselves never overlooks a mistake or makes the
in imagination back into primeval times, smallest allowance for ignorance. To the
or away into the immensity of space, man who plays well the highest stakes
our little troubles and sorrows seem to are paid, with that sort of overflowing
shrink into insignificance. “ Ah, beautiful generosity which with the strong shows
creations ! ” says Helps, speaking of the delight in strength. And one who plays
stars, “it is not in guiding us over the ill is checkmated—without haste, but
seas of our little planet, but out of the without remorse.”
dark waters of our own perturbed minds,
I have elsewhere1 endeavoured to show
that we may make to ourselves the most the purifying and ennobling influence of
of your significance.” They teach, he tells science upon religion ; how it has assisted,
us elsewhere, “something significant to if indeed it may not claim the main share,
all of us; and each man has a whole in sweeping away the dark superstitions,
hemisphere of them, if he will but look the degrading belief in sorcery and witch
up, to counsel and befriend him.”
craft, and the cruel, however well-intenThere is a passage in an address given
1 The, Origin of Civilisation.
�40
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
tioned, intolerance which embittered the
Christian world almost from the very days
of the Apostles themselves. In this she
has surely performed no mean service to
religion itself. As Canon Fremantle has
well and justly said, men of science, and not
the clergy only, are ministers of religion.
Again, the national necessity for
scientific education is imperative. We
are apt to forget how much we owe to
science, because so many of its wonderful
gifts have become familiar parts of our
everyday life, that their very value makes
us forget their origin. At the recent
celebration of the sexcentenary of Peterhouse College, near the close of a long
dinner, Sir Frederick Bramwell was called
on, some time after midnight, to return
thanks for Applied Science. He excused
himself from making a long speech on the
ground that, though the subject was
almost inexhaustible, the only illustration
which struck him as appropriate under
the circumstances was “ the application
of the domestic lucifer to the bedroom
candle.” One cannot but feel how un
fortunate was the saying of the poet that
“The light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam.”
The report of the Royal Commission
on Technical Instruction, which has
recently been issued, teems with illustra
tions of the advantages afforded by
technical instruction. At the same time,
technical training ought not to begin too
soon, for, as Bain truly observes, “ in a
right view of scientific education the first
principles and leading examples, with
select details, of all the great sciences,
are the proper basis of the complete and
exhaustive study of any single science.”
Indeed, in the words of Sir John Herschel,
“it can hardly be pressed forcibly enough
on the attention of the student of Nature,
that there is scarcely any natural pheno
menon which can be fully and completely
explained in all its circumstances, with
out a union of several, perhaps of all, the
sciences.” The most important secrets of
Nature are often hidden away in unex
pected places. Many valuable substances
PART I
have been discovered in the refuse of
manufactories ; and it was a happy
thought of Glauber to examine what
everybody else threw away. There is
perhaps no nation the future happiness
and prosperity of which depend more on
science than our own. Our population is
over 35,000,000, and is rapidly increas
ing. Even at present it is far larger
than our acreage can support.
Few
people whose business does not lie in the
study of statistics realise that we have
to pay foreign countries no less than
£150,000,000 a year for food. This, of
course, we purchase mainly by manu
factured articles. We hear even now a
great deal about depression of trade, and
foreign, especially American, competition ;
but let us look forward a hundred years
—no long time in the history of a nation.
Our coal supplies will then be greatly
diminished. The population of Great
Britain doubles at the present rate of
increase in about fifty years, so that we
should, if the present rate continues,
require to import over £400,000,000 a
year in food. How, then, is this to be
paid for ? We have before us, as usual,
three courses.
The natural rate of
increase may be stopped, which means
suffering and outrage ; or the population
may increase, only to vegetate in misery
and destitution; or, lastly, by the de
velopment of scientific training and
appliances, they may probably be main
tained in happiness and comfort. We
have, in fact, to make our choice between
science and suffering. It is only by
wisely utilising the gifts of science that
we have any hope of maintaining our
population in plenty and comfort.
Science, however, will do this for us if
we will only let her. She may be no
Fairy Godmother indeed, but she will
richly endow those who love her.
That discoveries, innumerable, marvel
lous, and fruitful, await the successful
explorers of Nature no one can doubt.
“We are so far,” says Locke, “from
being admitted into the secrets of Nature,
that we scarce so much as approach the
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
first entrance towards them.”
What
would one not give for a Science primer
of the next century ? for, to paraphrase a
well-known saying, even the boy at the
plough will then, know more of science
than the wisest of our philosophers do
now. Boyle entitled one of his essays
“ Of Man’s great Ignorance of the Uses
of Natural Things; or that there is no
one thing in Nature whereof the uses to
human life are yet thoroughly under
stood ”—a saying which is still as true
now as when it was written. And, lest I
should be supposed to be taking too
sanguine a view, let me give the authority
of Sir John Herschel, who says : “Since
it cannot but be that innumerable and
most important uses remain to be dis
covered among the materials and objects
already known to us, as well as among
those which the progress of science must
hereafter disclose, we may hence conceive
a well-grounded expectation, not only of
constant increase in the physical resources
of mankind, and the consequent improve
ment of their condition, but of continual
accession to our power of penetrating into
the arcana of Nature and becoming
acquainted with her highest laws.”
Nor is it merely in a material point of
view that science would thus benefit the
nation. She will raise and strengthen
the national, as surely as the individual,
character. The great gift which Minerva
offered to Paris is now freely tendered to
all, for we may apply to the nation, as
well as to the individual, Tennyson’s
noble lines :—
“ Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control:
These three alone lead life to sovereign power,
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for), but to live bylaw ;
Acting the law we live by without fear.”
“ In the vain and foolish exultation of
the heart,” said John Quincey Adams, at
the close of his final lecture on resigning
his chair at Boston, “ which the brighter
prospects of life will sometimes excite,
the pensive portress of Science shall call
you to the sober pleasures of her holy
cell. In the mortification of disappoint
4i
ment, her soothing voice shall whisper
serenity and peace. In social converse
with the mighty dead of ancient days,
you will never smart under the galling
sense of dependence upon the mighty
living of the present age. And in your
struggles with the world, should a crisis
ever occur, when even friendship may
deem it prudent to desert you, when
priest and Levite shall come and look on
you and pass by on the other side, seek
refuge, my unfailing friends, and be
assured you shall find it, in the friend
ship of Laelius and Scipio, in the
patriotism of Cicero, Demosthenes, and
Burke, as well as in the precepts and
example of Him whose law is love, and
who taught us to remember injuries only
to forgive them.”
Let me in conclusion quote the glow
ing description of our debt to science
given by Archdeacon Farrar in his address
at Liverpool College-—-testimony, more
over, all the more valuable, considering
the source from which it comes.
“In this great commercial city,” he
said, “ where you are surrounded by the
triumphs of science and of mechanism—
you, whose river is ploughed by the great
steamships whose white wake has been
called the fittest avenue to the palace
front of a mercantile people—you know
well that in the achievements of science
there is not only beauty and wonder, but
also beneficence and power. It is not
only that she has revealed to us infinite
space crowded with unnumbered worlds ;
infinite time peopled by unnumbered
existences ; infinite organisms hitherto in
visible but full of delicate and irridescent
loveliness ; but also that she has been, as
a great Archangel of Mercy, devoting
herself to the service of man. She has
laboured, her votaries have laboured, not
to increase the power of despots or add to
the magnificence of courts, but to extend
human happiness, to economise human
effort, to extinguish human pain. Where
of old, men toiled, half blinded and half
naked, in the mouth of the glowing
furnace to mix the white-hot iron, she
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
42
now substitutes the mechanical action of
the viewless air. She has enlisted the
sunbeam in her service to limn for us,
with absolute fidelity, the faces of the
friends we love. She has shown the
poor miner how he may work in safety,
even amid the explosive fire-damp of the
mine.
She has, by her anaesthetics,
enabled the sufferer to be hushed and
unconscious while the delicate hand of
some skilled operator cuts a fragment
from the nervous circle of the unquiver
ing eye. She points not to pyramids
built during weary centuries by the
sweat of miserable nations, but to the
lighthouse and the steamship, to the rail
road and the telegraph. She has restored
eyes to the blind and hearing to the deaf.
She has lengthened life, she has minimised
danger, she has controlled madness, she
has trampled on disease. And on all
these grounds, I think that none of our
sons should grow up wholly ignorant of
studies which at once train the reason
and fire the imagination, which fashion as
well as forge, which can feed as well as
fill the mind.”
CHAPTER X
EDUCATION
“No pleasure is comparable to the standing
upon the vantage ground of truth.”—Bacon.
‘ ‘ Divine Philosophy !
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”—Milton.
It may seem rather surprising to include
education among the pleasures of life ;
for in too many cases it is made odious
to the young, and is supposed to cease
with school; while, on the contrary, if it
is to be really successful it must be suit
able, and therefore interesting, to children,
and must last through life. The very
process of acquiring knowledge is a
privilege and a blessing. It used to be
PART I
said that there was no royal road to learn
ing : it would be more true to say that
the avenues leading to it are all royal.
“It is not,” says Jeremy Taylor, “the
eye that sees the beauties of heaven, nor
the ear that hears the sweetness of music,
or the glad tidings of a prosperous
accident; but the soul that perceives all
the relishes of sensual and intellectual
perceptions: and the more noble and
excellent the soul is, the greater and
more savoury are its perceptions. And
if a child behold the rich ermine, or the
diamonds of a starry night, or the order
of the world, or hears the discourses of
an apostle ; because he makes no reflex
act on himself and sees not what he sees,
he can have but the pleasure of a fool or
the deliciousness of a mule.”
Herein lies the importance of educa
tion. I say education rather than in-,
struction, because it is far more important
to cultivate the mind than to store the
memory. Instruction is only a part of
education : the true teacher has been well
described by Montgomery :
‘ ’ And while in tones of sportive tenderness,
He answer’d all its questions, and ask’d others
As simple as its own, yet wisely framed
To wake and prove an infant’s faculties ;
As though its mind were some sweet instru
ment,
And he, with breath and touch, were finding
out
What stops or keys would yield the richest
music.”
Studies are a means and not an end.
“To spend too much time in studies is
sloth ; to use them too much for orna
ment is affectation ; to make judgment
wholly by their rules is the humour of a
scholar : they perfect nature, and are per
fected by experience. . . . Crafty men
contemn studies, simple men admire
them, and wise men use them.” 1
Moreover, though, as Mill says, “in
the comparatively early state of human
development in which we now live, a
person cannot indeed feel that entireness
of sympathy with all others which would
make any real discordance in the general
1 Bacon.
�EDUCATION
CHAP. X
direction of tlieir conduct in life impos
sible,” yet education might surely do more
to root in us the feeling of unity with our
fellow-creatures. At any rate, if we do
not study in this spirit, all our learning
will but leave us as weak and sad as
Faust.
Our studies should be neither “a
couch on which to rest; nor a cloister in
which to promenade alone ; nor a tower
from which to look down on others; nor
a fortress whence we may resist them ;
nor a workshop for gain and merchandise ;
but a rich armoury and treasury for the
glory of the creator and the ennoblement
of life.” 1
For in the noble words of Epictetus,
“ you will do the greatest service to the
state if you shall raise, not the roofs of
the houses, but the souls of the citizens :
for it is better that great souls should
dwell in small houses rather than for
mean slaves to lurk in great houses.”
It is then of great importance to con
sider whether our present system of
education is the one best calculated to
fulfil these great objects. Does it really
give that love of learning which is better
than learning itself ? Does all the study
of the classics to which our sons devote
so many years give any just appreciation
of them; or do they not on leaving
college too often feel with Byron—
“ Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so ! ”
Too much concentration on any one
subject is a great mistake, especially in
early life. Nature herself indicates the
true system, if we would but listen to
her. Our instincts are good guides,
though not infallible, and children will
profit little by lessons which do not
interest them. In cheerfulness, says
Pliny, is the success of our studies—
“ studia hilaritate proveniunt ”—and we
may with advantage take a lesson from
Theognis, who, in his Ode on the
Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia,
makes the Muses sing —
1 Bacon.
43
‘ ‘ What is good and fair,
Shall ever be our care ;
Thus the burden of it rang,
That shall never be our care,
Which is neither good nor fair.
Such were the words your lips immortal sang.”
There are some who seem to think
that our educational system is as good as
possible, and that the only remaining
points of importance are the number of
schools and scholars, the question of fees,
the relation of voluntary and board
schools, etc. “No doubt,” says Mr.
Symonds, in his Sketches in Italy and
Greece, “ there are many who think that
when we not only advocate education but
discuss the best system we are simply
beating the air ; that our population is
as happy and cultivated as can be, and
that no substantial advance is really
possible. Mr. Galton, however, has ex
pressed the opinion, and most of those
who have written on the social condition
of Athens seem to agree with him, that
the population of Athens, taken as a
whole, was as superior to us as we are to
Australian savages.”
That there is, indeed, some truth in
this, probably no student of Greek history
will deny. Why, then, should this be so ?
I cannot but think that our system of
education is partly responsible.
Manual and science teaching need not
in any way interfere with instruction in
other subjects. Though so much has
been said about the importance of science
and the value of technical instruction, or
of hand-training, as I should prefer to
call it, it is unfortunately true that in
our system of education, from the highest
schools downwards, both of them are
sadly neglected, and the study of language
reigns supreme.
This is no new complaint. Ascham,
in The Schoolmaster, long ago lamented
it; Milton, in his letter to Mr. Samuel
Hartlib, complained “ that our children
are forced to stick unreasonably in these
grammatick flats and shallows ; ” and
observes that, “though a linguist should
pride himself to have all the tongues
�44
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Babel cleft tlie world into, yet, if he have
not studied the solid things in them as
well as the words and lexicons, he were
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned
man as any yeoman or tradesman com
petently wise in his mother dialect only ; ”
and Locke said that “ schools fit us for
the university rather than for the world.”
Commission after commission, committee
after committee, have reiterated the same
complaint. How then do we stand now ?
I see it indeed constantly stated that,
even if the improvement is not so rapid
as could be desired, still we are making
considerable progress. But is this so ?
I fear not.
I fear that our present
system does not really train the mind, or
cultivate the power of observation, or
even give the amount of information
which we may reasonably expect from the
time devoted to it.
Sir M. E. Grant-Duff has expressed
the opinion that a boy or girl of fourteen
might reasonably be expected to “read
aloud clearly and agreeably, to write a
large distinct round hand, and to know
the ordinary rules of arithmetic, especially
compound addition — a by no cneans
universal accomplishment; to speak and
write French with ease and correctness,
and have some slight acquaintance with
French literature ; to translate ad aperturam libri from an ordinary French
or German book ; to have a thoroughly
good elementary knowledge of geography,
under which are comprehended some
notions of astronomy—enough to excite
his curiosity ; a knowledge of the very
broadest facts of geology and history—
enough to make him understand, in a
clear but perfectly general way, how the
larger features of the world he lives in,
physical and political, came to be like
what they are ; to have been trained from
earliest infancy to use his powers of
observation on plants, or animals, or rocks,
or other natural objects; and to have
gathered a general acquaintance with what
is most supremely good in that portion
of the more important English classics
which is suitable to his time of life; to
PART I
have some rudimentary acquaintance with
drawing and music.”
To effect this, no doubt, “industiy
must be our oracle, and reason our
Apollo,” as Sir T. Browne says ; but surely
it is no unreasonable estimate; yet how
far do we fall short of it ? General
culture is often deprecated because it is
said that smatterings are useless. But
there is all the difference in the world
between having a smattering of, or being
well grounded in, a subject. It is the
latter which we advocate-—to try to know,
as Lord Brougham well said, “ every
thing of something, and something of
everything.”
“It can hardly,” says Sir John Her
schel, “ be pressed forcibly enough on
the attention of the student of nature,
that there is scarcely any natural phe
nomenon which can be fully and com
pletely explained, in all its circumstances,
without a union of several, perhaps of all,
the sciences.”
The present system in most of our
public schools and colleges sacrifices
everything else to classics and arithmetic.
They are most important subjects, but
ought not to exclude science and modern
languages. Moreover, after all, our sons
leave college unable to speak either Latin
or Greek, and too often absolutely with
out any interest in classical history or
literature. But the boy who has been
educated without any training in science
has grave reason to complain of “ wisdom
at one entrance quite shut out.”
By concentrating the attention, indeed,
so much on one or two subjects, we defeat
our own object, and produce a feeling of
distaste where we wish to create an
interest.
Our great mistake in education is, as
it seems to me, the worship of book
learning—the confusion of instruction and
education. We strain the memory instead
of cultivating the mind. The children
in our elementary schools are wearied
by the mehanical act of wilting, and
the interminable intricacies of spelling;
they are oppressed by columns of dates
�CHAP. X
EDUCATION
45
by lists of kings and places, which convey man he was. I doubt, however, whether
no definite idea to their minds, and have the boys were deceived by the hat ; and
no near relation to their daily wants am very sceptical about Dr. Busby’s
and occupations; while in our public theory of education.
schools the same unfortunate results are
Master John of Basingstoke, who was
produced by the weary monotony of Latin Archdeacon of Leicester in 1252, learnt
and Greek grammar. We ought to follow Greek during a visit to Athens, from
exactly the opposite course with children Constantina, daughter of the Archbishop
—to give them a wholesome variety of of Athens, and used to say afterwards
mental food, and endeavour to cultivate that though he had studied well and
their tastes, rather than to fill their minds diligently at the University of Paris, yet
with dry facts. The important thing is he learnt more from an Athenian maiden
not so much that every child should be of twenty. We cannot all study so
taught, as that every child should be pleasantly as this, but the main fault
given the wish to learn. What does it I find with Dr. Busby’s system is that
matter if the pupil knows a little more or it keeps out of sight the great fact of
a little less ? A boy who leaves school human ignorance.
knowing much, but hating his lessons,
Boys are given the impression that
will soon have forgotten almost all he the masters know everything. If, on the
ever learnt; while another who had contrary, the great lesson impressed on
acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if them was that what we know is as nothing
he had learnt little, would soon teach to what we do not know, that the “great
himself more than the first ever knew. ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before
Children are by nature eager for informa us,” surely this would prove a great
tion. They are always putting questions. stimulus, and many would be nobly
This ought to be encouraged. In fact, anxious to enlarge the boundaries of
we may to a great extent trust to their human knowledge, and extend the in
instincts, and in that case they will do I tellectual kingdom of man. Philosophy,
much to educate themselves. Too often, says Aristotle, begins in wonder, for Iris
however, the acquirement of knowledge is the child of Thaumas.
is placed before them in a form so irk
Education ought not to cease w’hen we
some and fatiguing that all desire for leave school; but if well begun there,
information is choked, or even crushed will continue through life.
out; so that our schools, in fact, become
Moreover, whatever our occupation
places for the discouragement of learning, or profession in life may be, it is most
and thus produce the very opposite effect desirable to create for ourselves some
from that at which we aim. In short, other special interest. In the choice of
children should be trained to observe and a subject every one should consult his
to think, for in that way there would own instincts and interests. I will not
be opened out to them a source of the attempt to suggest whether it is better to
purest enjoyment for leisure hours, and pursue art or science ; whether we should
the wisest judgment in the work of study the motes in the sunbeam, or the
life.
heavenly bodies themselves. Whatever
Another point in which I venture to may be the subject of our choice, we shall
think that our system of education might find enough, and more than enough, to
be amended, is that it tends at present repay the devotion of a lifetime.
to give the impression that everything is
Life no doubt is paved with enjoyments,
known.
but we must all expect times of anxiety,
Dr. Busby is said to have kept his of suffering, and of sorrow ; and when
hat on in the presence of King Charles, these come it is an inestimable comfort to
that the boys might see what a great have some deep interest which will, at
�46
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
any rate to some extent, enable us to escape
from ourselves.
“ A cultivated mind,” says Mill—“ I do
not mean that of a philosopher, but any
mind to which the fountains of knowledge
have been opened, and which has been
taught in any tolerable degree to exercise
its faculties—will find sources of inex
haustible interest in all that surrounds
it; in the objects of nature, the achieve
ments of art, the imaginations of poetry,
the incidents of history, the ways of man
kind, past and present, and their prospects
in the future. It is possible, indeed, to
become indifferent to all this, and that too
without having exhausted a thousandth
part of it ; but only when one has had
from the beginning no moral or human
interest in these things, and has sought in
them only the gratification of curiosity.”
I have been subjected to some goodnatured banter for having said that I
looked forward to a time when our artizans
and mechanics would be great readers. But
it is surely not unreasonable to regard our
social condition as susceptible of great im
provement. The spread of schools, the
cheapness of books, the establishment of
free libraries will, it may be hoped, exercise
a civilising and ennobling influence. They
will even, I believe, do much to diminish
poverty and suffering, so much of which
is due to ignorance and to the want of
interest and brightness in uneducated life.
So far as our elementary schools are con
cerned, there is no doubt much difficulty in
apportioning the National Grant without
unduly stimulating mere mechanical in
struction. But this is not the place to dis
PART I
cuss the subject of religious or moral train
ing, or the system of apportioning the grant.
If we succeed in giving the love of learn
ing, the learning itself is sure to follow.
We should therefore endeavour to edu
cate our children so that every country
walk may be a pleasure ; that the dis
coveries of science may be a living interest;
that our national history and poetry may
be sources of legitimate pride and rational
enjoyment. In short, our schools, if they
are to be worthy of the name—if they are
to fulfil their high function—must be
something more than mere places of dry
study ; they must train the children edu
cated in them so that they may be able
to appreciate and enjoy those intellectual
gifts which might be, and ought to be, a
source of interest and of happiness, alike
to the high and to the low, to the rich
and to the poor.
A wise system of education will at
least teach us how little man yet knows,
how much he has still to learn ; it will
enable us to realise that those ■who com
plain of the tiresome monotony of life
have only themselves to' blame ; and that
knowledge is pleasure as well as power.
It will lead us all to try with Milton “ to
behold the bright countenance of truth
in the quiet and still air of study,” and to
feel with Bacon that “no pleasure is com
parable to the standing upon the vantage
ground of truth.”
We should then indeed realise in part,
for as yet we cannot do so fully, the
“ sacred trusts of health, strength, and
time,” and how thankful we ought to be
for the inestimable gift of life.
�PAET II
��PREFACE
“ And what is writ, is writ—
Would it were worthier.”
Byron.
Herewith I launch the conclusion of my subject. Perhaps I am unwise in
publishing a second part. The first was so kindly received that I am running
a risk in attempting to add to it.
In the preface, however, to the first part I have expressed the hope that
the thoughts and quotations in which I have found most comfort and delight,
might be of use to others also.
In this my most sanguine hopes have been more than realised. Not only
has the book passed through twenty editions in less than three years, but the
many letters which I have received have been most gratifying.
Two criticisms have been repeated by several of those who have done me
the honor, of noticing my previous volume. It has been said in the first
place that my life has been exceptionally bright and full, and that I cannot
therefore judge for others. Nor do I attempt to do so. I do not forget, I
hope I am not ungrateful for, all that has been bestowed on me. But if I
have been greatly favoured, ought I not to be on that very account especially
qualified to write on such a theme 1 Moreover, I have had,—who has not,—
my own sorrows.
Again, some have complained that there is too much quotation—too little
of my own. This I take to be in reality a great compliment. I have not
striven to be original.
If, as I have been assured by many, my book has added to their power
of enjoying life, and has proved a comfort in the hours of darkness, that
is indeed an ample reward and is the utmost I have ever hoped.
High Elms, Down, Kent,
April 1889.
E
�CONTENTS
PART II
CHAP.
I. Ambition ....
51
II. Wealth ....
54
III. Health
....
IV. Love
....
V. Art
....
65
....
70
....
74
VI. Poetry
•VII. Music
VIII. The Beauties of Nature
IX. The Troubles of Life
.
X. Labour and Rest
XI. Religion .
XII. The Hope of Progress .
XIII. The Destiny of Man
56
61
79
86
89
92
98
102
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
CHAPTER I
I know, says Morris,
“ How far high failure overleaps the bound
Of low successes.”
AMBITION
“ Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth
raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days.”
Milton.
If fame be the last infirmity of noble
minds, ambition is often the first ; though,
when properly directed, it may be no
feeble aid to virtue.
Had not my youthful mind, says
Cicero, “ from many precepts, from many
writings, drunk in this truth, that glory
and virtue ought to be the darling, nay,
the only wish in life; that, to attain
these, the torments of the flesh, with the
perils of death and exile, are to be
despised ; never had I exposed my person
in so many encounters, and to these daily
conflicts with the worst of men, for your
deliverance. But, on this head, books
are full; the voice of the wise is full;
the examples of antiquity are full: and
all these the night of barbarism had still
enveloped, had it not been enlightened
by the sun of science.”
The poet tells us that
“The many fail: the one succeeds.”1
And Bacon assures us that “ if a man
look sharp and attentively he shall see
fortune; for though she is blind, she is
not invisible.”
To give ourselves a reasonable prospect
of success, we must realise what we
hope to achieve ; and then make the
most of our opportunities.
Of these the use of time is one of the
most important. What have we to do
with time, asks Oliver Wendell Holmes,
but to fill it up with labour. “At the
battle of Montebello,” said Napoleon, “I
ordered Kellermann to attack with 800
horse, and with these he separated the
6000 Hungarian grenadiers before the
very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This
cavalry was half a league off, and required
a quarter of an hour to arrive on the
field of action ; and I have observed that
it is always these quarters of an hour
that decide the fate of a battle,” including,
we may add, the battle of life.
Nor must we spare ourselves in other
ways, for
“ He who thinks in strife
To earn a deathless fame, must do, nor ever
care for life.” 1
But this is scarcely true. All succeed
who deserve, though not perhaps as they
hoped. An honourable defeat is better
than a mean victory, and no one is really
the worse for being beaten, unless he
loses heart. Though we may not be able
to attain, that is no reason why we should
not aspire.
In the excitement of the struggle,
moreover, he will suffer comparatively
little from wounds and blows which
would otherwise cause intense pain.
It is well to weigh scrupulously the
object in view, to run as little risk as
may be, to count the cost with care.
1 Tennyson.
1 Beowulf.
�52
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
But when the mind is once made up,
there must be no looking back, you must
spare yourself no labour, nor shrink from
danger.
“ He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.” 1
Glory, says Renan, “is after all the
thing which has the best chance of not
being altogether vanity.” But what is
glory ?
Marcus Aurelius observes that “ a
spider is proud when it has caught a fly,
a man when he has caught a hare,
another when he has taken a little fish
in a net, another when he has taken
wild boars, another when he has taken
bears, and another when he has taken
Sarmatians ; ”2 but this, if from one
point of view it shows the vanity of
lame, also encourages us with the evidence
that every one may succeed if his objects
are but reasonable.
Alexander may be taken as almost a
type of Ambition in its usual form,
though carried to an extreme.
His desire was to conquer, not to in
herit or to rule. When news was brought
that his father Philip had taken some
town, or won some battle, instead of
being delighted, he used to say to his
companions, “ My father will go on con
quering, till there be nothing extra
ordinary left for you and me to do.”3
He is said even to have been mortified at
the number of the stars, considering that
he had not been able to conquer one
world. Such ambition is justly fore
doomed to disappointment.
The remarks of Philosophers on the
vanity of ambition refer generally to that
unworthy form of which Alexander may
be taken as the type—the idea of self
exaltation, not only without any reference
to the happiness, but even regardless of
the sufferings, of others.
“A continual and restless search after
1 Montrose.
2 He is referring here to one of his expeditions.
3 Plutarch.
PART II
fortune,” says Bacon, “ takes up too much
of their time who have nobler things to
observe.” Indeed he elsewhere extends
this, and adds that “No man’s private
fortune can be an end in any way worthy
of his existence.”
Goethe well observes that man “ exists
for culture; not for what he can accom
plish, but for what can be accomplished
in him.” 1
As regards fame, we must not confuse
name and essence. To be remembered is
not necessarily to be famous. There is
infamy as well as fame; and unhappily
almost as many are remembered for the
one as for the other, and not a few for a
mixture of both.
Who would not, however, rather be
forgotten, than recollected as Ahab or
Jezebel, Nero or Commodus, Messalina
or Heliogabalus, King John or Richard
III.?
“To be nameless in worthy deeds ex
ceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without
a name than Herodias with one ; and
■who would not rather have been the good
thief than Pilate ? ” 2
Kings and Generals are often remem
bered as much- for their misfortunes as
for their successes, for their deaths as for
their lives. The Hero of Thermopylae
was Leonidas, not Xerxes. Alexander’s
Empire fell to pieces at his death.
Napoleon was a great genius, though no
Hero. But what came of all his victories ?
They passed away like the smoke of his
guns and he left France weaker, poorer,
and smaller than he found her. The
most lasting result of his genius is no
military glory, but the Code Napoleon.
A surer and more glorious title to
fame is that of those who are remembered
for some act of justice or self-devotion:
the self-sacrifice of Leonidas, the good
faith of Regulus, are the glories of history.
In some cases where men have been
called after places, the men are remem
bered, while the places are forgotten.
When we speak of Palestrina or Perugino,
1 Emerson.
2 Sir T. Browne.
�CHAP. I
AMBITION
of Nelson or Wellington, of Newton or
Darwin, who remembers the towns ?
We think only of the men.
Goethe has been called the soul of his
century.
We have but meagre biographies of
Shakespeare or of Plato • yet how’ much
we know about them.
Statesmen and Generals enjoy great
celebrity during their lives. The news
papers chronicle every word and move
ment. But the fame of the Philosopher
and Poet is more enduring.
Wordsworth deprecates monuments to
Poets, with some exceptions, on this very
account. The case of Statesmen, he says,
is different. It is right to commemorate
them because they might otherwise be
forgotten ; but Poets live in their books
for ever.
The real conquerors of the world in
deed are not the generals but the
thinkers ; not Genghis Khan and Akbar,
Barneses, or Alexander, but Confucius
and Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ.
The rulers and kings wrho reigned over
our ancestors have for the most part long
since sunk into oblivion—they are for
gotten for want of some sacred bard to
give them life—or are remembered, like
Suddhodana and Pilate, from their associ
ation with higher spirits.
Such men’s lives cannot be compressed
into any biography.
They lived not
merely in their own generation, but for
all time. When we speak of the Eliza
bethan period we think of Shakespeare
and Bacon, Raleigh and Spenser. The
ministers and secretaries of state, with
one or two exceptions, we scarcely re
member, and Bacon himself is recollected
less as the Judge than as the Philosopher.
Moreover, to what do Generals and
Statesmen owe their fame? They were
celebrated for their deeds, but to the
Poet and the Historian they are indebted
for their immortality, and to the Poet and
Historian we owe their glorious memories
and the example of their virtues.
‘ ‘ Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles
53
Urgentur ignotique Tonga
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.”
Montrose happily combined the tw*o,
when in “ My dear and only love ” he
promises,
“ I’ll make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword.”
It is remarkable, and encouraging, how
many of the greatest men have risen
from the lowest rank, and triumphed
over obstacles which might well have
seemed insurmountable; nay, even ob
scurity itself may be a source of honour.
The very doubts as to Homer’s birthplace
have contributed to his glory, seven cities
as we all know laying claim to the great
poet—
“Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios,
Argos, Athenaj.”
Take men of Science only. Ray was
the son of a blacksmith, Watt of a ship
wright, Franklin of a tallow-chandler,
Dalton of a handloom weaver, Fraunhofer
of a glazier, Laplace of a farmer, Linnseus
of a poor curate, Faraday of a blacksmith,
Lamarck of a banker’s clerk ; George
Stephenson wras a working collier, Davy
an apothecary’s assistant, Wheatstone a
musicalinstrumentmaker; Galileo, Kepler,
Sprengel, Cuvier, and Sir W. Herschel
were all children of very poor parents.
It is, on the other hand, sad to think
how many of our greatest benefactors are
unknown even by name. Who discovered
the art of procuring fire ? Prometheus is
merely the personification of forethought.
Who invented letters ? Cadmus is a
mere name.
These inventions, indeed, are lost in
the mists of antiquity, but even as re
gards recent progress the steps are often
so gradual, and so numerous, that few in
ventions can be attributed entirely, or
even mainly, to any one person.
Columbus is said, and truly said, to
have discovered America, though the
Northmen were there before him.
We Englishmen have every reason to
be proud of our fellow-countrymen. To
�54
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
take Philosophers and men of Science what as the years roll on, does add to the
only, Bacon and Hobbes, Locke and comfort of life. But this is of course on
Berkeley, Hume and Hamilton, will the supposition that you are master of
always be associated with the progress of your money, that the money is not master
human thought; Newton with gravita of you.
tion, Adam Smith with Political Economy,
Unquestionably the possession of wealth
Young with the undulatory theory of is attended by many drawbacks. Money
light, Herschel with the discovery of and the love of money often go together.
Uranus and the study of the star depths, The poor man, as Emerson says, is the
Lord Worcester, Trevethick, and Watt man who wishes to be rich ; and the more
with the steam-engine, Wheatstone with a man has, the more he often longs to
the electric telegraph, Jenner with the be richer. Just as drinking often does
banishment of smallpox, Simpson with but increase thirst; so in many cases the
the practical application of anaesthetics, craving for riches grows with wealth
and Darwin with the creation of modern
This is, of course, especially the case
Natural History.
when money is sought for its own sake.
These men, and such as these, have Moreover, it is often easier to make money
made our history and moulded our than to keep or to enjoy it. Keeping it
opinions ; and though during life they is dull and anxious drudgery. The dread
may have occupied, comparatively, an of loss may hang like a dark cloud over
insignificant space in the eyes of their life. Seneca tells us that when Apicius
countrymen, they became at length an had squandered most of his patrimony,
irresistible power, and have now justly but had still 250,000 crowns left, he
grown to a glorious memory.
committed suicide, for fear he should die
of hunger.
Wealth is certainly no sinecure. More
over, the value of money depends partly
CHAPTER II
on knowing what to do with it, partly
WEALTH
on the manner in which it is acquired.
“ Acquire money, thy friends say, that
“ The rich and poor meet together : the Lord
is the maker of them all.” — Proverbs of we also may have some. If I can acquire
money and also keep myself modest, and
Solomon.
faithful, and magnanimous, point out the
Ambition often takes the form of a love way, and I will acquire it. But if you
of money. There are many who have ask me to lose the things which are good
never attempted Art or Music, Poetry or and my own, in order that you may gain
Science ; but most people do something things that are not good, see how unfair
for a livelihood, and consequently an and unwise you are. For which would
increase of income is not only acceptable you rather have? Money, or a faithful
in itself, but gives a pleasant feeling of and modest friend. . . .
success.
■“What hinders a man, who has clearly
Doubt is indeed often expressed whether comprehended these things, from living
wealth is any advantage. I do not my with a light heart, and bearing easily the
self believe that those who are born, as reins, quietly expecting everything which
the saying is, with a silver spoon in their can happen, and enduring that which has
mouth, are necessarily any the happier for already happened ? Would you have me
it. No doubt wealth entails almost more to bear poverty ? Come, and you will
labour than poverty, and certainly more know what poverty is when it has found
anxiety. Still it must, I think, be con one who can act well the part of a poor
fessed that the possession of an income, man.” 1
whatever it may be, which increases some
1 Epictetus.
�CHAP. II
WEALTH
We must bear in mind Solon’s answer
to Croesus, “ Sir, if any other come that
hath better iron than you, he will be
master of all this gold.”
Midas is another case in point. He
prayed that everything he touched might
be turned into gold, and this prayer was
granted. His wine turned to gold, his
bread turned to gold, his clothes, his very
bed.
“Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,
Effugere optat opes, et quse modo voverat, odit.”
He is by no means the only man who
has suffered from too much gold.
The real truth I take to be that wealth
is not necessarily an advantage, but that
whether it is so or not depends on the
use we make of it. The same, however,
might be said of most other opportunities
and privileges ; Knowledge and Strength,
Beauty and Skill, may all be abused ; if
we neglect or misuse them we are worse
off than if we had never had them.
Wealth is only a disadvantage in the hands
of those who do not know how to use it.
It gives the command of so many other
things—leisure, the power of helping
others, books, works of art, opportunities
and means of travel.
It would, however, be easy to exagger
ate the advantages of money. It is well
worth having, and worth working for,
but it does not requite too great a sacri
fice ; not indeed so great as is often offered
up to it. A wise proverb tells us that
gold may be bought too dear. If wealth
is to be valued because it gives leisure,
clearly it would be a mistake to sacrifice
leisure in the struggle for wealth. Money
has no doubt also a tendency to make men
poor in spirit. But, on the other hand,
what gift is there which is without
danger ?
Euripides said that money finds friends
for men, and has great (he said the
greatest) power among Mankind, cynically
adding, “ Mighty indeed is a rich man,
especially if his heir be unknown.”
Bossuet tells us that “he had no
attachment to riches, still if he had only
55
what was barely necessary, he felt him
self narrowed, and would lose more than
half his talents.”
Shelley was certainly not an avaricious
man, and yet “ I desire money,” he said,
“ because I think I know the use of it.
It commands labour, it gives leisure ; and
to give leisure to those who will employ
it in the forwarding of truth is the noblest
present an individual can make to the
whole.”
Many will have felt with Pepys when
he quaintly and piously says, “ Abroad
with my wife, the first time that ever I
rode in my own coach ; which do make
my heart rejoice and praise God, and pray
him to bless it to me, and continue it.”
This, indeed, was a somewhat selfish
satisfaction. Yet the merchant need not
quit nor be ashamed of his profession,
bearing in mind only the inscription on
the Church of St. Giacomo de Bialto at
Venice: “ Around this temple let the
merchant’s law be just, his weights true,
and his covenants faithful.” 1
If, however, life has been sacrificed to
the rolling up of money for its own sake,
the very means by which it was acquired
will prevent its being enjoyed ; the chill
of poverty will have entered into the very
bones. The miser deprives himself of
everything, for fear lest some day he
should be deprived of something. The
term Miser was happily chosen for such
persons ; they are essentially miserable.
“ A collector peeps into all the picture
shops of Europe for a landscape of Poussin,
a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the
Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the
Communion of St. Jerome, and what are
as transcendent as these, are on the walls
of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre,
where every footman may see them ; to
say nothing of Nature’s pictures in every
street, of sunsets and sunrises every day,
and the sculpture of the human body
never absent. A collector recently bought
at public auction in London, for one
hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an auto
graph of Shakespeare : but for nothing a
1 Ruskin.
�56
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
schoolboy can read Hamlet, and can detect
secrets of highest concernment yet un
published therein.”1 And yet “What
hath the owner but the sight of it with
his eyes.” 2
We are really richer than we think.
We often hear of Earth hunger. People
envy a great Landlord, and fancy how
delightful it must be to possess a large
estate. But, too often, as Emerson says,
“if you own land, the land owns you.”
Moreover, have we not all, in a better
sense—have we not all thousands of acres
of our own ? The commons, and roads,
and footpaths, and the seashore, our grand
and varied coast—these are all ours.
The sea-coast has, moreover, two great
advantages. In the first place, it is for
the most part but little interfered with
by man, and in the second it exhibits most
instructively the forces of Nature.
We are, indeed, all great landed pro
prietors, if we only knew it. What we
lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it.
This great inheritance has the additional
advantage that it entails no labour, requires
no management. The landlord has the
trouble, but the landscape belongs to
every one who has eyes to see it. Thus
Kingsley called the heaths round Eversley
his “ winter garden ” ; not because they
were his in the eye of the law, but in that
higher sense in which ten thousand persons
may own the same thing.
CHAPTER III
HEALTH
“ Health is best for mortal man ; next beauty ;
thirdly, well gotten wealth ; fourthly, the
pleasure of youth among friends.”
Simonides.
But if there has been some difference of
opinion as to the advantage of wealth,
with reference to health all are agreed.
“Health,” said Simonides long ago, “is
best for mortal man ; next beauty ; thirdly,
well gotten wealth ; fourthly, the pleasure
1 Emerson.
2 Solomon.
PART II
of youth among friends.” “Life, ’ says
Longfellow, “ without health is a burden,
with health is a joy and gladness.” Em
pedocles delivered the people of Selinus
from a pestilence by draining a marsh, and
was hailed as a Demigod. We are told
that a coin was struck in his honour, re
presenting the Philosopher in the act of
staying the hand of Phoebus.
We scarcely realise, I think, how much
we owe to Doctors. Our system of Medi
cine seems so natural and obvious that it
hardly occurs to us as something new and
exceptional. When we are ill we send for
a Physician ; he prescribes some medicine ;
we take it, and pay his fee. But among
the lower races of men pain and illness
are often attributed to the presence of evil
spirits. The Medicine Man is a Priest, or
rather a Sorcerer, more than a true Doctor,
and his effort is to exorcise the evil Spirit.
In other countries where some advance
has been made, a charm is written on a
board, washed off, and drunk. In some
cases the medicine is taken, not by the
patient, but by the Doctor. Such a sys
tem, however, is generally transient; it is
naturally discouraged by the Profession,
and is indeed incompatible with a large
practice. Even as regards the payment
we find very different- systems. The
Chinese pay their medical man as long as
they are well, and stop his salary as soon
as they are ill. In ancient Egypt we are
told that the patient feed the Doctor for the
first few days, after which the Doctor paid
the patient until he made him well. This
is a fascinating system, but might afford
too much temptation to heroic remedies.
On the whole our plan seems the best,
though it does not offer adequate encour
agement to discovery and research. There
is probably some cure for cancer if we did
but know it. If, however, the substantial
rewards of discovery are inadequate, we
ought to be all the more grateful to such
men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and
Lister. And yet in the matter of health
we can generally do more for ourselves
than the greatest Doctors can for us.
But if all are agreed as to the blessing
�CHAP. Ill
HEALTH
of health, there are many who will not
take the little trouble, or submit to the
slight sacrifices, necessary to maintain it.
Many, indeed, deliberately ruin their own
health, and incur the certainty of an early
grave, or an old age of suffering.
No doubt some inherit a constitution
which renders health almost unattainable.
Pope spoke of that long disease, his life.
Many indeed may say, 111 suffer, therefore
I am.” But happily these cases are excep
tional. Most of us might be well, if we
would. It is very much our own fault
that we are ill. We do those things
which we ought not to do, and we leave
undone those things which we ought to
have done, and then we wonder that there
is no health in us.
Like Naaman, we expect our health to
be the subject of some miraculous interfer
ence, and neglect the homely precautions
by which it might be secured.
We all know that we can make ourselves
ill, but few perhaps realise how much we
can do to keep ourselves well. Much of
our suffering is self-inflicted. It has been
observed that among the ancient Egyptians
it seemed the chief aim of life to be well
buried. Many, however, live even now
as if this were the principal object of their
existence.
I am inclined to doubt whether the
study of health is sufficiently impressed
on the minds of those entering life. Not
that it is desirable to potter over minor
ailments, to con over books on illnesses,
or experiment on ourselves with medicine.
Far from it. The less we fancy ourselves
ill, or bother about little bodily discom
forts, the more likely perhaps we are to
preserve our health.
It is, however, a different matter to
study the general conditions of health. A
well-known proverb tells us that, by the
time he is forty, every one is either a fool
or a physician. Unfortunately, however,
many persons are invalids at forty as well
as physicians.
Ill-health, however, is no excuse for
moroseness. If we have one disease we
may at least congratulate ourselves that
57
we are escaping all the rest. Sydney
Smith, ever ready to look on the bright
side of things even when borne down by
suffering, wrote to a friend that he had
gout, asthma, and seven other maladies,
but was “otherwise very well”; and many
of the greatest invalids have borne their
sufferings with cheerfulness and good
spirits.
It is said that the celebrated physiog
nomist, Campanella, could so abstract his
attention from any sufferings of his body,
that he was even able to endure the rack
without much pain ; and whoever has the
power of concentrating his attention and
controlling his will, can emancipate him
self from most of the minor miseries of
life. He may have much cause for anxiety,
his body may be the seat of severe suffer
ing, and yet his mind will remain serene
and unaffected ; he may triumph over care
and pain.
It is sad to think how much unnecessary
suffering has been caused, and how many
valuable lives have been lost, through
ignorance or carelessness.
We cannot
but fancy that the lives of many great
men might have been much prolonged by
the exercise of a little ordinary care.
If we take musicians only, what a
grievous loss to the world it is that Pergolesi should have died at twenty-six,
Schubert at thirty-one, Mozart at thirtyfive, Purcell at thirty-seven, and Mendels
sohn at thirty-eight.
In the old Greek myth the life of
Meleager was indissolubly connected by
fate with the existence of a particular
log of wood. As long as this was kept
safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore
a charmed life. It seems wonderful that
we do not watch with equal care over our
body, on the state of which happiness so
much depends.
The requisites of health are plain
enough: regular habits, daily exercise,
cleanliness, and moderation in all things
—in eating as well as in drinking—would
keep most people well.
I need not here dwell on the evils of
alcohol, but we perhaps scarcely realise
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
how much of the suffering and ill-humour
of life is due to over-eating. Dyspepsia,
for instance, from which so many suffer,
is in nine cases out of ten their own fault,
and arises from the combination of too
much food with too little exercise. To
lengthen your life, says an old proverb,
shorten your meals. Plain living and
high thinking will secure health for most
of us, though it matters, perhaps, com
paratively little what a healthy man eats,
so long as he does not eat too much#
“ Go to your banquet then, but use delight,
So as to rise still with an appetite.”1
Mr. Gladstone has told us that the
splendid health he enjoys is greatly due
to his having early learnt one simple
physiological maxim, and laid it down as
a rule for himself always to make twentyfive bites at every bit of meat.
No doubt, however, though the rule not
to eat or drink too much is simple enough
in theory, it is not quite so easy in applica
tion. There have been many Esaus who
have sold their birthright of health for a
mess of pottage.
Yet, though it may seem paradoxical,
it is certainly true, that in the long run
the moderate man will derive more enjoy
ment even from eating and drinking, than
the glutton or the drunkard will ever
obtain. They know not what it is to
enjoy “the exquisite taste of common
dry bread.” 2
Even then if we were to consider
merely the pleasure to be derived from
eating and drinking, the same rule would
hold good. A lunch of bread and cheese
after a good walk is more enjoyable than
a Lord Mayor’s feast. Without wishing,
like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so
as to enjoy our dinner longer, we must
not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we
derive from eating and drinking, even
though they be amongst the least aesthetic
of our pleasures.
They are homely,
no doubt, but they come morning, noon,
and night, and are not the less real
Herrick,
2 Hamerton.
PART II
because they have reference to the body
rather than the soul.
We speak truly of a healthy appetite,
for it is a good test of our bodily condi
tion ; and indeed in some cases of our
mental state also. That
“ There cometh no good thing
Apart from toil to mortals,”
is especially true with reference to appe
tite ; to sit down to a dinner, however
simple, after a walk with a friend among
the mountains or along the shore, is a
pleasure not to be despised.
Cheerfulness and good humour, more
over, during meals are not only pleasant
in themselves, but conduce greatly to
health.
It has been said that hunger is the
best sauce, but most would prefer some
good stories at a feast even to a good
appetite; and who would not like to
have it said of him, as of Biron by
Rosaline—
“A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
In the three great “Banquets” of
Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food
is not even mentioned.
In the words of the old Lambeth
adage—
“ What is a merry man ?
Let him do all he can
To entertain his guests
With wine and pleasant jests,
Yet if his wife do frown
All merryment goes down.”
What salt is to food, wit and humour
are to conversation and literature. “You
do not,” an amusing writer in the Cornhill
has said, “expect humour in Thomas a
Kempis or the Hebrew Prophets”; but
we have Solomon’s authority that there is
a time to laugh, as well as to weep.
“ To read a good comedy is to keep
the best company in the world, when the
best things are said,* and the most amus
ing things happen.” 1
It is not without reason that every one
1 Hazlitt.
�HEALTH
CHAP. Ill
resents the imputation of being unable to
see a joke.
Laughter appears to be the special
prerogative of man. The higher animals
present us with proofs of evident, if not
highly-developed reasoning power, but it
is more than doubtful whether they are
capable of appreciating a joke.
Wit, moreover, has solved many diffi
culties and decided many controversies.
“ Ridicule shall frequently prevail,
And cut the knot when graver reasons fail.” 1
The most wasted of all days, says
Chamfort, is that on which one has not
laughed.
A careless song, says Walpole, “with
a little nonsense in it now and then, does
not misbecome a monarch ; ” but it is
difficult now to realise that James I.
should have regarded skill in punning in
his selection of bishops and privy coun
cillors.
It is no small merit of laughter that it
is quite spontaneous. “You cannot force
people to laugh ; you cannot give a
reason why they should laugh; they
must laugh of themselves or not at all.
. . . If we think we must not laugh,
this makes our temptation to laugh the
greater.”2 Humour is, moreover, con
tagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of himself, “ I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is
in other men.”
One may paraphrase the well-known
remark about port wine and say that
some jokes may be better than others, but
anything which makes one laugh is good.
“After all,” says Dryden, “it is a good
thing to laugh at any rate ; and if a straw
can tickle a man, it is an instrument of
happiness,” and I may add, of health.
I have been told that in omitting any
mention of smoking I was overlooking
one of the real pleasures of life. Not
being a smoker myself I cannot perhaps
judge ; much must depend on the in
dividual temperament ; to some nervous
natures it certainly appears to be a great
1 Francis.
2 Hazlitt.
59
comfort; but I have my doubts whether
smoking, as a general rule, does add to
the pleasures of life. It must, at any
rate, detract somewhat from the sensitive
ness of taste and of smell.
Those who live in cities may almost
lay it down as a rule that no time spent
out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is
a cordial of incredible virtue ; old families
are in all senses county families, not town
families ; and those who prefer Homer
and Plato and Shakespeare to rivers and
forests and mountains must beware that
they are not tempted to neglect this great
requisite of our nature.
An Oriental traveller, having been
taken to watch a game of cricket, was
astonished at hearing that many of those
playing were rich men. He asked why
they did not pay some poor people to do
it for them.
Most Englishmen, however, love open
air, and it is probably true that most of
us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more
than looking at any of the old masters.
The love of sport is engraven in the
English character.
As was said of
William Rufus, “ he loves the tall deer as
if he had been their father.”
Wordsworth made it a rule to go out
every day, and used to say that as he
never consulted the weather, he never had
to consult the physicians.
It always seems to be raining harder
than it really is when you look at the
weather through the window. Even in
winter, though the landscape often seems
cheerless and bare enough when you look
at it from the fireside, still it is far better
to go out, even if you have to brave the
storm : when you are once out of doors
the touch of earth and the breath of the
fresh air will give you new life and
energy. Men, like trees, live in great
part on air.
After a gallop over the downs, a row
on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by the
seashore or in the woods,
“ The blue above, the music in the air,
The flowers upon the ground,” 1
1 Trench.
�6o
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
one feels as if one could say with Henry
IV., “ Je me porte comme le Pont Neuf.”
The Roman proverb that a child should
be taught nothing which he cannot learn
standing up, went no doubt into one
extreme, but surely we fall into another
when we act as if games were the only
thing which boys could learn upon their
feet.
The love of games among boys is
indeed a healthy instinct, and though
carried too far in some of our great
schools, there can be no question that
cricket and football, fives and hockey,
bathing and boating, are not only among
the greatest pleasures, but the best medi
cines, for boys.
We cannot always secure sleep. When
important decisions have to be taken, the
natural anxiety to come to a right decision
will often keep us awake.
Nothing,
however, is more conducive to healthy
sleep than plenty of open air. Then in
deed we can enjoy the fresh life of the
early morning : “ the breezy call of in
cense-breathing mom.”1
“ At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,
’Tis morning prompts the linnet’s blithest
lay,,
All Nature’s children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving, with reviving day.”
Epictetus described himself as “ a
spirit bearing about a corpse.” That
seems to me an ungrateful description.
Surely we ought to cherish the body, even
if it be but a frail and humble companion.
Do we not owe to the eye our enjoyment
of the beauties of this world and the
glories of the Heavens ; to the ear the
voices of friends and all the delights of
music ; are not the hands most faithful
and invaluable instruments, ever ready
in case of need, ever willing to do our
bidding ? and even the feet bear us with
out a murmur along the roughest and
stoniest paths of life.
With reasonable care, most of us may
hope to enjoy good health. And yet
what a marvellous and complex organisa
tion we have!
1 Gray.
PART II
We are indeed fearfully and wonder
fully made. It is
“ Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.”
When we consider the marvellous com
plexity of our bodily organisation, it
seems a miracle that we should live at
all; much more that the innumerable
organs and processes should continue day
after day and year after year with so
much regularity and so little friction
that we are sometimes scarcely conscious
of having a body at all.
And yet in that body we have more
than 200 bones, of complex and varied
forms, any irregularity in, or injury to,
which would of course grievously inter
fere with our movements.
We have over 500 muscles ; each
nourished by almost innumerable blood
vessels, and regulated by nerves. One
of our muscles, the heart, beats over
30,000,000 times in a year, and if it
once stops, all is over.
In the skin are wonderfully varied
and complex organs—for instance, over
2,000,000 perspiration glands, which
regulate the temperature, communicating
with the surface by ducts which have a
total length of some ten miles.
Think of the miles of arteries and veins,
of capillaries and nerves ; of the blood,
with the millions of millions of blood
corpuscles, each a microcosm in itself.
Think of the organs of sense,—the eye
with its cornea and lens, vitreous humour,
aqueous humour, and choroid, culminating
in the retina, no thicker than a sheet of
paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct
layers, the innermost composed of rods
and cones, supposed to be the immediate
recipients of the undulations of light,
and so numerous that in each eye the
cones are estimated at over 3,000,000,
the rods at over 30,000,000.
Above all, and most wonderful of all,
the brain itself. Meinert has calculated
that the gray matter alone contains no
less than 600,000,000 cells ; each cell
consists of several thousand visible mole-
�LOVE
CHAP. IV
cules, and each molecule again of many
millions of atoms.
And yet, with reasonable care, we can
most of us keep this wonderful organisa
tion in health, so that it will work with
out causing us pain, or even discomfort,
for many years ; and we may hope that
even when old age comes
“ Time may lay his hand
Upon your heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”
61
To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,
And, whether stern or smiling, loves them
still;—
So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our
wants,
And e’en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because ’twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying
grants.”1
Sir Walter Scott well says—
“And if there be a human tear
From passion’s dross 2 refined and clear,
’Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter’s head.”
Epaminondas is said to have given as
his main reason for rejoicing at the victory
of Leuctra, that it would give so much
LOVE
pleasure to his father and mother.
“ £)tre avec ceux qu’on aime, cela suffit.”
Nor must the love of animals be
La Bruy1:re.
altogether omitted. It is impossible not
Love is the light and sunshine of life. to sympathise with the Savage when he
We cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or any believes in their immortality, and thinks
thing else, unless some one we love enjoys that after death
it with us. Even if we are alone, w’e
“Admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.” 3
store up our enjoyment in hope of shar
ing it hereafter with those wre love.
In the Mahabharata, the great Indian
Love lasts through life, and adapts Epic, when the family of Pandavas, the
itself to every age and circumstance ; in heroes, at length reach the gates of
childhood for father and mother, in man heaven, they are welcomed themselves,
hood for wife, in age for children, and but are told that their dog cannot come
throughout for brothers and sisters, re in. Having pleaded in vain, they turn
lations and friends. The strength of to depart, as they say they can never
friendship is indeed proverbial, and in leave their faithful companion. Then at
some cases, as in that of David and the last moment the Angel at the door
Jonathan, is described as surpassing the relents, and their Dog is allowed to enter
love of women. But I need not now with them.
refer to it, having spoken already of what
We may hope the time will come when
we owe to friends.
we shall learn
The goodness of Providefice to man has
to blend
or our pride,
been often compared to that of fathers “Never sorrow of our pleasure thing that feels.” 4
With
the meanest
and mothers for their children.
But at the present moment I am speak
“ Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,
ing rather of the love which leads to mar
Yearns towards her little children from her
riage. Such love is the music of life, nay,
seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
“there is music in the beauty, and the
Takes this upon her knees, that on her silent note of love, far sweeter than the
feet;
sound of any instrument.” 5
And while from actions, looks, complaints,
CHAPTER IV
pretences,
She learns their feelings and their various
will,
1 Filicaja. Translated by Leigh Hunt.
2 Not from passion itself.
3 Pope.
4 Wor ds worth.
5 Browne.
�62
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
The Symposium of Plato contains an in
teresting and amusing disquisition on Love.
“ Love,” Ph sod r us is made to say, “ will
make men dare to die for their beloved—
love alone ; and women as well as men.
Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias,
is a monument to all Hellas ; for she was
willing to lay down her life on behalf of
her husband, when no one else would,
although he had a father and mother ;
but the tenderness of her love so far ex
ceeded theirs, that she made them seem
to be strangers in blood to their own son,
and in name only related to him ; and so
noble did this action of hers appear to the
gods, as well as to men, that among the
many who have done virtuously she is
one of the very few to whom they have
granted the privilege of returning to earth,
in admiration of her virtue ; such exceed
ing honour is paid by them to the devo
tion and virtue of love.”
Agathon is even more eloquent—
Love “fills men with affection, and
takes away their disaffection, making them
meet together at such banquets as these.
In sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord
—supplying kindness and banishing un
kindness, giving friendship and forgiving
enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder
of the wise, the amazement of the gods,
desired by those who have no part in him,
and precious to those who have the better
part in him ; parent of delicacy, luxury,
desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful
of the good, regardless of the evil. In
every word, work, wish, fear—pilot, com
rade, helper, saviour ; glory of gods and
men, leader best and brightest: in whose
footsteps let every man follow, sweetly
singing in his honour that sweet strain
with which love charms the souls of gods
and men.”
No doubt, even so there are two
Loves, “one, the daughter of Uranus,
who has no mother, and is the elder and
wiser goddess ; and the other, the daughter
of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and
common,”—but let us not examine too
closely. Charity tells us even of Guine
vere, “ that while she lived, she was a
PART II
good lover and therefore she had a good
end.” 1
The origin of love has exercised philo
sophers almost as much as the origin of
evil. The Symposium continues with a
speech which Plato attributes in joke to
Aristophanes, and of which Jowett ob
serves that nothing in Aristophanes is
more truly Aristophanic.
The original human nature, he says,
was not like the present. The Primeval
Man “ was round,2 his back and sides form
ing a circle ; and he had four hands and
four feet, one head with two faces, look
ing opposite ways, set on a round neck
and precisely alike.
He could walk
upright as men now do, backwards or
forwards as he pleased, and he could
also roll over and over at a great rate,
whirling round on his four hands and
four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going
over and over with their legs in the
air ; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Terrible was their might and strength, and
the thoughts of their hearts were great, and
they made an attack upon the gods ; of
them is told the tale of Otys and Epliialtes,
who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven,
and would have laid hands upon the gods.
Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.
Should they kill them and annihilate the
race with thunderbolts, as they had done
the giants, then there would be an end
of the sacrifices and worship which men
offered to them ; but, on the other hand,
the gods could not suffer their insolence
to be unrestrained. At last, after a good
deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way.
He said : ‘ Methinks I have a plan which
will humble their pride and mend their
manners ; they shall continue to exist, but
I will cut them in two, which will have a
double advantage, for it will halve their
strength and we shall have twice as many
sacrifices. They shall walk upright on
two legs, and if they continue insolent and
will not be quiet, I will split them again
and they shall hop on a single leg.’ He
spoke and cut men in two, ‘ as you might
1 Malory, Morte eVArthur.
2 I avail myself of Dr. Jowett’s translation.
�LOVE
CHAP. IV
split an egg with a hair.’ . . . After the
division the two parts of man, each de
siring his other half, came together. . . .
So ancient is the desire for one another
which is implanted in us, reuniting our
original nature, making one of two, and
healing the state of man. Each of us when
separated is but the indenture of a man,
having one side only, like a flat-fish,
and he is always looking for his other
half.
“ And when one of them finds his other
half, the pair are lost in amazement of
love and friendship and intimacy, and
one will not be out of the other’s sight,
as I may say, even for a minute : they
will pass their whole lives together ; yet
they could not explain what they desire
of one another. For the intense yearn
ing which each of them has towards the
other does not appear to be the desire of
lovers’ intercourse, but of something else,
which the soul of either evidently desires
and cannot tell, and of which she has
only a dark and doubtful presentiment.”
However this may be, there is such in
stinctive insight in the human heart
that we often form our opinion almost
instantaneously, and such impressions
seldom change, I might even say, they
are seldom wrong. Love at first sight
sounds like an imprudence, and yet is
almost a revelation. It seems as if we
were but renewing the relations of a
previous existence.
‘ But to see her were to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever."1
Yet though experience seldom falsifies
such a feeling, happily the reverse does
not hold good. Deep affection is often of
slow growth. Many a warm love has
been won by faithful devotion.
Montaigne indeed declares that “ Few
have married for love without repenting
it.” Dr. Johnson also maintained that
marriages would generally be happier if
they were arranged by the Lord Chan
cellor ; but I do not think either Mon
taigne or Johnson were good judges. As
1 Burns.
63
Lancelot said to the unfortunate Maid of
Astolat, “ I love not to be forced to love,
for love must arise of the heart and not
by constraint.” 1
Love defies distance and the elements ;
Sestos and Abydos are divided by the
sea, “ but Love joined them by an arrow
from his bow.” 2
Love can be happy anywhere. Byron
wished
“ 0 that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her.”
And many will doubtless have felt
“ 0 Love ! what hours were thine and mine
In lands of palm and southern pine,
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.”
What is true of space holds good equally
of time.
“ In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed ;
In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed ;
In halls, in gay attire is seen ;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above ;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.”3
Even when, as among some Eastern
races, Religion and Philosophy have com
bined to depress Love, truth reasserts
itself in popular sayings, as for instance
in the Turkish proverb, “ All women are
perfection, especially she who loves you.”
A French lady having once quoted to
Abd-el-Kader the Polish proverb, “ A
woman draws more with a hair of her
head than a yoke of oxen well harnessed ; ”
he answered with a smile, “ The hair is
unnecessary, woman is powerful as fate.”
But we like to think of Love rather as
the Angel of Happiness than as a ruling
force : of the joy of home when “hearts
are of each other sure.”
“ It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.” 4
1 Malory, Morte. d’Arthur.
2 Symonds.
3 Scott.
4 Ibid.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
64
What Bacon says of a friend is even
truer of a wife ; there is “ no man that
imparteth his joys to his friend, but he
joyeth the more ; and no man that
imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he
grieveth the less.”
Let some one we love come near us and
“ At once it seems that something new or
strange
Has passed upon the flowers, the trees, the
ground ;
Some slight but unintelligible change
On everything around.” 1
PART II
Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers ; and sweet the coming-on
Of grateful evening mild ; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry
train.
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds ; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit,
flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after
showers ;
Nor grateful evening mild ; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird ; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.”
Moreover, no one need despair of an
ideal marriage. We fortunately differ so
much in our tastes ; love does so much to
create love, that even the humblest may
hope for the happiest marriage if only he
deserves it; and Shakespeare speaks, as
11 Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps
Not on the ground, but on the heads of men.” he does so often, for thousands when he
says
Love and Reason divide the life of man.
“ She is mine own,
We must give to each its due. If it is
And I as rich in having such a jewel
impossible to attain to virtue by the aid
As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearls,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.”
of Love without Reason, neither can we
do so by means of Reason alone without
True love indeed will not be unreason
Love.
able or exacting.
Love, said Melanippides, “ sowing in
“ Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind
the heart of man the sweet harvest of
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
desire, mixes the sweetest and most
To war and arms I fly.
beautiful things together.”
How true is the saying of La Bruyere,
“ Etre avec ceux qu’on aime, cela suffit.”
We might, I think, apply to Love what
Homer says of Fate :
“ Love is kind, and suffers long,
Love is meek, and thinks no wrong,
Love than death itself more strong—
Therefore give us Love.”
True ! a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field,
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore,
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.”1
No one indeed could complain now,
with Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium,
And yet
that Love has had no worshippers among
the Poets. On the contrary, Love has 1 ‘ Alas ! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love !
brought them many of their sweetest in
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
spirations : none perhaps nobler or more
but more
beautiful than Milton’s description of And sorrowthe storm, closely tied, were rough,
That stood
when waves
Paradise :
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
‘ With thee conversing, I forget all time,
When heaven was all tranquillity.” 2
All seasons, and their change ; all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
For love is brittle. Do not risk even
With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the
any little jar ; it may be
sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
“The little rift within the lute,
His orient beams, on herb, treo, fruit, and
That by and by will make the music mute,
flower,
And ever widening slowly silence all.”3
1 Trench.
1 Lovelace.
2 Moore.
3 Tennyson.
�ART
CHAP. V
Love is delicate; “ Love is hurt with
jar and fret,” and you might as well ex
pect a violin to remain in tune if roughly
used, as Love to survive if chilled or
driven into itself. But what a pleasure
to keep it alive by
“ Little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.” 1
“ She whom you loved and chose,” says
Bondi,
“ Is now your bride, •
The gift of heaven, and to your trust consigned;
Honour her still, though not with passion blind;
And in her virtue, though you watch, confide.
Be to her youth a comfort, guardian, guide,
In whose experience she may safety find ;
And whether sweet or bitter be assigned,
The joy with her, as well as pain, divide.
Yield not too much if reason disapprove ;
Nor too much force ; the partner of your life
Should neither victim be, nor tyrant prove.
Thus shall that rein, which often mars the bliss
Of wedlock, scarce be felt; and thus your wife
Ne’er in the husband shall the lover miss.” 2
65
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth,
But Love is indestructible ;
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven retumeth ;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.
“ The Mother when she meets on high
The Babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight ? ”1
As life wears on the love of husband or
wife, of friends and of children, becomes
the great solace and delight of age. The
one recalls the past, the other gives in
terest to the future ; and in our children
we live our lives again.
Every one is ennobled by true love—
“ ’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.” 3
Perhaps no one ever praised a woman
more gracefully in a sentence than Steele
when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings
that “ to know her was a liberal educa
tion ” ; but every woman may feel as she
improves herself that she is not only
laying in a store of happiness for herself,
but also raising and blessing those whom
she would most wish to- see happy and
good.
Love, true love, grows and deepens
with time. Husband and wife, who are
married indeed, live
CHAPTER V
ART
“ High art consists neither in altering, nor in
improving nature ; but in seeking throughout
nature for ‘whatsoever things are lovely, what
soever things are pure ’ ; in loving these, in dis
playing to the utmost of the painter’s power
such loveliness as is in them, and directing the
thoughts of others to them by winning art, or
gentle emphasis. Art (caeteris paribus) is great
in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown
by the painter, provided that love of beauty
forfeit no atom of truth.”—Ruskin.
The most ancient works of Art which we
possess, are representations of animals,
rude indeed, but often strikingly charac
teristic, engraved on, or carved in, stag’s“ By each other, till to love and live
Be one.” 4
horn or bone ; and found in English,
Nor does it end with life. A mother’s French, and German caves, with stone
and other rude implements, and the re
love knows no bounds.
mains of mammalia, belonging apparently
“ They err who tell us Love can die,
to the close of the glacial epoch: not
With life all other passions fly,
only of the deer, bear, and other animals
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
now inhabiting temperate Europe, but
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell ;
of some, such as the reindeer, the musk
4 Wordsworth.
2 Bondi. Tr. by Glassford. sheep, the mammoth, and the woolly-
3 Tennyson.
K
4 Swinburne.
1 Southey.
�66
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
haired rhinoceros, which have either re
treated north or become altogether ex
tinct. We may even, I think, venture to
hope that other designs may hereafter be
found, which will give us additional in
formation as to the manners and customs
of our ancestors in those remote ages.
Next to these in point of antiquity
come the sculptures and paintings on
Egyptian and Assyrian tombs, temples,
and palaces.
These ancient scenes, considered as
works of art, have no doubt many faults,
and yet how graphically they tell their
story ! As a matter of fact a king is not,
as a rule, bigger than his soldiers, but in
these battle-scenes he is always so repre
sented. We must, however, remember
that in ancient warfare the greater part
of the fighting was done by the chiefs.
In this respect the Homeric poems re
semble the Assyrian and Egyptian repre
sentations. At any rate, we see at a
glance which is the king, which are
officers, which side is victorious, the
struggles and sufferings of the wounded,
the flight of the enemy, the city of refuge
—so that he who runs may read ; while
in modern battle-pictures the story is
much less clear, and, indeed, the untrained
eye sees for some time little but scarlet
and smoke.
These works assuredly possess a grandeur
and dignity of their own, even though
they have not the beauty of later art.
In Greece Art reached a perfection
which has never been excelled, and it
was more appreciated than perhaps it has
ever been since.
At the time when Demetrius attacked
the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was paint
ing a picture of Ialysus. “ This,” says
Pliny, “hindered King Demetrius from
taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should
burn the picture; and not being able to
fire the town on any other side, he was
pleased rather to spare the painting than
to take the victory, which was already in
his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had
his painting-room in a garden out of the
town, and very near the camp of the
PART II
enemies, where he was daily finishing
those pieces which he had already begun,
the noise of soldiers not being capable of
interrupting his studies. But Demetrius
causing him to be brought into his pre
sence, and asking him what made him so
bold as to work in the midst of enemies,
he answered the king, ‘That he under
stood the war which he made was against
the Rhodians, and not against the Arts.’ ”
With the decay of Greece, Art sank too,
until it was revived in the thirteenth
century by Cimabue, since whose time its
progress has been triumphal.
Art is unquestionably one of the purest
and highest elements in human happiness.
It trains the mind through the eye, and
the eye through the mind. As the sun
colors flowers, so does art color life.
“In true Art,” says Ruskin, “the
hand, the head, and the heart of man go
together. But Art is no recreation : it
cannot be learned at spare moments, nor
pursued when we have nothing better to
do.”
It is not only in the East that great
works, really due to study and labour,
have been attributed to magic.
Study and labour cannot make every
man an artist, but no one can succeed in
art without them. In Art two and two
do not make four, and no number of
little things will make a great one.
It has been said, and on high authority,
that the end of all art is to please. But
this is a very imperfect definition. It
might as well be said that a library is
only intended for pleasure and ornament.
Art has the advantage of nature, in so
far as it introduces a human element,
which is in some respects superior even
to nature. “If,” says Plato, “you take
a man as he is made by nature and com
pare him with another who is the effect
of art, the work of nature will always
appear the less beautiful, because art is
more accurate than nature.”
Bacon also, in The Advancement of
Learning, speaks of “ the world being in
ferior to the soul, by reason whereof there
is agreeable to the spirit of man a more
�CHAP. V
ART
ample greatness, a more exact goodness,
and a more absolute variety than can be
found in the nature of things.”
The poets tell us that, Prometheus
having made a beautiful statue of Minerva,
the goddess was so delighted that she
offered to bring down anything from
Heaven which could add. to its perfection.
Prometheus on this prudently asked her
to take him there, so that he might choose
for himself. This Minerva did, and Pro
metheus, finding that in heaven all things
were animated by fire, brought back a
spark, with which he gave life to his
work.
In fact, Imitation is the means and not
the end of Art. The story of Zeuxis and
Parrhasius is a pretty tale ; but to deceive
birds, or even man himself, is but a
trifling matter compared with the higher
functions of Art. To imitate the Iliad,
says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer ;
though, as Sir J. Reynolds adds, the more
the artist studies nature “the nearer he
approaches to the true and perfect idea of
art.”
Art, indeed, must create as well as
copy. As Victor Cousin well says, “ The
ideal without the real lacks life ; but the
real without the ideal lacks pure beauty.
Both need to unite; to join hands and
enter into alliance. In this way the best
work may be achieved. Thus beauty is
an absolute idea, and not a mere copy of
imperfect Nature.”
The grouping of the picture is of course
of the utmost importance. Sir Joshua
Reynolds gives two remarkable cases to
show how much any given figure in a
picture is affected by its surroundings.
Tintoret in one of his pictures has taken
the Samson of Michael Angelo, put an
eagle under him, placed thunder and
lightning in his right hand instead of the
jawbone of an ass, and thus turned him
into a Jupiter. The second instance is
even more striking. Titian has copied
the figure in the vault of the Sistine
Chapel which represents the Deity divid
ing light from darkness, and has intro
duced it into his picture of the battle of
67
Cadore, to represent a general falling from
his horse.
We must remember that so far as the
eye is concerned, the object of the artist
is to train, not to deceive, and that his
higher function has reference rather to
the mind than to the eye.
Those who love beauty will see beauty
everywhere. No doubt
“ To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to
garnish,
Is wasteful aud ridiculous excess.”1
But all is not gold that glitters, flowers
are not all arrayed like the lily, and
there is room for selection as well as
representation.
“The true, the good, and the beautiful,”
says Cousin, “ are but forms of the in
finite : what then do we really love in
truth, beauty, and virtue1? We love the
infinite himself. The love of the infinite
substance is hidden under the love of its
forms. It is so truly the infinite which
charms in the true, the good, and the
beautiful, that its manifestations alone do
not suffice. The artist is dissatisfied at
the sight even of his greatest works ; he
aspires still higher.”
It is indeed sometimes objected that
Landscape painting is not true to nature;
but we must ask, What is truth ? Is the
object to produce the same impression on
the mind as that created by the scene
itself? If so, let any one try to draw
from memory a group of mountains, and
he will probably find that in the impres
sion produced on his mind the mountains
are loftier and steeper, the valleys deeper
and narrower, than in the actual reality.
A drawing, then, which was literally
exact would not be true, in the sense of
conveying the same impression as Nature
herself.
In fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art
simply because it is not Nature.
It is not sufficient for the artist to
choose beautiful scenery, and delineate
1 Shakespeare.
�68
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
tART ii
it with accuracy. He must not be a
mere copyist.
Something higher and
more subtle is required. He must create,
or at any rate interpret, as well as copy.
Turner was never satisfied merely to
copy even the most glorious scenery. He
moved, and even suppressed, mountains.
A certain nobleman, we are told, was
very anxious to see the model from whom
Guido painted his lovely female faces.
Guido placed his color-grinder, a big
coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew
a beautiful Magdalen. “ My dear Count,”
he said, “ the beautiful and pure idea
must be in the mind, and then it is no
matter what the model is.”
When painting St. Michael for the
Church of the Capuchins at Rome, Guido
wished that he “ had the wings of an
angel, to have ascended unto Paradise, and
there to have beheld the forms of those
beautiful spirits, from which I might have
copied my Archangel. But not being
able to mount so high, it was in vain for
me to seek for his resemblance here below;
so that I was forced to look into mine
own mind, and into that idea of beauty
which I have formed in my own imagina
tion.” 1
Science attempts, as far as the limited
powers of Man permit, to reproduce the
actual facts in a manner which, however
bald, is true in itself, irrespective of time
and scene. To do this she must submit
to many limitations ; not altogether unvexatious, and not without serious draw
backs. Art, on the contrary, endeavours
to convey the impression of the original
under some especial aspect.
In some respects, Art gives a clearer
and more vivid idea of an unknown
country than any description can convey.
In literature rock may be rock, but in
painting it must be granite, slate, or some
other special kind, and not merely rock
in general.
It is remarkable that while artists have
long recognised the necessity of studying
anatomy, and there has been from the
commencement a professor of anatomy in
the Royal Academy, it is only of late
years that any knowledge of botany or
geology has been considered desirable,
and even now their importance is by no
means generally recognised.
Much has been written as to the rela
tive merits of painting, sculpture, and
architecture. This, if it be not a some
what unprofitable inquiry, would at any
rate be out of place here.
Architecture not only gives intense
pleasure, but even the impression of
something ethereal and superhuman.
Madame de Stael described it as
“ frozen music ”; and a cathedral is a
glorious specimen of “ thought in stone,”
whose very windows are transparent walls
of gorgeous hues.
Caracci said that poets paint in their
words and artists speak in their works.
The latter have indeed one great advan
tage, for a glance at a statue or a painting,
will convey a more vivid idea than a long,
and minute description.
Another advantage possessed by Art
is that it is understood by all civilised
nations, whilst each has a separate language.
Again, from a material point of view
Art is most important.
In a recent
address Sir F. Leighton has observed that
the study of Art “ is every day becoming
more important in relation to certain
sides of the waning material prosperity of
the country. For the industrial compe
tition between this and other countries
—a competition, keen and eager, which
means to certain industries almost a race
for life—runs, in many cases, no longer
exclusively or mainly on the lines of
excellence of material and solidity of
workmanship, but greatly nowadays on
the lines of artistic charm and beauty
of design.”
The highest service, however, that Art
can accomplish for man is to become “ at
once the voice of his nobler aspirations,
and the steady disciplinarian of his
emotions ; and it is with this mission,
rather than with any eesthetic perfection,
that we are at present concerned.” 1
1 Dryden.
1 Haweis.
�CHAI’. V
ART
69
Science and Art are sisters, or rather story, that the picture was sold for a pot
perhaps they are like brother and sister. of porter and a cheese, which, however,
The mission of Art is in some respects does not give a higher idea of the ap
like that of woman. It is not Hers preciation of the art of landscape at that
so much to do the hard toil and moil date.
Until very recently the general feeling
of the world, as to surround it with a
halo of beauty, to convert work into with reference to mountain scenery has
been that expressed by Tacitus. “ Who
pleasure.
In Science we naturally expect pro would leave Asia or Africa or Italy to go
gress, but in Art the case is not so clear : to Germany, a shapeless and unformed
and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not country, a harsh sky, and melancholy
hesitate to express his conviction that in aspect, unless indeed it was his native
the future “ so much will painting im land?”
It is amusing to read the opinion of
prove, that the best we can now achieve
will appear like the work of children,” Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise on Truth.,
and we may hope that our power of Poetry, and Music, written at the close
enjoying it may increase in an equal of last century, that “ The Highlands of
ratio. Wordsworth says that poets have Scotland are in general a melancholy
to create the taste for their own works, country. ■ Long tracts of mountainous
and the same is, in some degree at any country, covered with dark heath, and
often obscured by misty weather ; narrow
rate, true of artists.
In one respect especially modern painters valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by
appear to have made a marked advance, precipices resounding with the fall of
and one great blessing which in fact we torrents ; a soil so rugged, and a climate
owe to them is a more vivid enjoyment so dreary, as in many parts to admit
neither the amenities of pasturage, nor
of scenery.
I have of course no pretensions to speak the labours of agriculture ; the mournful
with authority, but even in the case of the dashing of waves along the firths and
greatest masters before Turner, the land lakes ; the portentous noises which every
scapes seem to me singularly inferior to the change of the wind is apt to raise in a
figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us that ' lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks,
Gainsborough framed a kind of model of a and caverns ; the grotesque and ghastly
landscape on his table, composed of broken appearance of such a landscape by the
stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking- light of the moon: objects like these
glass, which he “ magnified and improved diffuse a gloom over the fancy,” etc.1
Even Goldsmith regarded the scenery
into rocks, trees, and water” ; and Sir
Joshua solemnly discusses the wisdom of of the Highlands as dismal and hideous.
such a proceeding. “ How far it may be Johnson, we know, laid it down as an
useful in giving hints,” he gravely says, axiom that “ the noblest prospect which
“ the professors of landscape can best a Scotchman ever sees is the high road
determine,” but he does not recommend that leads him to England ”—a saying
it, and is disposed to think, on the whole, which throws much doubt on his dis
the practice may be more likely to do tinction that the Giant’s Causeway was
“ worth seeing but not worth going to
harm than good !
In the picture of Ceyx and Alcyone, by see.” 2
Madame de Stael declared, that though
Wilson, of whom Cunningham said that,
with Gainsborough, he laid the foundation she would go 500 leagues to meet a clever
of our School of Landscape, the castle is man, she would not care to open her
said to have been painted from a pot of window to see the Bay of Naples.
porter, and the rock from a Stilton cheese.
Nor was the ancient absence of apThere is indeed another version of the
1 Beattie. 1776.
2 Boswell.
�70
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
preciation confined to scenery. Burke,
speaking of Stonehenge, even says, “ Stone
henge, neither for disposition nor ornament,
has in it anything admirable.”
Ugly scenery may well in some cases
have an injurious effect on the human
system.
It has been ingeniously sug
gested that what really drove Don Quixote
out of his mind was not the study of his
books of chivalry, so much as the mono
tonous scenery of La Mancha.
The love of landscape is not indeed
due to Art alone. It has been the happy
combination of art and science which has
trained us to perceive the beauty which
surrounds us.
Art helps us-to see, and “hundreds of
people can talk for one who can think ;
but thousands can think for one who can
see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy,
and religion all in one. . . . Remember
ing always that there are two characters
in which all greatness of Art consists—
first, the earnest and intense seizing of
natural facts ; then the ordering those
facts by strength of human intellect, so
as to make them, for all who look upon
them, to the utmost serviceable, memor
able, and beautiful. And thus great Art
is nothing else than the type of strong
and noble life ; for as the ignoble person,
in his dealings w’ith all that occurs in the
world about him, first sees nothing clearly,
looks nothing fairly in the face, and then
allows himself to be swept away by the
trampling torrent and unescapable force
of the things that he would not foresee
and could not understand : so the noble
person, looking the facts of the world full
in the face, and fathoming them with deep
faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed
intelligence and unhurried strength, and
becomes, with his human intellect and
will, no unconscious nor insignificant
agent in consummating their good and
restraining their evil.” 1
May we not also hope that in this
respect also still further progress may be
made, that beauties may be revealed, and
pleasures may be in store for those who
1 Ruskin.
PART JI
come after us, which we cannot appreciate,
or at least can but faintly feel ?
Even now there is scarcely a cottage
without something more or less success
fully claiming to rank as Art,—a picture,
a photograph, or a statuette; and we may
fairly hope that much as Art even now
contributes to the happiness of life, it
will do so even more effectively in the
future.
CHAPTER VI
POETRY
“ And here the singer for his Art
Not all in vain may plead
‘ The song that nerves a nation’s heart
Is in itself a deed.’ ”
Tennyson.
After the disastrous defeat of the Athen
ians before Syracuse, Plutarch tells us
that the Sicilians spared those who could
repeat any of the poetry of Euripides.
“ Some there were,” he says, “ who owed
their preservation to Euripides. Of all
the Grecians, his was the muse with whom
the Sicilians were most in love. From
the strangers who landed in their island
they gleaned every small specimen or
portion of his works, and communicated
it with pleasure to each other. It is said
that upon this occasion a number of
Athenians on their return home went to
Euripides, and thanked him in the most
grateful manner for their obligations to
his pen ; some having been enfranchised
for teaching their masters what they re
membered of his poems, and others having
procured refreshments, when they were
wandering about after the battle, by sing
ing a few of his verses.”
Nowadays we are not likely to owe our
lives to Poetry in this sense, yet in another
we many of us owe to it a similar debt.
How often, when worn with overwork,
sorrow, or anxiety, have we taken down
Homer or Horace, Shakespeare or Mil ton,
and felt the clouds gradually roll
away, the jar of nerves subside, the con-
�POETRY
CHAP. VI
sciousness of power replace physical
exhaustion, and the darkness of despond
ency brighten once more into the light of
life.
“And yet Plato/’ says Jowett, “expels
the poets from his Republic because they
are allied to sense; because they stimulate
the emotions ; because they are thrice re
moved from the ideal truth.”
In that respect, as in some others, few
would accept Plato’s Republic as being
an ideal Commonwealth, and most would
agree with Sir Philip Sidney that “ if you
cannot bear the planet-like music of
poetry ... I must send you in the be
half of all poets, that while you live, you
live in love, and never get favour for
lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you
die, your memory die from the earth, for
want of an epitaph.”
Poetry has often been compared with
painting and sculpture. Simonides long
ago said that Poetry is a speaking picture,
and painting is mute Poetry.
“ Poetry,” says Cousin, “ is the first of
the Arts because it best represents the
infinite.”
And again, “Though the arts are in
some respects isolated, yet there is one
which seems to profit by the resources of
all, and that is Poetry. With words,
Poetry can paint and sculpture ; she can
build edifices like an architect; she unites,
to some extent, melody and music. She
is, so to say, the centre in which all arts
unite.”
A true poem is a gallery of pictures.
It must, Tthink, be admitted that paint
ing and sculpture can give us a clearer and
more vivid idea of an object we have
never seen than any description can
convey. But when we have once seen it,
then on the contrary there are many
points which the poet brings before us,
and which perhaps neither in the repre
sentation, nor even in nature, should we
perceive for ourselves. Objects can be
most vividly brought before us by the
artist, actions by the poet; space is the
domain of Art, time of Poetry.1
1 See Lessing’s Tmocooh.
71
Take, for instance, as a typical instance,
female beauty. How laboured and how
cold any description appears, The great
est poets recognise this ; as, for instance,
when Scott wishes us to realise the Lady
of the Lake he does not attempt any de
scription, but just mentions her attitude
and then adds—
“ And ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form or lovelier face ! ”
A great poet must be inspired ; he
must possess an exquisite sense of beauty,
with feelings deeper than those of most men,
and yet well under control. “The Milton
of poetry is the man, in his own magnifi
cent phrase, of devout prayer to that
Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all
utterance and knowledge, and sends out
his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his
altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom
he pleases.” 1 And if from one point of
view Poetry brings home to us the im
measurable inequalities of different minds,
on the other hand it teaches us that genius
is no affair of rank or wealth.
“ I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul, that perish’d in his pride ;
Of Burns, that walk’d in glory and in joy
Behind his plough upon the mountain-side.” 2
A man may be a poet and yet write no
verse, but not if he writes bad or poor
ones.
“ Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non Di, non concessere column a?.”3
Poetry will not live unless it be alive,
“ that which comes from the head goes to
the heart ”;4 and Milton truly said that
“ he who would not be frustrate of his
hope to write well hereafter in laudable
things, ought himself to be a true poem.”
For “ he who, having no touch of the
Muses’ madness in his soul, comes to the
door and thinks he will get into the temple
by the help of Art—he, I say, and his
Poetry are not admitted.” 5
Secondrate poets, like secondrate writers
1 Arnold.
3 Horace.
2 Wordsworth.
4 Coleridge.
5 Plato.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
72
PART II
generally, fade gradually into dreamland;
The works of our greatest Poets are all
but the work of the true poet is immortal. episodes in that one great poem which
“ For have not the verses of Homer the genius of man has created since the
continued 2500 years or more without commencement of human history.
the loss of a syllable or a letter, during
A distinguished mathematician is said
which time infinite palaces, temples, once to have inquired what was proved
castles, cities, have been decayed and by Milton in his Paradise Lost; and there
demolished ? It is not possible to have are no doubt still some who ask them
the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, selves, even if they shrink from putting
Alexander, or Ciesar ; no, nor of the kings the question to others, whether Poetry
or great personages of much later years ; is of any use, just as if to give pleasure
for the originals cannot last, and the were not useful in itself. No true Utili
copies cannot but lose of the life and tarian, however, would feel this doubt,
truth. But the images of men’s wits and since the greatest happiness of the greatest
knowledge remain in books, exempted number is the rule of his philosophy.
from the wrong of time and capable of
We must not however “ estimate the
perpetual renovation. Neither are they works of genius merely with reference
fitly to be called images, because they to the pleasure they afford, even when
generate still and cast their seeds in the pleasure was their principal object. We
minds of others, provoking and causing must also regard the intelligence which
infinite actions and opinions in succeeding they presuppose and exercise.”1
ages ; so that if the invention of the ship
Thoroughly to enjoy Poetry we must
was thought so noble, which carrietli riches not limit ourselves, but must rise to a
and commodities from place to place, and high ideal.
consociateth the most remote regions in
“ Yes ; constantly in reading poetry, a
participation of their fruits, how much sense for the best, the really excellent,
more are letters to be magnified, which, and of the strength and joy to be drawn
as ships, pass through the vast seas of time from it, should be present in our minds,
and make ages so distant to participate of and should govern our estimate of what
the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, we read.” 2
the one of the other 1 ” 1
Cicero, in his oration for Archias, well
The poet requires many qualifications. asked, “ Has not this man then a right to
“ Who has traced,” says Cousin, “ the plan my love, to my admiration, to all the
of this poem ? Reason. Who has given means which I can employ in his defence ?
it life and charm ? Love. And who has For we are instructed by all the greatest
guided reason and love ? The Will.” All and most learned of mankind, that educa
men have some imagination, but the lover tion, precepts, and practice, can in every
and the poet
other branch of learning produce excel
“ Are of imagination all compact.
lence. But a poet is formed by the hand
of nature ; he is aroused by mental vigour,
The Poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
and inspired by what we may call the
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth
spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our
to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
Ennius has a right to give to poets the
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen epithet of Holy,3 because they are, as it
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing !
were, lent to mankind by the indulgent
A local habitation and a name.” 2
bounty of the gods.”
Poetry is the fruit of genius; but it
“Poetry,” says Shelley, “awakens and
cannot be produced without labour. Moore, enlarges the mind itself by rendering it
one of the airiest of poets, tells us that he
1 St. Hilaire.
2 Arnold.
was a slow and painstaking workman.
1 Bacon.
2 Shakespeare.
3 Plato styles poets the sons and interpreters
of the gods,
�CHAP. VI
POETRY
73
The man who has a love for Poetry can
scarcely fail to derive intense pleasure
from Nature, which to those who love it
is all “ beauty to the eye and music to
the ear.”
“Yet Nature never set forth the earth
in so rich tapestry as divers poets have
done ; neither with so pleasant rivers,
fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flow’ers, nor
whatsoever else may make the too-muchloved earth more lovely.”1
In the smokiest city the poet will
transport us, as if by enchantment, to the
fresh air and bright sun, to the murmur
of woods and leaves and water, to the
ripple of waves upon sand ; and enable
us, as in some delightful dream, to cast
off the cares and troubles of life.
The poet, indeed, must have more true
knowledge, not only of human nature,
but of all Nature, than other men are
gifted with.
Crabbe Robinson tells us that when a
“ Higher still and higher
stranger once asked permission to see
From the earth thou springest
Wordsworth’s study, the maid said, “ This
Like a cloud of fire ;
The blue deep thou wingest,
is master’s Library, but he studies in the
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever fields.” No wonder then that Nature
singest.
has been said to return the poet’s love.
the receptacle of a thousand unappre
hended combinations of thought. Poetry
lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of
the world, and makes familiar objects be
as if they were not familiar ; it repro
duces all that it represents, and the im
personations clothed in its Elysian light
stand thenceforward in the minds of those
who have once contemplated them, as
memorials of that gentle and exalted
content which extends itself over all
thoughts and actions with which it co
exists.”
And again, “All high Poetry is infinite;
it is as the first acorn, which contained
all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may
be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty
of the meaning never exposed. A great
poem is a fountain for ever overflowing
with the waters of wisdom and delight.”
Or, as he has expressed himself in his
Ode to a Skylark :
“ Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
“ Call it not vain ;—they do not err
Who say that, when the poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.” 2
Swinburne says of Blake, and I feel
“ Like a glow-worm golden
entirely with him, though in my case the
In a dell of dew,
application would have been different,
Scattering unbeholden
that “The sweetness of sky and leaf, of
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it grass and water—the bright light life of
from the view.”
bird, child, and beast—is, so to speak,
We speak now of the poet as the
Maker or Creator—•ttoitjtt/s ; the origin
of the word “ bard ” seems doubtful.
The Hebrews well called their poets
“ Seers,” for they not only perceive more
than others, but also help other men to
see much which would otherwise be lost
to us. The old Greek word was aoiSos
—the Bard or Singer.
Poetry lifts the veil from the beauty
of the world which would otherwise be
hidden, and throws over the most familiar
objects the glow and halo of imagination.
kept fresh by some graver sense of
faithful and mysterious love, explained
and vivified by a conscience and purpose
in the artist’s hand and mind. Such a
fiery outbreak of spring, such an insurrec
tion of fierce floral life and radiant riot
of childish power and pleasure, no poet
or painter ever gave before ; such lustre
of green leaves and flushed limbs, kindled
cloud and fervent fleece, was never
wrought into speech or shape.”
1 Sydney, Defence of Poetry.
3 Scott.
�74
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
To appreciate Poetry we must not
merely glance at it, or rush through it,
or read it in order to talk or write about
it. One must compose oneself into the
right frame of mind. Of course for one’s
own sake one will read Poetry in times of
agitation, sorrow, or anxiety, but that is
another matter.
The inestimable treasures of Poetry
again are open to all of us. The best
books are indeed the cheapest. For the
price of a little beer, a little tobacco,
we can buy Shakespeare or Milton—or
indeed almost as many books as a man
can read with profit in a year.
Nor, in considering the advantage of
Poetry to man, must we limit ourselves
to its past or present influence. The
future of Poetry, says Mr. Matthew
Arnold, and no one was more qualified to
speak, “ The future of Poetry is immense,
because in Poetry, where it is worthy of
its high destinies, our race, as time goes
on, will find an ever surer and surer stay.
But for Poetry the idea is everything ;
the rest is a world of illusion, of divine
illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to
the idea; the idea is the fact. The
strongest part of our religion to-day is its
unconscious Poetry. We should conceive
of Poetry worthily, and more highly than
it has been the custom to conceive of it.
We should conceive of it as capable of
higher uses, and called to higher destinies
than those which in general men have
assigned to it hitherto.”
Poetry has been well called the record
“ of the best and happiest moments of the
happiest and best minds ” ; it is the light
of life, the very “ image of life expressed
in its eternal truth ” ; it immortalises all
that is best and most beautiful in the
world ; “ it purges from our inward sight
the film of familiarity which obscures
from us the wonder of our being” ; “it
is the centre and circumference of know
ledge ” ; and poets are “ mirrors of the
gigantic shadows which futurity casts
upon the present.”
Poetry, in effect, lengthens life ; it
creates for us time, if time be realised as
TART II
the succession of ideas and not of minutes ;
it is the “ breath and finer spirit of all
knowledge ” ; it is bound neither by time
nor space, but lives in the spirit of man.
What greater praise can be given than
the saying that life should be Poetry put
into action ?
CHAPTER VIT
MUSIC
“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to
the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the
imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life
to everything. It is the essence of order, and
leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of
which it is the invisible, but nevertheless
dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.”—Plato.
Music is in one sense far more ancient
than man, and the voice was, from the
very commencement of human existence,
a source of melody. The early history of
Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped
in much obscurity. The use of letters
long preceded the invention of notes, and
tradition in such a matter can tell us but
little. So far, however, as musical in
struments are concerned, it is probable
that percussion came first, then wind in
struments, and lastly, those with strings :
first the Drum, then the Flute, and
thirdly, the Lyre.
The contest between Marsyas and
Apollo is supposed by some to typify the
struggle between the Flute and the Lyre ;
Marsyas representing the archaic Flute,
Apollo the champion of the Lyre. The
latter of course was victorious : it sets the
voice free, and the sound
“ Of music that is born of human breath
Conies straighter to the soul than any strain
The hand alone can make.” 1
Various myths have grown up to ex
plain the origin of Music. One Greek
tradition was to the effect that Grass
hoppers were human beings themselves
in a world before the Muses ; that when
1 L. Morris.
�CHAP. VII
MUSIC
75
the Muses came, being ravished with
delight, they “sang and sang and forgot
to eat, until they died of hunger for the
love of song. And they carry to heaven
the report of those who honour them on
earth.” 1
The old writers and commentators tell
us that Pythagoras, “ as he was one day
meditating on the want of some rule to
guide the ear, analogous to what had
been used to help the other senses,
chanced to pass by a blacksmith’s shop,
and observing that the hammers, which
were four in number, sounded very har
moniously, he had them weighed, and
found them to be in the proportion of
six, eight, nine, and twelve. Upon this
he suspended four strings of equal length
and thickness, etc., fastened weights in
the above-mentioned proportions to each
of them respectively, and found that they
gave the same sounds that the hammers
had done; viz., the fourth, fifth, and
octave to the gravest tone.”2 However
this may be, it would appear that the
lyre had at first four strings only;
Terpander is said to have given it three
more, and an eighth was subsequently
added.
The Chinese indicated the notes by
words or their initials. The lowest was
termed “ Koung,” or the Emperor, as
being the Foundation on which all were
supported ; the second was Tschang, the
Prime Minister ; the third, the Subject;
the fourth, Public Business ; the fifth,
the Mirror of Heaven.3 The Greeks also
had a name for each note. We have
unfortunately no specimens of Greek 4 or
Roman, or even of Early Christian music.
The so-called Gregorian notes were not
invented until six hundred years after
Gregory’s death. The Monastery of St.
Gall possesses a copy of Gregory’s Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a
chorister who was sent from Rome to
Charlemagne to reform the Northern
music, and in this the sounds are indi
cated by “ pneumes,” from which our
notes were gradually developed, being
first arranged along one line, to which
others were gradually added.
The most ancient known piece-of music
for several voices is an English four men’s
song, “Summer is i-comen in,” which is
considered to be at least as early as 1240,
and is now in the British Museum.
.In the matter of music Englishmen
have certainly deserved well of the world.
Even as long ago as 1185 Giraldus
Cambrensis, Archdeacon of St. David’s,
says, “ The Britons do not sing their
tunes in unison like the inhabitants of
other countries, but in different parts.
So that when a company of singers meet
to sing, as is usual in this country, as
many different parts are heard as there
are singers.”1
The Venetian ambassador in the time
of Henry VIII. said of our English
Church music : “ The mass was sung by
His Majesty’s choristers, whose voices are
more heavenly than human; they did
not chaunt like men, but like angels.”
Dr. Burney says that Purcell was “ as
much the pride of an Englishman in
music as Shakespeare in productions of
the stage, Mil ton in epic poetry, Locke
in metaphysics, or Sir Isaac Newton in
philosophy and mathematics ” ; and yet
Purcell’s music is unfortunately but little
known to us now, as Macfarren says, “ to
our great loss.”
Purcell died early, and on his tomb is
the celebrated epitaph—
“ Here lies Henry Purcell, who left
this life, and is gone to that blessed place,
where, only, his harmony can be exceeded.”
The authors of some of the loveliest
music, and even in some cases that of
comparatively recent times, are unknown
to us. This is the case for instance with
the exquisite song “Drink to me only
with thine eyes,” the words of which
were taken by Jonson from Philostratus,
1 Plato.
2 Crowest.
and which has been considered as the
3 Rowbotliam, History of Music.
4 Since this was written some fragments of a most beautiful of all “people’s songs.”
hymn to Apollo have been found at Delphi.
1 Wakefield.
�76
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
The music of “ God save the Queen ”
has been adopted in more than half a
dozen other countries, and yet the author
ship is a matter of doubt, being attributed
by some to Dr. John Bull, by others to
Carey. It was apparently first sung in a
tavern in Cornhill.
Both the music and words of “ O
Death, rock me to sleep ” are said to be
by Anne Boleyn : “ Stay, Corydon ” and
“ Sweet Honey-sucking Bees ” by Wildye,
“ the first of madrigal writers. ” “ Rule
Britannia ” was composed by Arne, and
originally formed part of his Masque of
Alfred, first performed in 1740 at Cliefden, near Maidenhead. To Arne we are
also indebted for the music of “ Where
the Bee sucks, there lurk I.” “ The
Vicar of Bray ” is set to a tune originally
known as “ A Country Garden.” “ Come
unto these yellow sands ” we owe to
Purcell; “ Sigh no more, Ladies ” to
Stevens ; “ Home, Sweet Home ” to
Bishop.
There is a curious melancholy in
national music, which is generally in the
minor key ; indeed this holds good with
the music of savage races generally.
They appear, moreover, to have no love
songs.
Herodotus tells us that during the
whole time he was in Egypt he only
heard one song, and that was a sad one.
My own experience there was the same.
Some tendency to melancholy seems in
herent in music, and Jessica is not alone
in the feeling
Pz\RT II
composed “ Il trillo del Diavolo,” con
sidered to be his best work, in a dream.
Rossini, speaking of the chorus in G
minor in his “ Dal tuo stellato soglio,”
tells us: “ While I was writing the
chorus in G minor I suddenly dipped my
pen into a medicine bottle instead of the
ink. I made a blot, and when I dried
this with the sand it took the form of a
natural, which instantly gave me the idea
of the effect the change from G minor to
G major would make, and to this blot is
all the effect, if any, due.” But these of
course are exceptional cases.
There are other forms of Music, which,
though not strictly entitled to the name,
are yet capable of giving intense pleasure.
To the Sportsman what Music can excel
that of the hounds themselves. The
cawing of rooks has been often quoted as
a sound which has no actual beauty of its
own, and yet which is delightful from its
associations.
There is, moreover, a true Music of
Nature,— the song of birds, the whisper
of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a
sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea.
There was also an ancient impression
that the Heavenly bodies give out sound
as well as light: the Music of the Spheres
has become proverbial.
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” 1
Music indeed often seems as if it
scarcely belonged to this material universe,
The histories of music contain many but was
curious anecdotes as to the circumstances
“ A tone
under w’hich different works have been
Of some world far from ours,
Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are
composed.
one.” 2
Rossini tells us that he wrote the over
“ It is a language which is incapable
ture to the “ Gazza Ladra ” on the very
day of the first performance, in the upper of expressing anything impure.” There
loft of the La Scala, where he had been is music in speech as well as in song.
confined by the manager under the guard Not merely in the voice of those we love,
of four scene-shifters, who threw the text and the charm of association, but in
out of window to copyists bit by bit as it actual melody ; as when Milton says,
was composed. Tartini is said to have
1 Shakespeare.
2 Swinburne.
“ I am never merry when I hear sweet music.”
�MUSIC
CHAP. VII
77
“ The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear
As touching the human heart—
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed “ The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the master’s spell ;
to hear.”
And feeling hearts—touch them but rightly—
pour
It is remarkable that more pains are
A thousand melodies unheard before.”1
not taken with the voice in conversation
As an education—
as well as in singing, for
“What plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil.”
As a general rule
“ I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot
die,
Folded within their own eternity.” 2
‘ ‘ The man that hath no Music in himself
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ” ;1 As an aid to religion—
“ As from the power of sacred lays
but there are some notable exceptions.
The spheres began to move,
Dr. Johnson had. no love of music. On
And sung the great Creator’s praise
one occasion, hearing that a certain piece
To all the blessed above,
So when the last and dreadful hour
of music was very difficult, he expressed
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
his regret that it was not impossible.
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
Poets, as( might have been expected,
The dead shall live, the living die,
have sung most sweetly in praise of song.
And music shall untune the sky.” 3
They have, moreover, done so from the Or again—
opposite points of view.
“Hark how it falls ! and now it steals along,
Milton invokes it as a luxury—
“ And ever against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs ;
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes -with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out ;
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running ;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.”
Like distant beHs upon the lake at eve,
When all is still; and now it grows more strong
As when the choral train their dirges weave
Mellow and many voiced ; where every close
O’er the old minster roof, in echoing waves
reflows.
Oh ! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;
Lo ! angels lead me to the happy shores.
And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.
Farewell! base earth, farewell ! my soul is
freed.”
Sometimes it is used as a temptation : so
The power of Music to sway the feel
Spenser says of Phsedria,
ings of Man has never been more cleverly
“ And she, more sweet than any bird on bough, portrayed than by Dryden in “ The
Would oftentimes amongst them bear a part, Feast of Alexander,” though the circum
And strive to passe (as she could well enough)
stances of the case precluded any reference
Their native musicke by her skilful art.”
to the influence of Music in its nobler
Or as an element of pure happiness—
aspects.
Poets have always attributed to Music
“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds ;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased —and who can deny it—a power even
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave ; over the inanimate forces of Nature.
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Shakespeare accounts for shooting stars
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
by the attraction of Music :
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the e.ar
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.” 2
1 Shakespeare.
2 Cowper.
“ The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the Sea-maid’s Music.”
Prose writers have also been inspired
1 Rogers.
2 Shelley.
3 Dryden.
�7«
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
by Music to their highest eloquence.
“ Music,” said Plato, “ is a moral law.
It gives a soul to the universe, wings to
the mind, flight to the imagination, a
charm to sadness, gaiety and life to
everything. It is the essence of order,
and leads to all that is good, just, and
beautiful, of which it is the invisible,
but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and
eternal form.”
“Music,” said Luther,
“is a fair and glorious gift from God. I
would not for all the world renounce my
humble share in music.” “Music,” said
Halevy, “is an art that God has given
us, in which the voices of all nations
may unite their prayers in one harmoni
ous rhythm.” And Carlyle, “ Music is a
kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech,
which leads us to the edge of the infinite,
and lets us for moments gaze into it.”
“ There are but seven notes in the
scale; make them fourteen,” says Newman,
“ yet what a slender outfit for so vast an
enterprise ! What science brings so miicli
out of so little ?
Out of what poor
elements does some great master in it
create his new world ! Shall we say that
all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere
ingenuity or trick of art, like some game
of fashion of the day, without reality,
without meaning ? . . . Is it possible that
that inexhaustible evolution and dis
position of notes, so rich yet so simple, so
intricate yet so regulated, so various yet
so majestic, should be a mere sound, which
is gone and perishes ? Can it be that
those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and
keen emotions, and strange yearnings after
we know not what, and awful impressions
from we know not whence, should be
wrought in us by what is unsubstantial,
and conies and goes, and begins and ends
in itself ? it is not so ; it cannot be. No ;
they have escaped from some higher
sphere ; they are the outpourings of eter
nal harmony in the medium of created
sound ; they are echoes from our Home ;
they are the voice of Angels, or the Mag
nificat of Saints, or the living laws of
Divine Governance, or the Divine Attri
butes ; something are they besides them
PART II
selves, which we cannot compass, which
we cannot utter, though mortal man, and
he perhaps not otherwise distinguished
above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting
them.”
Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of
the. profoundest exponents of modern
science. “Just as in the rolling ocean,
this movement, rhythmically repeated, and
yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and
hurries us along. But whereas in the sea
blind physical forces alone are at work,
and hence the final impression on the
spectator’s mind is nothing but solitude—
in a musical work of art the movement
follows the outflow of the artist’s own
emotions. Now gently gliding, now grace
fully leaping, now violently stirred,
penetrated, or laboriously contending with
the natural expression of passion, the
stream of sound, in primitive vivacity,
bears over into the hearer’s soul unimagined
moods which the artist has overheard
from his own, and finally raises him up to
that repose of everlasting beauty of which
God has allowed but few of his elect
favourites to be the heralds.”
Poetry and Music unite in song. From
the earliest ages song has been the sweet
companion of labour. The rude chant of
the boatman floats upon the water, the
shepherd sings upon the hill, the milk
maid in the dairy, the ploughman in the
field. Every trade, every occupation,
every act and scene of life, has long
had its own especial music. The bride
went to 'her marriage, the labourer to
his work, the old man to his last long rest,
each with appropriate and immemorial
music.
Music has been truly described as the
mother of sympathy, the handmaid of
Religion, and will never exercise its full
effect, as the Emperor Charles VI. said to
Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to
charm the ear, but to touch the heart.
There are many who consider that our
life at present is peculiarly prosaic and
mercenary. I greatly doubt whether
that be the case, but if so our need for
Music is all the more imperative.
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
Much indeed as Music has already done
for man, we may hope even more from it
in the future.
It is, moreover, a joy for all. To ap
preciate Science or Art requires some
training, and no doubt the cultivated ear
will more and more appreciate the beauties
of Music ; but though there are exceptional
individuals, and even races, almost devoid
of any love of Music, still they are happily
but rare.
Good Music, moreover, does not neces
sarily involve any considerable outlay ; it
is even now no mere luxury of the rich,
and we may hope that as time goes on, it
will become more and more the comfort
and solace of the poor.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
“ Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Job.
“ And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Shakespeare.
We are told in the first chapter of Genesis
that at the close of the sixth day “ God
saw every thing that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good.” Not merely
good, but very good. Yet how few of us
appreciate the beautiful world in which we
live 1
In preceding chapters I have incident
ally, though only incidentally, referred to
the Beauties of Nature ; but any attempt,
however imperfect, to sketch the blessings
of life must contain some special reference
to this lovely world itself, which the Greeks
happily called /cocr/ws—beauty.
Hamerton, in his charming work on
Landscape, says, “ There are, I believe,
four new experiences for which no de
scription ever adequately prepares us, the
first sight of the sea, the first journey in
the desert, the sight of flowing molten lava,
79
and a walk on a great glacier. We feel in
each case that the strange thing is pure
nature, as much nature as a familiar
English moor, yet so extraordinary that
we might be in another planet.” But it
would, I think, be easier to enumerate the
Wonders of Nature for which description
can prepare us, than those which are
beyond the power of language.
Many of us, however, walk through
the world like ghosts, as if we were in it,
but not of it. We have “ eyes and see
not, ears and hear not.” We must look
before wre can expect to see. To look is
indeed much less easy than to overlook,
and to be able to see what we do see, is a
great gift. Ruskin maintains that “ The
greatest thing a human soul ever does in
this world is to see something, and tell
what it saw in a plain way.” . I do not
suppose that his eyes are better than ours,
but how much more he sees with them !
“ To the attentive eye,” says Emerson,
“ each moment of the year has its own
beauty ; and in the same field it beholds
every hour a picture that was never seen
before, and shall never be seen again.
The heavens change every moment and
reflect their glory or gloom on the plains
beneath.”
The love of Nature is a great gift, and
if it is frozen or crushed out, the character
can hardly fail to suffer from the loss.
I will not, indeed, say that a person
who does not love Nature is necessarily
bad ; or that one who does, is necessarily
good; but it is to most minds a great
help. Many, as Miss Cobbe says, enter
the Temple through the gate called
Beautiful.
There are doubtless some to whom none
of the beautiful wonders of Nature; neither
the glories of the rising or setting sun ; the
magnificent spectacle of the boundless
ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful
tranquillity, at others so majestic in its
mighty power ; the forests agitated by the
storm, or alive with the song of birds;
nor the glaciers and mountains—there
are doubtless some whom none of these
magnificent spectacles can move, w’hom
�So
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
l’ART II
“ all the glories of heaven and earth else is illusion, or mere endurance. To
may pass in daily succession without be beautiful and to be calm, without
touching their hearts or elevating their mental fear, is the ideal of Nature.”
minds.” 1
I must not, however, enlarge on the
Such men are indeed pitiable. But, contrast and variety of the seasons, each
happily, they are exceptions. If we can of which has its own special charm and
noire of us as yet fully appreciate the i interest, as
beauties of Nature, we are beginning to
“ The daughters of the year
do so more and more.
Dance into light and die into the shade.” 1
For most of us the early summer has a
Our countrymen derive great pleasure
special charm. The very life is luxury.
The air is full of scent, and sound, and from the animal kingdom, in hunting,
sunshine, of the song of birds and the shooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh
murmur of insects ; the meadows gleam 1 air and exercise, and being led into much
with golden buttercups ; one can almost varied and beautiful scenery. Still it
see the grass grow and the buds open ; will probably ere long be recognised that
the bees hum for very joy, and the air even from a purely selfish point of view,
is full of a thousand scents, above all killing animals is not the way to get
the greatest enjoyment from them. How
perhaps that of new-mown hay.
The exquisite beauty and delight of much more interesting would every walk
a fine summer’s day in the country has in the country be, if Man would but treat
never perhaps been more truly, and there-I other animals with kindness, so that they
fore more beautifully, described, than by might approach us without fear, and we
Jefferies in his “Pageant of Summer.” I might have the constant pleasure of
Their
“ I linger,” he says, “ in the midst of the watching their winning ways.
long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and origin and history, structure and habits,
the song in the very air. I seem as if I senses and intelligence, offer an endless
could feel all the glowing life the sunshine field of interest and wonder.
The richness of life is marvellous. Any
gives and the south wind calls to being.
The endless grass, the endless leaves, the one who will sit down quietly on the
immense strength of the oak expanding, grass and watch a little, will be indeed
the unalloyed joy of finch and blackbird ; surprised at the number and variety of
from all of them I receive a little. . . . living beings, every one with a special
In the blackbird’s melody one note is history of its own, every one offering
mine ; in the dance of the leaf shadows ' endless problems of great interest.
“ If indeed thy heart were right, then
the formed maze is for me, though the
motion is theirs ; the flowers with a thou would every creature be to thee a rnirrox'
sand faces have collected the kisses of the of life, and a book of holy doctrine.” 2
The study of Natural History has the
morning. Feeling with them, I receive
some, at least, of their fulness of life. special advantage of carrying us into the
Never could I have enough ; never stay country and the open air.
Not but what towns are beautiful too.
long enough. . . . The hours when the
mind is absorbed by beauty are the only They teem with human interest and his
hours when we really live, so that the torical associations.
Wordsworth was an intense lover of
longer we can stay among these things
so much the more is snatched from nature ; yet does he not tell us, in lines
inevitable Time. . . . These are the which every Londoner will appreciate,
only hours that are not wasted—these that he knew nothing in nature more
hours that absorb the soul and fill it fair, no calm more deep, than the city of
with beauty. This is real life, and all London at early dawn ?
1 Beattie.
1 Tennyson.
Thomas a Kempis.
�THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
CHAP. VIII
“Earth has not anything to show more fair ;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the igorning ; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky ;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air..
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart is lying still ! ”
Milton also described London as
81
mountain-side up to the very edge of the
eternal snow.
And what an infinite variety they
present.
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim.
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.”1
Nor are they mere delights to the eye ;
they are full of mystery and suggestions.
Some of our streets indeed are lines of They almost seem like enchanted prin
cesses waiting for some princely deliverer.
loveliness, but yet, after being some time
Wordsworth tells us that
in a great city, one longs for the country.
“Too blest abode, no loveliness we see
In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.”
“The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.”1
“ To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
Here Gray justly places flowers in the
first place, for whenever in any great
town we think of the country, flowers
seem first to suggest themselves.
“ Flowers,” says Ruskin, “ seem in
tended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
Children love them; quiet, tender, con
tented, ordinary people love them as they
grow ; luxurious and disorderly people
rejoice in them gathered. They are the
cottager’s treasure ; and in the crowded
town, mark, as with a little broken frag
ment of rainbow, the windows of the
workers in whose heart rests the covenant
of peace.” But in the crowded street, or
even in the formal garden, flowers always
seem, to me at least, as if they were pining
for the freedom of the woods and fields,
where they can live and grow as they
please.
There are flowers for almost all seasons
and all places,—flowers for spring,
summer, and autumn ; while even in the
very depth of winter here and there one
makes its appearance. There are flowers
of the fields and woods and hedgerows, of
the seashore and the lake’s margin, of the
Every color again, every variety of form,
has some purpose and explanation.
And yet, lovely as Flowers are, Leaves
add even more to the Beauty of Nature.
Trees in our northern latitudes seldom
own large flowers; and though of course
there are notable exceptions, such as the
Horse-chestnut, still even in these cases
the flowers live only a few days, while
the leaves last for months.
Every tree indeed is a picture in itself:
The gnarled and rugged Oak, the symbol
and source of our navy, sacred to the
memory of the Druids, the type of
strength, is the sovereign of British trees :
the Chestnut has beautiful, tapering, and
rich green, glossy leaves, delicious fruit,
and wood so durable that to it we owe
the grand and historic roof of Westminster
Hall.
The Birch is the queen of trees, with
her feathery foliage, scarcely visible in
spring but turning to gold in autumn;
the pendulous twigs tinged with purple,
and silver stems so brilliantly marked
with black and white.
The Beech enlivens the country by its
tender green in spring, rich tints in
summer, and glorious gold and orange in
1 Gray.
1 Shakespeare.
G
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
82
autumn, set off by the graceful gray
stem ; and has, moreover, such a wealth
of leaves that, as we see in autumn, there
are enough not only to clothe the tree
itself but to cover the grass underneath.
If the Beech owes much to its delicate
gray stem, quite as beautiful is the reddish
crimson of the Scotch Pine, in such
charming contrast with the rich green of
the foliage, by which it is shown off
rather than hidden. Pines, moreover,
with the green spires of the Firs, keep the
woods warm in winter.
The Elm forms grand masses of foliage
which turn a beautiful golden yellow in
autumn ; and the Black Poplar with its
perpendicular leaves, rustling and trem
bling with every breath of wind, towers
over most of our other forest trees.
Nor must I overlook the smaller trees :
the Yew with its thick green foliage ; the
wild Guelder rose, which lights up the
woods in autumn with translucent glossy
berries and many-tinted leaves ; or the
Bryonies, the Briar, the Traveller’s Joy,
and many another plant, even humbler
perhaps, and yet each with some exquisite
beauty and grace of its own, so that we
must all have sometimes felt our hearts
overflowing with gladness and gratitude,
as if the woods were full of music—as if
“ The woods were filled so full with song
There seemed no room for sense of wrong.”1
On the whole, no doubt, woodlands are
most beautiful in the summer ; yet even
in winter the delicate tracery of the
branches, which cannot be so well seen
when they are clothed with leaves, has a
special beauty of its own ; while every
now and then hoar frost or snow settles
like silver on every branch and twig,
lighting up the forest as if by enchant
ment in preparation for some fairy
festival.
I feel with Jefferies that “by day or
by night, summer or winter, beneath
trees the heart feels nearer to that depth
of life which the far sky means. The
rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal
,
1 Tennyson.
TART II
and pure, comes there because the distance
seems within touch of thought.”
The general effect of forests in tropical
regions must be very different from that
of those in our latitudes.
Kingsley
describes it as one of helplessness, con
fusion, awe, all but terror. The trunks
are lofty and straight, rising to a great
height without a branch, so that the wood
seems at first comparatively open. In
Brazilian forests, for instance, the trees
struggle upwards, and the foliage forms
an unbroken canopy, perhaps a hundred
feet overheard. Here, indeed, high up in
the air is the real life of the forest.
Everything seems to climb to the light.
The quadrupeds climb, birds climb,
reptiles climb, and tlie variety of climb
ing plants is far greater than anything to
which we are accustomed.
Many savage nations worship trees,
and I really think my first feeling would
be one of delight and interest rather than
of surprise, if some day when I am alone
in a wood one of the trees were to speak
to me. Even by day there is something
mysterious in a forest, and this is much
more the case at night.
With wood, Water seems to be natur
ally associated. Without water no land
scape is complete, while overhead the
clouds add beauty to the heavens them
selves. The spring and the rivulet, the
brook, the river, and the lake, seem to
give life to Nature, and were indeed re
garded by our ancestors as living entities
themselves.
Water is beautiful in the
morning mist, in the broad lake, in the
glancing stream, in tlie river pool, or the
wide ocean, beautiful in all its varied
moods. Water nourishes vegetation ; it
clothes the lowlands with green and the
mountains with snow. It sculptures the
rocks and excavates the valleys, in most
cases acting mainly through the soft rain,
though our harder rocks are still grooved
by the ice-chisel of bygone ages.
The refreshing power of water upon
the earth is scarcely greater than that
which it exercises on the mind of man.
After a long spell of work how delightful
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
83
it is to sit by a lake or river, or on the and quarries and lines of stratification
seashore, and enjoy the fresh air, the began to show themselves, though the
glancing sunshine on the water, and the cliffs were still in shadow, and the more
ripple of the waves upon sand.
distant headlands still a mere succession
Every Englishman loves the sight of of ghosts, each one fainter than the one
the Sea. We feel that it is to us a second before it. As the morning advances the
home. It seems to vivify the very at sea becomes blue, the dark woods, green
mosphere, so that Sea air is proverbial as meadows, and golden cornfields of the
a tonic, and the very thought of it makes opposite coast more distinct, the details
the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean of the cliffs come gradually into view,
gives an impression of freedom and and fishing-boats with dark sails begin to
grandeur more intense perhaps even than appear.
the aspect of the heavens themselves. A
Gradually as the sun rises higher, a
poor woman from Manchester, on being yellow line of shore appears under the
taken to the seaside, is said to have ex opposite cliffs, and the sea changes its
pressed her delight on seeing for the first color, mapping itself out as it were, the
time something of which there was enough shallower parts turquoise blue, almost
for everybody. The sea coast is always green ; the deeper ones violet.
interesting. When we think of the cliff
This does not last long—a thunderstorm
sections with their histories of bygone comes up. The wind mutters overhead,
ages ; the shore itself teeming with sea the rain patters on the leaves, the coast
weeds and animals, waiting for the return opposite seems to shrink into itself, as if
of the tide, or thrown up from deeper it would fly from the storm. The sea
water by the waves; the weird cries of grows dark and rough, and white horses
seabirds ; the delightful feeling that, with appear here and there.
every breath, we are laying in a store of
But the storm is soon over. The clouds
fresh life, and health, and energy, it is break, the rain stops, the sun shines once
impossible to over-estimate all we owe to more, the hills opposite come out again.
the Sea.
They are divided now not only into fields
It is, moreover, always changing. We and woods, but into sunshine and shadow.
went for our holiday last year to Lyme The sky clears, and as the sun begins to
Regis. Let me attempt to describe the descend westwards the sea becomes one
changes in the view from our windows beautiful clear uniform azure, changing
during a single day. Our sitting-room again soon to pale blue in front and dark
opened on to a little lawn, beyond which violet beyond; and once more, as clouds
the ground dropped suddenly to the sea, begin to gather again, into an archipelago
while over about two miles of water were of bright blue sea and islands of deep
the hills of the Dorsetshire coast—-Golden ultramarine. As the sun travels west
Cap, with its bright crest of yellow sand, ward, the opposite hills change again.
and the dark blue Lias Cliff of Black Ven, They scarcely seem like the same country.
When I came down early in the morning What was in sun is now in shade, and
the sun was rising opposite, shining into what was in shade now lies bright in the
the room over a calm sea, along an avenue sunshine. The sea once more becomes a
of light; by degrees, as it rose, the whole uniform solid blue, only flecked in places
sea glowed in the sunshine while the hills by scuds of wind, and becoming paler
were bathed in a violet mist. By break towards evening as the sun sinks, the cliffs
fast-time all color had faded from the which catch his setting rays losing their
sea—it was like silver passing on each deep color and in some places looking
side into gray ; the sky blue, flecked with almost as white as chalk ; while at sunset
fleecy clouds ; while, on the gentler slopes they light up again for a moment with a
of the coast opposite, fields and woods, | golden glow, the sea at the same time
�84
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
sinking to a cold gray. But soon the
hills grow cold too, Golden Cap holding
out bravely to the last, and the shades of
evening settle over cliff and wood, corn
field and meadow.
These are but a part, and a very small
part, of the changes of a single day. And
scarcely any two days are alike. At
times a sea-fog covers everything. Again
the sea which sleeps to-day so peacefully,
sometimes rages, and the very existence of
the bay itself bears witness to its force.
The night, again, varies like the day.
Sometimes shrouded by a canopy of dark
ness, sometimes lit up by millions of
brilliant worlds, sometimes bathed in the
light of a moon, which never retains the
same form for two nights together.
If Lakes are less grand than the sea,
they are in some respects even more
lovely. The seashore is comparatively
bare. The banks of Lakes are often
richly clothed with vegetation which
comes close down to the water’s edge,
sometimes hanging even into the water
itself. They are often studded with wellwooded islands. They are sometimes
fringed with green meadows, sometimes
bounded by rocky promontories rising
directly from comparatively deep water ;
while the calm bright surface is often
fretted by a delicate pattern of interlacing
ripples ; or reflects a second, softened, and
inverted landscape.
To water again we owe the marvellous
spectacle of the rainbow—“ God’s bow in
the clouds.” It is indeed truly a heavenly
messenger, and so unlike anything else that
it scarcely seems to belong to this world.
Many things are colored, but the rain
bow seems to be color itself.
“ First the flaming red
Sprang vivid forth ; the tawny orange next,
And next delicious yellow ; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.
Then the pure blue that swells autumnal skies.
Ethereal play’d ; and then, of sadder hue
Emerged the deeper indigo (as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost),
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Died in the fainting violet away.”1
1 Thomson.
PART II
We do not, I think, sufficiently realise
how wonderful is the blessing of color.
It would have been possible, it would
even seem more probable, that though
light might have enabled us to perceive
objects, this would only have been by
shade and form. How we perceive color
is not yet understood ; and yet when we
speak of beauty, among the ideas which
come to us most naturally are those of
birds and butterflies, flowers and shells,
precious stones, skies, and rainbows.
Our minds might have been constituted
exactly as they are, we might have been
capable of comprehending the highest and
sublimest truths, and yet, but for a small
organ in the head, the world of sound
would have been shut out from us ; we
should have lost all the varied melody of
nature, the charms of music, the conversa
tion of friends, and have been condemned
to perpetual silence: a slight alteration
in the retina, which is not thicker than a
sheet of paper, not larger than a finger
nail,—and the glorious spectacle of this
beautiful world, the exquisite variety of
form, the glow and play of color, the
variety of scenery, of woods and fields,
and lakes and hills, seas and mountains,
the beauty of the sky alike by day and
night, would all have been lost to us.
Mountains, again, “ seem to have been
built for the human race, as at once their
schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures
of illuminated manuscript for the scholar,
kindly in simple lessons for the worker,
quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker,
glorious in holiness for the worshipper.”
They are “great cathedrals of the earth,
with their gates of rock, pavements of
cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of
snow, and vaults of purple traversed by
the continual stars.” 1
All these beauties are comprised in
Tennyson’s exquisite description of (Enone’s
vale—the city, flowers, trees, river, and
mountains.
“ There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
1 Ruskin.
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning; but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,
The crown of Troas.”
85
The evening colors indeed soon fade
away, but as night comes on,
“ how glows the firmament
With living sapphires ! Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest ; till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.” 1
We generally speak of a beautiful night
when it is calm and clear, and the stars
shine brightly overhead ; but how grand
And when we raise our eyes from earth, also are the wild ways of Nature, how
who has not sometimes felt “ the witchery magnificent when the lightning flashes,
of the soft blue sky ” ? who has not “ between gloom and glory ” ; when
watched a cloud floating upwards as if on ‘ ‘ From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
its way to heaven ?
Leaps the live thunder. ” 2
And yet “if, in our moments of utter
In the words of Ossian—
idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky
“ Ghosts ride in the tempest to-night;
as a last resource, which of its phenomena
Sweet is their voice between the gusts of wind,
do we speak of? One says, it has been
Their songs are of other worlds.”
wet; and another, it has been w'indy;
Nor are the -wonders and beauties of the
and another, it has been warm. Who,
heavens limited by the clouds and the blue
among the whole chattering crowd, can
sky, lovely as they are. In the heavenly
tell me of the forms and the precipices
bodies we have before us the perpetual
of the chain of tall white mountains that
presence of the sublime. They-are so im
girded the horizon at noon yesterday 1
mense and so far away, and yet on soft
Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came
summer nights “they seem leaning down
out of the south, and smote upon their
to whisper in the ear of our souls.” 3
summits until they melted and mouldered
“ A man can hardly lift up his eyes to
away in a dust of blue rain ? Who saw
wards the heavens,” says Seneca, “ without
the dance of the dead clouds when the sun
wonder and veneration, to see so many
light left them last night, and the west
millions of radiant lights, and to observe
wind blew them before it like withered
their courses and revolutions, even with
leaves ? All has passed, unregretted as
out any respect to the common good of the
unseen ; or if the apathy be ever shaken
Universe.”
off, even for an instant, it is only by -what
Who does not sympathise with the
is gross, or what is extraordinary ; and
feelings of Dante as he rose from his visit
yet it is not in the broad and fierce mani
to the lower regions, until, he says,
festations of the elemental energies, not in
the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the “ On our view the beautiful lights of heaven
Dawned through a circular opening in the cave,
whirlwind, that the highest characters of
Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars.”
the sublime are developed.” 1
As we watch the stars at night they
But exquisitely lovely as is the blue
arch of the midday sky, with its inexhaust seem so still and motionless that we can
ible variety of clouds, “ there is yet a light hardly realise that all the time they are
which the eye invariably seeks with a rushing on with a velocity far far exceed
deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light ing any that man has ever accomplished.
Like the sands of the sea, the stars of
of the declining or breaking day, and
the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like heaven have ever been used as an appro
watch-fires in thegreen sky ofthe horizon.” 2 priate symbol of number, and we know
that therfe are more than 100,000,000 ;
1 Ruskin.
2 Ibid.
1 Milton.
2 Byron.
3 Symonds.
�86
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
many, no doubt, with planets of their own.
But this is by no means all. The floor of
heaven is not only “ thick inlaid with
patines of bright gold,” but is studded also
with extinct stars, once probably as bril
liant as our own sun, but now dead and
cold, as Helmholtz thinks that our own
sun will be some seventeen millions of
years hence. Then, again, there are the
comets, which, though but few are visible
to the unaided eye, are even more numerous
than the stars ; there are the nebulae, and
the countless minor bodies circulating in
space, and occasionally visible as meteors.
Nor is it only the number of the
heavenly bodies which is so overwhelm
ing ; their magnitude and distances are
almost more impressive. The ocean is
so deep and broad as to be almost infinite,
and indeed in so far as our imagination
is the limit, so it may be. Yet what is
the ocean compared to the sky ? Our
globe is little compared to the giant orbs
of Jupiter and Saturn, which again sink
into insignificance by the side of the Sun.
The Sun itself is almost as nothing com-,
pared with the dimensions of the solar
system. Sirius is a thousand times as
great as the Sun, and a million times as
far away. The solar system itself travels
in one region of space, sailing between
worlds and worlds ; and is surrounded by
many other systems at least as great and
complex; while we know that even then
we have not reached the limits of the
Universe itself.
There are stars so distant that their
light, though travelling 180,000 miles in
a second, yet takes years to reach us ; and
beyond all these are other systems of stars
which are so far away that they cannot
be perceived singly, but even in our most
powerful telescopes appear only as minute
clouds or nebulae.
The velocities of the Heavenly bodies
are equally astounding. We ourselves
make our annual journey round the Sun
at the rate of 1000 miles a minute ; of
the so-called “ fixed ” stars Sirius moves
at the same rate, and Arcturus no less
than 22,000 miles a minute. And yet
PART II
the distances of the stars are so great
that 1000 years makes hardly any differ
ence in the appearance of the Heavens.
It is, indeed, but a feeble expression
of the truth to say that the infinities re
vealed to us by Science,—the infinitely
great in the one direction, and the in
finitely small in the other,—go far beyond
anything which had occurred to the un
aided imagination of Man, and are not
only a never-failing source of pleasure
and interest, but lift us above the petty
troubles, and help us to bear the greater
sorrows, of life.
CHAPTER IX
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE
“ Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God’s messenger sent down to thee ;
Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ;
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts
lasting to the end.”
Aubrey be Vere.
We have in life many troubles, and
troubles are of many kinds. Some
sorrows, alas, are real enough, especially
those we bring on ourselves, but others,
and by no means the least numerous, are
mere ghosts of troubles : if we face them
boldly, we find that they have no sub
stance or reality, but are mere creations
of our own morbid imagination, and that
it is as true now as in the time of David
that “ Man disquieteth himself in a vain
shadow.”
Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils,
but not real; while others are real, but
not evils.
“ And yet, into how unfathomable a
gulf the mind rushes when the troubles
of this world agitate it. If it then forget
its own light, which is eternal joy, and
rush into the outer darkness, which are the
�CHAP. IX
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE
cares of this world, as the mind now does,
it knows nothing else but lamentations.” 1
“Athens,” said Epictetus, “is a good
place,—but happiness is much better ; to
be free from passions, free from dis
turbance.”
We should endeavour to maintain our
selves in
“ that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight,
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened.” 2
87
happen equally to good men and bad,
being things which make us neither
better nor worse.”
“ The greatest evils,” observes Jeremy
Taylor, “ are from within us ; and from
ourselves also we must look for our
greatest good.”
“ The mind,” says Milton,
“ is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
Milton indeed in his blindness saw
more beautiful visions, and Beethoven in
his deafness heard more heavenly music,
So shall we fear “neither the exile of than most of us can ever hope to enjoy.
Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras,
We are all apt, when we know not
nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the con what may happen, to fear the worst.
demnation of Phocion, but think virtue When we know the full extent of any
worthy our love even under such trials.” 3 : danger, it is half over. Hence, we dread
We should then be, to a great extent, in-1 ghosts more than robbers, not only with
dependent of external circumstanced, for out reason, but against reason ; for even
if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us ?
“ Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
and in ghost stories, few, even of those
Minds innocent and quiet take
who say that they have seen ,a ghost, ever
That for an hermitage.
profess or pretend to have felt one.
“ If I have freedom in my love,
Milton, in his description of death,
And in my soul am free ;
dwells on this characteristic of obscurity :
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.” 4
In the wise words of Shakespeare,
“ All places that the eye of Heaven visits
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens.”
“ The other shape—
If shape it might be call’d that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ;
Or substance might be call’d that shadow
seem’d,
For each seem’d either—black he stood as
night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell.
And shook a dreadful dart. What seem’d
his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.”
Happiness indeed depends much more
on what is within than without us.
When Hamlet says that the world is “ a
goodly prison ; in which there are many
confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark
The effect of darkness and night in
being one of the worst,” and Rosencrantz enhancing terrors is dwelt on in one of
differs from him, he rejoins wisely, “ Why the sublimest passages in Job—
then, ’tis none to you : for there is
“ In thoughts from the visions of the night,
nothing either good or bad, but thinking
When deep sleep falleth on men,
makes it so : to me it is a prison.”
Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
“All is opinion,” said Marcus Aurelius.
Then a spirit passed before my face ;
“ That which does not make a man worse,
The hair of my flesh stood up :
how can it make his life worse ? But
It stood still, but I could not discern the form
death certainly, and life, honor and dis
thereof:
An image was before mine eyes,
honor, pain and pleasure, all these things
1 King Alfred’s translation of the Consola
tions of Boethius.
2 Wordsworth.
3 Plutarch.
4 Lovelace.
There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
Shall mortal man be more just than God ? ”
Thus was the terror turned into a lesson
of comfort and of mercy.
�88
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
We often magnify troubles and diffi
culties, and look at them till they seein
much greater than they really are.
Dangers are often “ light, if they once
seem light; and more dangers have
deceived men than forced them: nay,
it were better to meet some dangers
half way, though they come nothing
near, than to keep too long a watch
upon their approaches ; for if a man
watch too long, it is odds he will fall
asleep.” 1
Foresight is wise, but fore-sorrow is
foolish ; and castles are at any rate better
than dungeons, in the air.
It happens, unfortunately too often,
that by some false step, intentional or
unintentional, we have missed the right
road, and gone astray. Can we then
retrace our steps ? can we recover what
is lost ? This may be done. It is too
gloomy a view to affirm that
“ A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.” 2
There are two noble sayings of Socrates,
that to do evil is more to be avoided
than to suffer it; and that when a man
has done evil, it is better for him to be
punished than to be unpunished.
We generally speak of selfishness as
a fault, and as if it interfered with the
general happiness. But this is not alto
gether correct. The pity is that so many
people are foolishly selfish ; that they
pursue a course of action which neither
makes themselves nor any one else happy.
Is there not some truth in Goethe’s
saying, though I do not altogether agree
with him, that “ every man ought to begin
with himself, and make his own happiness
first, from which the happiness of the
whole world would at last unquestionably
follow” ? This is perhaps too broadly
stated, and of course exceptions might be
pointed out : but assuredly if every one
would avoid excess, and take care of his
own health ; would keep himself strong
and cheerful; would make his home
1 Bacon.
2 G. Macdonald.
PART II
happy, and’give no cause for the petty
vexations which often embitter domestic
life ; would attend to his own affairs and
keep himself sober and solvent; would,
in the words of the Chinese proverb,
“sweep away the snow from before his
own door, and never mind the frost upon
his neighbour’s tiles”: even though it
were not from the nobler motives, still,
how well it would be for his family,
relations, and friends. But, unfortunately,
“ Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.”1
It would be a great thing if people
could be brought to realise that they can
never add to the sum of their happiness
by doing wrong. In the case of children,
indeed, we recognise this ; we perceive
that a spoilt child is not a happy one;
that it would have been far better for
him to have been punished at first and
thus saved from greater suffering in after
life.
The beautiful idea that every man has
with him a Guardian Angel is true in
deed : for Conscience is ever on the watch,
| ever ready to warn us of danger.
No doubt we often feel disposed to
complain, and yet it is most ungrateful:
‘‘ For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity ;
To perish rather, swallowed up, and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated thought! ” 2
But perhaps it will be said that we are
sent here in preparation for another and
a better world. Well, then, why should
we complain of what is but a preparation
for future happiness ?
We ought to
“ Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God’s messenger sent down to thee ; do thou
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave ;
Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
1 Dryden.
2 Milton.
�LABOUR AND REST
CHAP. X
and joy”; and if properly understood,
would enable us “ to acquiesce in the
present without repining, to remember
the past with thankfulness, and to meet
the future hopefully and cheerfully with
out fear or suspicion.”
The soul’s marmoreal calmness : Grief should
be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ;
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts
lasting to the end.” 1
Some persons are like the waters of
Bethesda, and require to be troubled
before they can exercise their virtue.
“We shall get more contentedness,”
CHAPTER X
says Plutarch, “ from the presence of all
LABOUR AND REST
these blessings if we fancy them as absent,
and remember from time to time how
“ Through labour to rest, through combat to
people when ill yearn for health, and victory.”
Thomas a Kempis.
people in war for peace, and strangers
and unknown in a great city for reputa Among the troubles of life I do not, of
tion and friends, and how painful it is to course, reckon the necessity of labour.
Work indeed, and hard work too, if
be deprived of all these when one has
once had them. For then each of these only it be in moderation, is in itself a
blessings will not appear to us only great rich source of happiness. We all know
and valuable when it is lost, and of no how quickly time passes when we are
value when we have it. . . . And yet it well employed, while the moments hang
makes much for contentedness of mind to heavily on the hands of the idle. Occupa
look for the most part at home and to our tion drives away care and all the small
own condition ; or if not, to look at the troubles of life. The busy man has no
case of people worse off than ourselves, time to brood or to fret.
and not, as people do, to compare our
“ From toil he wins his spirits light,
selves with those who are better off. . . .
From busy day the peaceful night ;
But you will find others, Chians, or
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
Galatians, or Bithynians, not content
In Heaven’s best treasures, peace, and
health.” 1
with the share of glory or power they
have among their fellow-citizens, but
This applies especially to t^e labour of
weeping because they do not wear sena the field and the workshop. Humble it
tors’ shoes ; or, if they have them, that may be, but if it does not dazzle with the
they cannot be praetors at Rome; or if promise of fame, it gives the satisfaction
they get that office, that they are not of duty fulfilled, and the inestimable
consuls ; or if they are consuls, that they blessing of health. As Emerson reminds
are only proclaimed second and not first. those entering life, “ The angels that live
. . . Whenever, then, you admire any one with them, and are weaving laurels of life
carried by in his litter as a greater man for their youthful brows, are toil and truth
than yourself, lower your eyes and look and mutual faith.”
at those that bear the litter.” And again,
Labour was truly said by the ancients
“ I am very taken with Diogenes’ remark to be the price which the gods set upon
to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was everything worth having. We all admit,
dressing with much display for a feast. though we often forget, the marvellous
‘ Does not a good man consider every day power of perseverance; and yet all Nature,
a feast ? ’ . . . Seeing then that life is down to Bruce’s spider, is continually
the most complete initiation into all these | impressing this lesson on us.
things, it ought to be full of ease of mind J Hard writing makes easy reading ;
1 Aubrey de Vere.
.
1 Gray.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
9°
Plato is said to have rewritten the first
page of the Aepit&Zic thirteen times ; and
Carlo Maratti, we are told, made three
hundred sketches of the head of Antinous
before he brought it to his satisfaction.
It is better to wear out than to rust
out, and there is “ a dust which settles on
the heart, as well as that which rests upon
the ledge.”1
At the present time, though there may
be some special drawbacks, we come to
our work with many advantages which
were not enjoyed in olden times. We
live in much greater security ourselves,
and are less liable to have the fruits of
our labour torn violently from us.
But though labour is good for man,
it may be, and unfortunately often is,
carried to excess.
Many are wearily
asking themselves
“ All why
Should life all labour be ? ” 2
There is a time for all things, says
Solomon, a time to work and a time to
play : we shall work all the better for
reasonable change, and one reward of
work is to secure leisure.
It is a good saying that where there’s
a will there’s a way ; but while it is all
very well to wish, wishes must not take
the place of work.
In whatever sphere his duty lies, every
man must rely mainly on himself. Others
can help us, but we must make ourselves.
No one else can see for us. To profit by
our advantages we must learn to use for
ourselves
“The dark lantern of the spirit
Which none can see by, but he who bears it. ”
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that
honest work is never thrown away. If
we do not find the imaginary treasure, at
any rate we enrich the vineyard.
“Work,” says Nature to man, “in
every hour, paid or unpaid; see only
that thou work, and thou canst not
escape the reward : whether thy work be
fine or coarse, planting corn or writing
1 Jefferies.
2 Tennyson.
part II
epics, so only it be honest work, done to
thine own approbation, it shall earn a
reward to the senses as well as to the
thought: no matter how often defeated,
you are born to victory. The reward
of a thing well done is to have done
it.” 1
Nor can any work, however persever
ing, or any success, however great, exhaust
the prizes of life.
The most studious, the most successful,
must recognise that there yet remain
“ So much to do that is not e’en begun,
So much to hope for that we cannot see,
So much to win, so many things to be.”2
In olden times the difficulties of study
were far greater than they are now.
Books were expensive and cumbersome,
in many cases moreover chained to the
desks on which they were kept. The
greatest scholars have often been very
poor. Erasmus used to read by moonlight
because he could not afford a candle, and
“ begged a penny, not for the love of
charity, but for the love of learning.” 3
Want of time is no excuse for idleness.
“ Our life,” says Jeremy Taylor, “ is too
short to serve the ambition of a haughty
prince or a usurping rebel; too little
time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy
the pride of a vainglorious fool, to
trample upon all the enemies of our just
or unjust interest: but for the obtaining
virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and
modesty, for the actions of religion, God
gives us time sufficient, if we make the
outgoings of the morning and evening,
that is our infancy and old age, to be
taken into the computations of a man.”
Work is so much a necessity of exist
ence, that it is less a question whether,
than how, w’e shall work. An old saying
tells us that the Devil finds work for those
who do not make it for themselves and
there is a Turkish proverb that the Devil
tempts the busy man, but the idle man
tempts the Devil.
If we Englishmen have succeeded as a
2 W. Morris.
1 Emerson.
3 Coleridge.
�LABOUR AND REST
CHAP. X
race, it has been due in no small measure
to the fact that we have worked hard.
Not only so, but we have induced the
forces of Nature to work for us. “ Steam,”
says Emerson, “ is almost an Englishman.”
The power of work has especially
characterised our greatest men. Cecil
said of Sir W. Raleigh that he “ could
toil terribly.”
We are most of us proud of belonging
to the greatest Empire the world has ever
seen. It may be said of us with especial
truth in Wordsworth’s words that
“ The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
Yes, but what world ? The world will be
with us sure enough, and whether we
please or not. But what sort of world it
will be for us, will depend greatly on
ourselves.
We are told to pray not to be taken
out of the world, but to be kept from the
evil.
There are various ways of working.
Quickness may be good, but haste is bad.
“Wie das Gestirn
Ohne Hast
. Ohne Rast
Drehe sich Jeder
Um die eigne Last.”1
“Like a star, without haste, without rest,
let every one fulfil his own best.”
Lastly, work secures the rich reward of
rest ; we must rest to be able to work
well, and work to be able to enjoy rest.
“We must no doubt beware that our
rest become not the rest of stones, which
so long as they are torrent-tossed and
thunder-stricken maintain their majesty ;
but when the stream is silent, and the
storm past, suffer the grass to cover them,
and the lichen to feed on them, and are
ploughed down into the dust. . . . The
rest which is glorious is of the chamois
couched breathless in its granite bed, not
of the stalled ox over his fodder.” 2
When we have done our best we may
wait the result without anxiety.
“ What hinders a man, who has clearly
1 Goethe.
2 Ruskin.
9i
comprehended these things, from living
with a light heart and bearing easily the
reins ; quietly expecting everything which
can happen, and enduring that which has
already happened ? Would you have me
to bear poverty ? Come and you will
know what poverty is when it has found
one who can act well the part of a poor
man. Would you have me to possess
power1? Let me have power, and also
the trouble of it. Well, banishment ?
Wherever I shall go, there it will be well
with me.” 1
“We complain,” says Ruskin, “of the
want of many things—-we want votes, we
want liberty, we want amusement, we
want money. Which of us feels, or
knows, that he wants peace ?
“ There are two ways of getting it, if
you do want it. The first is wholly in
your own power; to make yourselves
nests of pleasant thoughts. . . . None of
us yet know, for none of us have yet been
taught in early youth, what fairy palaces
we may build of beautiful thought—proof
against all adversity. Bright fancies,
satisfied memories, noble histories, faith
ful sayings, treasure-houses of precious
and restful thoughts ; which care cannot
disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor
poverty take away from us—houses built
without hands, for our souls to live in.”
The Buddhists believe in many forms
of future punishment; but the highest
reward of virtue is Nirvana—the final
and eternal rest.
Very touching is the appeal of Ashmanezer to be left in peace, which was
engraved on his Sarcophagus at Sidon.2
“ In the month of Bui, the fourteenth
year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer,
King of the Sidonians, son of King
Tabuith, King of the Sidonians, spake,
saying : ‘ I have been stolen away before
my time—a son of the flood of days.
The whilom great is dumb ; the son of
gods is dead. And I rest in this grave,
even in this tomb, in the place which I
have built. My adjuration to all the
Ruling Powers and all men : Let no one
1 Epictetus.
2 Now in Paris.
�9*
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
open this resting-place, nor search for
treasure, for there is no treasure with us ;
and let him not bear away the couch of
my rest, and not trouble us in this
resting-place by disturbing the couch of
my slumbers. . . . For all men who
should open the tomb of my rest, or any
man who should carry away the couch of
my rest, or any one who trouble me on
this couch : unto them there shall be no
rest with the departed : they shall not be
buried in a grave, and there shall be to
them neither son nor seed. . . . There
shall be to them neither root below nor
fruit above, nor honour among the living
under the sun.’ ” 1
The idle man does not know what it is
to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it.
Hard work, moreover, tends not only to
give us rest for the body, but, what is
even more important, peace to the mind.
If we have done our best to do, and to
be, we can rest in peace.
“ En la sua voluntade e nostra pace.” 2
In His will is our peace ; and in such
peace the mind will find its truest delight,
for
“When, care sleeps, the soul wakes.”
In youth, as is right enough, the idea
of exertion, and of struggles, is inspiriting
and delightful; but as years advance the
hope and prospect of peace and of rest
gain ground gradually, and
“ When the last dawns are fallen on gray,
And all life’s toils and ease complete,
They know who work, not they who play
If rest is sweet.” 3
1 From Sir M. E. Grant Duff’s A Winter in
Syria.
2 Dante.
3 Symonds.
PART II
CHAPTER XT
RELIGION
“ And what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God ? ”—Micah.
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.”—James i.
“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
2 Corinthians.
It would be quite out of place here to
enter into any discussion of theological
problems or to advocate any particular
doctrines. Nevertheless I could not omit
what is to most so great a comfort and
support in sorrow and suffering, and a
source of the purest happiness.
We commonly, however, bring together
under the name of Religion two things
which are yet very different: the religion
of the heart, and that of the head. The
first deals with conduct, and the duties of
Man ; the second with the nature of the
supernatural and the future of the Soul,
being in fact a branch of knowledge.
Religion should be a strength, guide,
and comfort, not a source of intellectual
anxiety or angry argument. To persecute
for religion’s sake implies belief in a
jealous, cruel, and unjust Deity. If we
have done our best to arrive at the truth,
to torment oneself about the result is to
doubt the goodness of God, and, in the
words of Bacon, “ to bring down the Holy
Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove,
in the shape of a raven.” “ The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” and it
is a primary duty to form the highest
possible conception of God.
Many, however, and especially many
women, render themselves miserable on
entering life by theological doubts and
difficulties. These have reference, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not
to what we should do, but to what we
should think. As regards action, con-
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
science is generally a ready guide; to
follow it is the real difficulty. Theology,
on the other hand, is a most abstruse
science ; but as long as we honestly wish
to arrive at truth we need not fear that
we shall be punished for unintentional
error. “For what,” says Micah, “doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God.” There is very little theology
in the Sermon on the Mount, or indeed
in any part of the first three Gospels ; and
the differences which keep us apart have
their origin rather in the study than the
Church. Religion was intended to bring
peace on earth and goodwill towards men,
and whatever tends to hatred and perse
cution, however correct in the letter, must
be utterly wrong in the spirit.
How much misery would have been
saved to Europe if Christians had been
satisfied with the Sermon on the Mount!
Bokhara is said to have contained more
than three hundred colleges, all occupied
with theology, but ignorant of everything
else, and it was probably one of the most
bigoted and uncharitable cities in the world.
“ Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.”
We must not forget that
“ He prayeth best who lovetli best
All things both great and small.” 1
Theologians too often appear to agree that
“ The awful shadow of some unseen power
Floats, though unseen, among us ” ; 2
and in the days of the Inquisition many
must have sighed for the cheerful childlike
religion of the Greeks, if they could but
have had the Nymphs and Nereids, the
Fays and Faeries, with Destiny and Fate,
but without Jupiter and Mars.
Sects are the work of Sectarians. No
truly great religious teacher, as Carlyle
said, ever intended to found a new Sect.
Diversity of worship, says a Persian
proverb, “ has divided the human race
into seventy-two nations. From among
all their dogmas I have selected one—‘ Di
vine Love.’ ” And again, “ He needs no
1 Coleridge.
2 Shelley.
93
other rosary whose thread of life is struug
with the beads of love and thought.”
There is more true Christianity in some
pagan Philosophers than in certain Chris
tian theologians. Take, for instance,
Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and
Plutarch.
“ Now I, Callicles,” says Socrates, “ am
persuaded of the truth of these things,
and I consider how I shall present my
soul whole and undefiled before the judge
in that day. Renouncing the honours at
which the world aims, I desire only to
know the truth, and to live as well as I
can, and, when the time comes, to die.
And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort
all other men to do the same. And in
return for your exhortation of me, I
exhort you also to take part in the great
combat, which is the combat of life, and
greater than every other earthly conflict.”
“As to piety towards the Gods,” says
Epictetus, “you must know that this is
the chief thing, to have right opinions
about them, to think that they exist, and
that they administer the All well and
justly; and you must fix yourself in this
principle (duty), to obey them, and to
yield to them in everything which
happens, and voluntarily to follow it
as being accomplished by the wisest
intelligence.”
“ Do not act,” says Marcus Aurelius,
“ as if thou wert going to live ten
thousand years. Death hangs over thee.
While thou livest, while it is in thy
power, be good. . . .
“ Since it is possible that thou mayest
depart from life this very moment, regu
late every act and thought accordingly.
But to go away from among men, if there
be Gods, is not a thing to be afraid of,
for the Gods will not involve thee in
evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or
if they have no concern about human
affairs, what is it to me to live in a
universe devoid of Gods, or without a
Providence. But in truth they do exist,
and they do care for human things, and
they have put all the means in man’s
power to enable him not to fall into real
�94
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
evils. And as for the rest, if there was
anything evil, they would have provided
for this also, that it should be altogether
in a man’s power not to fall into it.”
And Plutarch : “ The Godhead is not
blessed by reason of his silver and gold,
nor yet Almighty through his thunder
and lightnings, but on account of know
ledge and intelligence.”
It is no doubt very difficult to arrive
at the exact teaching of Eastern Moralists,
but the same spirit runs through Oriental
Literature.
For instance, in the Toy
Cart of King Sudraka, the earliest
Sanskrit drama with which we are ac
quainted, when the wicked Prince tempts
Vita to murder the Heroine, and says
that no one would see him, Vita declares
“ All nature would behold the crime—
the Genii of the Grove, the Sun, the
Moon, the Winds, the Vault of Heaven,
the firm - set Earth, the mighty Yama
who judges the dead, and the conscious
Soul.”
There is indeed a tone of doubting sad
ness in Roman moralists, as in Hadrian’s
dying lines to his soul—
“Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes, comesque corporis
Qua nunc abibis in loca :
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos.”
PART II
than to say that Plutarch is a man in
constant, fickle, easily moved to anger,
revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed
at small things.”
Many things have been mistaken for
religion ; selfishness especially, but also
fear, hope, love of music, of art, of pomp ;
scruples often take the place of love, and
the glory of heaven is sometimes made to
depend upon precious stones and jewellery.
Many, as has been well said, run after
Christ, not for the miracles, but for the
loaves.
In many cases religious differences are
mainly verbal. There is an Eastern tale
of four men, an Arab, a Persian, a Turk,
and a Greek, who agreed to club together
for an evening meal, but when they had
done so they quarrelled as to what it
should be. The Turk proposed Azum,
the Arab Aneb, the Persian Anghur,
while the Greek insisted on Staphylion.
While they were disputing
“ Before their eyes did pass
Laden with grapes, a gardener’s ass.
Sprang to his feet each man, and showed,
With eager hand, that purple load.
‘ See Azum,’ said the Turk ; and ‘ see
Anghur,’ the Persian ; 1 what should be
Better.’ ‘Nay Aneb, Aneb ’tis, ’
The Arab cried. The Greek said, 'This
Is my Staphylion.’ Then they bought
Their grapes in peace.
Hence be ye taught.” 1
The same spirit is expressed in the
It is said that on one occasion, when
epitaph on the tomb of the Duke of Dean Stanley had been explaining his
Buckingham in Westminster Abbey—
views to Lord Beaconsfield, the latter
replied, “ Ah 1 Mr. Dean, that is all very
“ Dubins non improbus vixi
Incertus morior, non perturbatus ;
well, but you must remember,—No dog
Humanum est nescire et errare,
mas, no Deans.” To lose such Deans as
Deo confido
Stanley would indeed be a great misfor
Omnipotent! benevolentissimo :
tune ; but does it follow ? Religions, far
Ens entium miserere mei.”
from being really built on Dogmas, are
Take even the most extreme type of too often weighed down and crushed by
difference. Is the man, says Plutarch, them. No one can doubt that Stanley
“ a criminal who holds there are no gods ; has done much to strengthen the Church
and is not he that holds them to be such of England.
as the superstitious believe them, is he
We may not always agree with Spinoza,
not possessed with notions infinitely more but is he not right when he says, “ The
atrocious 1 I for my part would much first precept of the divine law, therefore,
rather have men say of me that there indeed its sum and substance, is to love
never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now,
1 Arnold. Pearls of the Faith.
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
God unconditionally as the supreme good
—unconditionally, I say, and not from
any love or fear of aught besides ” ? And
again, that the very essence of religion is
belief in “ a Supreme Being who delights
in justice and mercy, whom all who would
be saved are bound to obey, and whose
worship consists in the practice of justice
and charity towards our neighbours ” ?
“ Theology,” says the Master of Balliol,
“is full of undefined terms which have
distracted the human mind for ages.
Mankind have reasoned from them, but
not to them; they have drawn out the
conclusions without proving the premises ;
they have asserted the premises without
examining the terms. The passions of
religious parties have been roused to the
utmost about words of which they could
have given no explanation, and which
had really no distinct meaning.” 1
Doubt is of two natures, and we often
confuse a wise suspension of judgment
with the weakness of hesitation. To pro
fess an opinion for which we have no
sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but
when it is necessary to act we must do so
on the best evidence available, however
slight that may be.
Why should we expect Religion to
solve questions with reference to the origin
and destiny of the universe ? We do not
expect the most elaborate treatise to tell
us as yet the origin of electricity or of
heat. Natural History throws no light
on the origin of life. Has Biology ever
professed to explain existence ?
Simonides was asked at Syracuse by
Hiero, who or what God was, when he
requested a day’s time to think of his
answer. On subsequent days he always
doubled the period required for deliber
ation ; and when Hiero inquired the reason,
he replied that the longer he considered
the subject, the more obscure it appeared.
The Vedas say, “In the midst of the
sun is the light, in the midst of light is
truth, and in the midst of truth is the
imperishable being.” Deity has been
defined as a circle whose centre is every1 Jowett’s Plato,
95
where, and whose circumference is no
where ; but the “ God is love ” of St.
John appeals more forcibly to the human
soul.
“ Love suffereth long, and is kind ;
Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
Seeketh not her own,
Is not easily provoked,
Thinketh no evil;
Rejoieeth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the
truth ;
Beareth all things, believeth all things,
Hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth ; but whether there be pro
phecies, they shall fail : whether there be tongues,
they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away. ... Now abideth Faith,
Hope, Love, these three ; but the greatest of
these is Love.” 1
The Church is not a place for study or
speculation. Few but can sympathise
with Eugenie de Guerin in her tender
affection for the little Chapel at Cahuzac,
where she tells us she freed herself from
“ tant de miseres.”
Doubt does not exclude faith.
“ Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.” 2
Unfortunately many have attempted
to compound for wickedness of life by
purity of belief; a vain and fruitless
effort. To do right is the sure ladder
which leads up to Heaven, though the
true faith will help us to find and to
climb it.
“ It was my duty to have loved the highest,
It surely was my profit had I known,
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.” 3
But though religious truth can justify no
bitterness, it is well worth any amount of
thought and study.
If we must admit that many points are
still, and probably long will be, involved
in obscurity, we may be pardoned if we
indulge ourselves in various speculations
both as to our beginning and our end.
1 St. Paul,
2 Tennyson.
3 Ibid.
�&
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
‘ ‘ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.” 1
I hope I shall not be supposed to
depreciate any honest effort to arrive at
truth, or to undervalue the devotion of
those who have died for their religion.
But surely it is a mistake to regard
martyrdom as a merit, when from their
own point of view it was in reality a
privilege.
Let every man be persuaded in his own
mind
“Truth is the highest thing that man may
keep.” 2
It is impossible to overvalue the power
“ which the soul has of loving truth and
doing all things for the sake of truth. ” 3
To arrive at truth we should spare our
selves no pains, but certainly inflict none
on others.
We may be sure that quarrels will
never advance religion, and that to per
secute is no way to convert. No doubt
those who consider that all who do not
agree with them will suffer eternal tor
ments, seem logically justified in persecu
tion even unto death. Such a course, if
carried out consistently, might stamp out
a particular sect, and any sufferings which
could be inflicted here would on this
hypothesis be as nothing in comparison
with the pains of Hell. Only it must be
admitted that such a view of religion is
quite irreconcilable with the teaching of
Christ, and incompatible with any faith
in the goodness of God.
Moreover, the Inquisition has even
from its own point of view proved gener
ally a failure. The blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church.
“ In obedience to the order of the
Council of Constance (1415) the remains
of Wickliffe were exhumed and burnt to
1 Wordsworth.
2 Chaucer.
3 Plato.
TART II
ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a
neighbouring brook running hard by, and
thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes
into Avon ; Avon into Severn ; Severn
into the narrow seas ; they into the main
ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe
are the emblem of his doctrine, which
now is dispersed all the world over?’1
The Talmud says that when a man
once asked Shamai to teach him the Law
in one lesson, Shamai drove him away in
anger. He then went to Hillel with the
same request. Hillel said, “Do unto
others as you would have others do unto
you. This is the whole Law ; the rest,
merely Commentaries upon it.”
Collect from the Bible all that Christ
thought necessary for His disciples, and
how little Dogma there is. Christianity
is based, not on Dogma, but on Charity
and Love.
“ By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another.” “ Suffer little
children to come unto me.” And one
lesson which little children have to teach
us is that religion is an affair of the heart
and not of the mind only. St. James
sums up as the teaching of Christ that
“Pure religion and undefiled is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.”
The Religion of the lower races is
almost as a rule one of terror and of
dread. Their deities are jealous and
revengeful, cruel, merciless, and selfish,
hateful and yet childish. They require
to be propitiated by feasts and offerings,
often even by human sacrifices. They are
not only exacting, but so capricious that,
with the best intentions, it is often
impossible to be sure of pleasing them.
From the dread of such evil beings
Sorcerers and Witches derived their
hellish powers. No one was safe. No
one knew where danger lurked. Actions
apparently the most trifling might be
fraught with serious risk : objects ap
parently the most innocent might be fatal.
In many cases there were supposed to
1 Fuller.
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
97
be deities of Crime, of Misfortunes, of we were to show them a near, visible,
Disease. These wicked Spirits naturally inevitable, but all-beneficent Deity, whose
encouraged evil rather than good. An presence makes the earth itself a heaven,
energetic friend of mine was sent to a I think there would be fewer deaf children
district in India where smallpox was sitting in the market-place.”
specially prevalent, and where one of the
But it must not be supposed that those
principal Temples was dedicated to the who doubt whether the ultimate truths of
Goddess of that disease. He had the the Universe can be expressed in human
people vaccinated, in spite of some opposi , words, or whether, even if they could,
tion, and the disease disappeared, much we should be able to comprehend them,
to the astonishment of the natives. But undervalue the importance of religious
the priests of the Deity of Smallpox were ' study. Quite the contrary. Their doubts
not disconcerted ; only they deposed the , arise not from pride, but from humility :
Image of their discomfited Goddess, and ! not because they do not appreciate divine
petitioned my friend for some emblem of . truth, but on the contrary because they
himself which they might install in her doubt whether we can appreciate it
stead.
' sufficiently, and are sceptical whether the
We who are fortunate enough to live (infinite can be reduced to the finite.
in this comparatively enlightened century
We may be sure that whatever may be
hardly realise how our ancestors suffered ■ right about religion, to quarrel over it
from their belief in the existence of must be wrong. “ Let others wrangle,”
mysterious and malevolent beings; how said St. Augustine, “I will wonder.”
their life was embittered and overshadowed
Those who suspend their judgment are
by these awful apprehensions.
not on that account sceptics, and it is
As men, however, have risen in civilisa often those who think they know most,
tion, their religion has risen with them; who are especially troubled by doubts
they have by degrees acquired higher and anxiety.
and purer conceptions of divine power.
It was Wordsworth who wrote
We are only just beginning to realise
“ Great God, I had rather
that a loving and merciful Father would A Pagan suckled in some ereed outworn ;he
not resent honest error, not even perhaps So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
the attribution to him of such odious Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn.”
injustice. Yet what can be clearer than
In religion, as with children at night, it
Christ’s teaching on this point.
He
is darkness and ignorance which create
impressed over and over again on his
disciples, that, as St. Paul expresses it, dread ; light and love cast out fear.
In looking forward to the future we
“ The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
may fairly hope with Ruskin that “the
life.”1
“If,” says Ruskin, “for every rebuke charities of more and more widely ex
that we utter of men’s vices, we put forth tended peace are preparing the way for
a claim upon their hearts; if, for every a Christian Church which shall depend
assertion of God’s demands from them, neither on ignorance for its continuance,
we should substitute a display of His nor on controversy for its progress, but
kindness to them; if side by side, with shall reign at once in light and love.”
every warning of death, we could exhibit
proofs and promises of immortality ; if,
in fine, instead of assuming the being of
an awful Deity, which men, though they
cannot and dare not deny, are always
unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive :
1 2 Cor. in. 6.
H
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
because they fancied that pain was ordained
under certain circumstances.
CHAPTER XII
We are told that in early Saxon days
Edwin, King of Northumbria, called his
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
nobles and his priests around him, to dis
cuss whether a certain missionary should
“ To what then may we not look forward, when
a spirit of scientific inquiry shall have spread be heard or not. The result was doubtful.
through those vast regions in which the progress But at last there rose an old chief, and said
of civilisation, its sure precursor, is actually —“You know, 0 King, how, on a winter
commenced and in active progress ? And what evening, when you are sitting at supper
may we not expect from the exertions of powerful
minds called into action under circumstances in your hall, with your company around
totally different from any which have yet existed you, when the night is dark and dreary,
in the world, and over an extent of territory far when the rain and the snow rage outside,
surpassing that which has hitherto produced the when the hall inside is lighted and warm
whole harvest of human intellect ?”
with a blazing fire, sometimes it happens
Herschel,
that a sparrow flies into the bright hall
There are two lines, if not more, in out of the dark night, flies through the
which we may look forward with hope to hall and then out at the other end
progress in the future. In the first place, into the dark night again. We see him
increased knowledge of nature, of the for a few moments, but we know not
properties of matter, and of the pheno whence he came nor whither he goes in
mena which surround us, may afford to the blackness of the storm outside. So is
our children advantages far greater even the life of man. It appears for a short
than those which we ourselves enjoy. space in the warmth and brightness of
Secondly, the extension and improvement this life, but what came before this life,
of education, the increasing influence of or what is to follow this life, we know not.
Science and Art, of Poetry and Music, If, therefore, these new teachers can en
of Literature and Religion,—of all the lighten us as to the darkness that went
powers which are tending to good, will, we before, and the darkness that is to come
may reasonably hope, raise man and make after, let us hear what they have to teach
him more master of himself, more able us.”
It is often said, however, that great
to appreciate and enjoy his advantages,
and to realise the truth of the Italian and unexpected as recent discoveries
proverb, that wherever light is, there is have been, there are certain ultimate
problems which must ever remain un
joy.
One consideration which has greatly solved. For my part, I would prefer to
tended to retard progress has been the abstain from laying down any such limita
floating idea that there was some sort of tions. When Park asked the Arabs what
ingratitude, and even impiety, in attempt became of the sun at night, and whether
ing to improve on what Divine Providence the sun was always the same, or new each
had arranged for us. Thus Prometheus day, they replied that such a question was
was said to have incurred the wrath of foolish, being entirely beyond the reach
Jove for bestowing on mortals the use of of human investigation.
M. Comte, in his Cours de Philosophic
fire ; and other discoveries only escaped
similar punishment when the ingenuity of Positive, as recently as 1842, laid it down
priests attributed them to the special as an axiom regarding the heavenly bodies,
favour of some particular deity. This that’“we may hope to determine their
feeling has not even yet quite died out. forms, distances, magnitude, and move
Even I can remember tlie time when ments, but we shall never by any means be
many excellent persons had a scruple or able to study their chemical composition
prejudice against the use of chloroform, or mineralogical structure.” Yet within a
�CHAP. XII
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
few years this supposed impossibility has
been actually accomplished, showing how
unsafe it is to limit the possibilities of
science.1
It is, indeed, as true now as in the time
of Newton, that the great ocean of truth
lies undiscovered before us. I often wish
that some President of the Royal Society,
or of the British Association, would take
for the theme of his annual address “ The
things we do not know.” Who can say
on the verge of what discoveries we are
perhaps even now standing ! It is extra
ordinary how slight a barrier may stand
for years between Man and some import
ant improvement. Take the case of the
electric light, for instance. It had been
known for years that if a carbon rod be
placed in an exhausted glass receiver, and
a current of electricity be passed through
it, the carbon glowed with an intense
light, but on the other hand it became so
hot that the glass burst. The light, there
fore, was useless, because the lamp burst
as soon as it was lit. Edison hit on
the idea that if you made the carbon
filament fine enough, you would get rid
of the heat and yet have abundance
of light.
His right to a patent has
been contested on this very ground. It
has been said that the mere introduction
of so small a difference as the replacement
of a thin rod by a fine filament was so
slight a change thaf it could not be
patented. The improvements by LaneFox, Swan, and others, though so import
ant as a whole, have been made step by
step.
Or take again the discovery of anaes
thetics. At the beginning of the century
Sir Humphry Davy discovered laughing
gas, as it was then called. He found that
it produced complete insensibility to pain
and yet did not injure health. A tooth
was actually taken out under its influence,
and of course without suffering. These
facts were known to our chemists, they
were explained to the students in our
jreat hospitals, and yet for half a century
1 Lubbock.
Fifty Years of Science.
99
the obvious application occurred to no
one. Operations continued to be per
formed as before, patients suffered the
same horrible tortures, and yet the bene
ficent element was in our hands, its divine
properties were known, but it never oc
curred to any one to make use of it.
I will only give one more illustration.
Printing is generally said to have been
discovered in the fifteenth century ; and
so it was for all practical purposes. But
in fact printing was known long before.
The Romans used stamps; on the monu
ments of the Assyrian kings the name of
the reigning monarch may be found duly
printed. What then is the difference ?
One little, but all-important step. The
real inventor of printing was the man
into whose mind flashed the fruitful
idea of having separate stamps for each
letter, instead of for separate words.
How slight seems the difference, and
yet for 3000 years the thought occurred
to no one. Who can tell what other
discoveries, as simple and yet as farreaching, lie at this moment under our
very eyes !
Archimedes said that if he had room
to stand on, he would move the earth.
One truth leads to another; each dis
covery renders possible another, and,
what is more, a higher.
We are but beginning to realise the
marvellous range and complexity of Na
ture. I have elsewhere called attention
to this with special reference to the prob
lematical organs of sense possessed by
many animals.1
There is every reason .to hope that
future studies will throw much light on
these interesting structures. We may,
no doubt, expect much from the improve
ment in our microscopes, the use of new
reagents, and of mechanical appliances ;
but the ultimate atoms of which matter is
composed are so infinitesimally minute,
that it is as yet difficult to foresee any
manner in which we may hope for a final
solution of these problems.
1 The Senses of A nimals.
�ICO
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Loschmidt, who has since been con
firmed by Stoney and Sir W. Thomson,
calculates that each of the ultimate atoms
of matter is at most •y0';b 00,000 °f an
inch in diameter. Under these circum
stances we cannot, it would seem, hope
at present for any great increase of our
knowledge of atoms by improvements in
the microscope. With our present in
struments we can perceive lines ruled on
glass which are 90,000' °f an inch apart ;
but owing to the properties of light itself,
it would appear that we cannot hope to
be able to perceive objects which are
much less than y 0 q*0 0 0 °f an inch in
diameter.
Our microscopes may, no
doubt, be improved, but the limitation
lies not merely in the imperfection of
our optical appliances, but in the nature
of light itself.
Now it has been calculated that a
particle of albumen son) 00
an inch
in diameter contains no less than
125,000,000 of molecules. In a simpler
compound the number would be much
greater ; in water, for instance, no less
than 8,000,000,000. Even then, if wre
could construct microscopes far more
powerful than any which we now possess,
they could not enable us to obtain by
direct vision any idea of the ultimate
organisation of matter. The smallest
sphere of organic matter which could be
clearly defined with our most powerful
microscopes may be, and in all proba
bility is, very complex ; it is built up of
many millions of molecules, and it follows
that there may be an almost infinite
number of structural characters in organic
tissues which we can at present foresee
no mode of examining.1
Again, it has been shown that animals
hear sounds which are beyond the range
of our hearing, and I have proved that
they can perceive the ultra-violet rays,
which are invisible to our eyes.2
Now, as every ray of homogeneous
1 Lubbock. Fifty Years of Science.
2 Ants, Bees, and Wasps.
PART II
light which we can perceive at all, appears
to us as a distinct color, it becomes
probable that these ultra-violet rays must
make themselves apparent to animals as
a distinct and separate color (of which we
can form no idea), but as different from
the rest as red is from yellow, or green
from violet. The question also arises
whether white light to these creatures
would differ from our white light in con
taining this additional color.
These considerations cannot but raise
the reflection how different the world
may—I was going to say must—appear
to other animals from what it does to us.
Sound is the sensation produced on us
when the vibrations of the air strike on
the drum of our ear. When they are
few, the sound is deep; as they increase
in number, it becomes shriller and shriller ;
but before they reach 40,000 in a second,
they cease to be audible. Light is the
effect produced on us when waves of
light strike on the eye. When 400
millions of millions of vibrations of ether
strike the retina in a second, they give
the sensation of red, and as the number
increases the color passes into orange,
then yellow, green, blue, and violet. But
between 40,000 vibrations in a second
and 400 millions of millions we have no
organ of sense capable of receiving an
impression.
Yet between these limits
any number of sensations may exist. We
have five senses, and sometimes fancy
that no others are possible. But it is
obvious that we cannot measure the in
finite by our own narrow limitations.
Moreover, looking at the question from
the other side, we find in animals complex
organs of sense, richly supplied with
nerves, but the function of which we are
as yet powerless to explain. There may
be fifty other senses as different from ours
as sound is from sight; and even within
the boundaries of our own senses there
may be endless sounds which we cannot
hear, and colors, as different as red from
green, of which we have no conception.
These and a thousand other questions
remain for solution. The familiar world
�CHAP. XII
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
which surrounds us may be a totally
different place to other animals. To them
it may be full of music which we cannot
hear, of color which we cannot see, of
sensations which we cannot conceive. To
place stuffed birds and beasts in glass
cases, to arrange insects in cabinets, and
dried plants in drawers, is merely the
drudgery and preliminary of study ; to
watch their habits, to understand their
relations to one another, to study their
instincts and intelligence, to ascertain
their adaptations and their relations to
the forces of Nature, to realise what the
world appears to them ; these constitute,
as it seems to me at least, the true interest
of natural history, and may even give us
the clue to senses and perceptions of which
at present we have no conception.1
From this point of view the possi
bilities of progress seem to me to be
almost unlimited.
So far again as the actual condition of
man is concerned, the fact that there has
been some advance cannot, I think, be
questioned.
In the Middle Ages, for instance,
culture and refinement scarcely existed
beyond the limits of courts, and by no
means always there. The life in English,
French, and German castles was rough
and almost barbarous. Mr. Galton has
expressed the opinion, which I am not
prepared to question, that the population
of Athens, taken as a whole, was as
superior to us as we are to Australian
savages. But even if that be so, our
civilisation, such as it is, is more diffused,
so that unquestionably the general Euro
pean level is much higher.
Much, no doubt, is owing to the greater
facility of access to the literature of our
country, to that literature, in the words
of Macaulay, “ the brightest, the purest,
the most durable of all the glories of our
country ; to that Literature, so rich in
precious truth and precious fiction; to
that Literature which boasts of the prince
of all poets, and of the prince of all
1 Lubbock.
The, Senses of Animals.
IOI
philosophers; to that Literature which
has exercised an influence wider than
that of our commerce, and mightier than
that of our arms.”
Few of us, however, make the most of
our minds. The body ceases to grow in
a few years ; but the mind, if we will let
it, may grow almost as long as life lasts.
The onward progress of the future will
not, we may be sure, be confined to mere
material discoveries. We feel that we
are on the road to higher mental powers ;
that problems which now seem to us
beyond the range of human thought will
receive their solution, and open the way
to still further advance. Progress, more
over, wre may hope, will be not merely
material, not merely mental, but moral
also.
It is natural that we should feel a
pride in the beauty of England, in the
size of our cities, the magnitude of our
commerce, the wealth of our country, the
vastness of our Empire. But the true
glory of a nation does not consist in the
extent of its dominion, in the fertility of
the soil, or the beauty of Nature, but
rather in the moral and intellectual pre
eminence of the people.
And yet how few of us, rich or poor,
have made ourselves all we might be. If
he does his best, as Shakespeare says,
“ What a piece of work is man ! How
noble in reason ! How infinite in faculty !
in form and movement, how express and
admirable ! ” Few indeed, as yet, can be
said to reach this high ideal.
The Hindoos have a theory that after
death animals live again in a different
form ; those that have done well in a
higher, those that have done ill in a lower
grade. To realise this is, they find, a
powerful incentive to a virtuous life.
But whether it be true of a future life or
not, it is certainly true of our present
existence. If we do our best for a day,
the next morning we shall rise to a higher
life ; while if we give way to our passions
and temptations, we take with equal
certainty a step downwards towards a
lower nature.
�y -y. #;■ '
u? UV ' “■ ■
ZAL? PLEASURES OF LIFE
102
It is an. interesting illustration, of the
Unity of Man, and an encouragement to
those of us who have no claims to genius,
that, though of course there have been
exceptions, still on the whole, periods of
progress have generally been those when
a nation has worked and felt together ;
the advance has been due not entirely to
the efforts of a few great men, but of their
countrymen generally; not to a single
genius, but to a national effort.
Think, indeed, what might be.
“All ! when shall all men’s good
Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro’ all the circle of the golden year ? ”1
Our life is surrounded with mystery,
our very world is a speck in boundless
space ; and not only the period of our
own individual life, but that of the whole
human race is, as it were, but a moment
in the eternity of time.
We cannot
imagine any origin, nor foresee the con
clusion.
But though we may not as yet perceive
any line of research which can give us a
clue to the solution, in another sense we
may hold that every addition to our
knowledge is one small step towards the
great revelation.
Progress may be more slow, or more
rapid. It may come to others and not to
us. It will not come to us if we do not
strive to deserve it. But come it surely
will.
“ Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay,
Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright?’2
The future of man is full of hope, and I
who can foresee the limits of his destiny ?'
1 Tennyson.
2 Swinburne.
PART II
CHAPTER XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”—
Romans viii. 18.
But though we have thus a sure and
certain hope of progress for the race, still,
as far as man is individually concerned,
with advancing years we gradually care
less and less for many things which gave
us the keenest pleasure in youth. On the
other hand, if our time has been well
used, if we have warmed both hands
wisely before the fire of life, we may gain
even more than we lose. As our strength
becomes less, we feel also the less necessity
for exertion. Hope is gradually replaced
by memory : and whether this adds to
our happiness or not depends on what our
life has been.
There are of course some lives which
diminish in value as old age advances ; in
which one pleasure fades after another,
and even those which remain gradually
lose their zest; but there are others which
gain in richness and in peace all, and
more than, that of which time robs them.
The pleasures of youth may excel in
keenness and in zest, but they have at the
best a tinge of anxiety and unrest ; they
cannot have the fulness and depth which
may accompany the consolations of age,
and are amongst the richest rewards of
an unselfish life.
For as with the close of the day, so
with that of life ; there may be clouds,
and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening
may be beautiful.
Old age has a rich store of memories.
Life is full of
“Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.” 1
Swedenborg imagines that in heaven
the angels are advancing continually to
1 Montgomery.
�CHAP. XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
103
Is it not extraordinary that many men
will deliberately take a road which they
, know is, to say the least, not that of
happiness ? That they prefer to make
others miserable, rather than themselves
happy ?
Plato, in the Phsedrus, explains this
by describing Man as a Composite Being,
“ Age cannot wither nor custom stale
Their infinite variety.”
having three natures, and compares him
“ When I consider old age,” says Cicero, to a pair of winged horses and a charioteer.
“I find four causes why it is thought “ Of the two horses one is noble and of
miserable : one, that it calls us away from noble origin, the other ignoble and of
the transaction of, affairs ; the second, ignoble origin ; and the driving, as might
that it renders the body more feeble ; the be expected, is no easy matter.” The
third, that it deprives us of almost all noble steed endeavours to raise the
passions j the fourth, that it is not very chariot, but the ignoble one struggles to
far from death. Of these causes let us drag it down. As time goes on, if the
see, if you please, how great and how charioteer be wise and firm, the noble
part of our nature will raise us more
reasonable each of them is.”
To be released from the absorbing and more.
“Man,” says Shelley, “is an instru
affairs of life, to feel that one has earned
a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in ment over which a series of external and
internal impressions are driven, like the
itself no evil.
To the second complaint against old alternations of an ever-changing wind
age, I have already referred in speaking over an JEolian lyre, which move it by
their motion to ever-changing melody.”
of Health.
The third is that it has no passions.
Lastly, Cicero mentions the approach
“ 0 noble privilege of age I if indeed it of death as the fourth drawback of old
takes from us that which is in youth our age. To many minds the shadow of the
greatest defect.” But our higher aspira end is ever present, like the coffin in the
tions are not necessarily weakened ; or Egyptian feast, and overclouds all the
rather, they may become all the brighter, sunshine of life.
being purified from the grosser elements
But ought we to regard death as an
of our lower nature.
evil ? Shelley’s beautiful lines,
“Single,” says Manu, “is each man
born into the world; single he dies j
“ Life, like a Dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity ;
single he receives the reward of his good
Until death tramples it to fragments,”
deeds ; and single the punishment of his
sins. When he dies his body lies like a
fallen tree upon the earth, but his virtue contain, as it seems to me at least, a
accompanies his soul. Wherefore let Man double error. Life need not stain the
harvest and garner Virtue, that so he white radiance of eternity ; nor does
may have an inseparable companion in death necessarily trample it to fragments.
Man has, says Coleridge,
that gloom which all must pass through,
and which it is so hard to traverse.”
“Three treasures,—love and light
Then, indeed, it might be said that
And calm thoughts, regular as infants’ breath ;
“ Man is the sun of the world ; more And three firm friends, more sure than day and
than the real sun. The fire of his
night,
wonderful heart is the only light and Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.’
heat worth gauge or measure.” 1
Death is “the end of all, the remedy
1 Emerson.
the spring-time of their youth, so that
those who have lived longest are really
the youngest; and have we not all had
friends who seem to fulfil this idea ? who
are in reality—that is in mind—as fresh
as a child : of whom it may be said with
more truth than of Cleopatra that
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
104
of many, the wish of divers men, deserv
ing better of no men than of those to
whom she came before she was called.” 1
After a stormy life, with death comes
peace.
‘ ‘ Duncan is in his grave ;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.”'2
If death be final, then no one will
ever know that he is dead.
It is often, however, assumed that the
journey to
‘ ‘ The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns ”
must be one of pain and suffering. But
this is not so. Death is often peaceful
and almost painless.
Bede during his last illness was trans
lating St. John’s Gospel into AngloSaxon, and the morning of his death his
secretary, observing his weakness, said,
“ There remains now only one chapter,
and it seems difficult to you to speak.”
“It is easy,” said Bede ; “take your pen
and write as fast as you can.” At the
close of the chapter the scribe said, “ It
is finished,” to which he replied, “ Thou
hast said the truth, consummatum est.”
He asked to be placed opposite to the
place where he usually prayed, said
“Glory be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and as he
pronounced the last word he expired.
Goethe died without any apparent
suffering, having just prepared himself
to write, and expressed his delight at
the return of spring.
We are told of Mozart’s death that
“ the unfinished requiem lay upon the
bed, and his last efforts were to imitate
some peculiar instrumental effects, as he
breathed out his life in the arms of his
Wife and their friend Sussmaier.”
Plato died in the act of writing;
Lucan while reciting part of his book on
the war of Pharsalus ; Blake died sing
1 Seneca.
Shakespeare.
PART II
ing ; Wagner in sleep with his head on
his wife’s shoulder. Many have passed
away in their sleep. Various high
medical authorities have expressed their
surprise that the dying seldom feel either
dismay or regret. And even those who
perish by violence, as for instance in
battle, feel, it is probable, but little
suffering.
But what of the future 1 There may
be said to be now two principal views.
Some believe in the immortality of the
soul, but not of the individual soul: that
our life is continued in that of our
children would seem indeed to be the
natural deduction from the simile of St.
Paul, as that of the grain of wheat is
carried on in the plant of the following
year.
So long as happiness exists, it is selfish
to dwell too much on our own share in
it. Admit that the soul is immortal, but
that in the future state of existence there
is a break in the continuity of memory,
that one does not remember the present
life ; will it in that case matter to us
more what happens to the soul inhabiting
our body, than what happens to any
other soul ? And from this point of
view is not the importance of identity
involved in that of continuous memory ?
But however this may be, according to
the general view, the soul, though de
tached from the body, will retain its
conscious identity, and will awake from
death, as it does from sleep ; so that if
we cannot affirm that
“ Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we
sleep,” 1
at any rate they exist somewhere else in
space, and we are indeed looking at them
when we gaze at the stars, though to our
eyes they are as yet invisible.
In neither case, however, can death be
regarded as an evil. To wish that health
and strength were unaffected by time
might be a different matter.
1 Milton.
�THE DESTINY OF MAN
CHAP. XIII
“But if we are not destined to be
immortal, yet it is a desirable thing for a
man to expire at his fit time. For, as
nature prescribes a boundary to all other
things, so does she also to life. Now old
age is the consummation of life, just as of
a play : from the fatigue of which we
ought to escape, especially when satiety is
superadded.” 1
From this point of view, then, we need
“ Weep not for death,
’Tis but a fever stilled,
A pain suppressed,—a fear at rest,
A solemn hope fulfilled.
The moonshine on the slumbering deep
Is scarcely calmer. Wherefore weep ?
105
“ We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.” 1
According to the more general view
death frees the soul from the encumbrance
of the body, and summons us to the seat
of judgment. In fact,
“ There is no Death ! What seems so is transi
tion ;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of that life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.” 2
We have bodies, we are spirits. “ I am
a soul,” said Epictetus, “ dragging about
a corpse.” The body is the mere perish
able form of the immortal essence. Plato
“ Weep not for death !
! concluded that if the ways of God are to
The fount of tears is sealed,
be justified, there must be a future life.
Who knows how bright the inward light
To those closed eyes revealed ?
To the aged in either case death is a
Who knows what holy love may fill
release. The Bible dwells most forcibly
The heart that seems so cold and still.”
on the blessing of peace. “ My peace I
Many a weary soul will have recurred give unto you : not as the ■world giveth,
give I unto you.” Heaven is described
with comfort to the thought that
I as a place where the wicked cease from
“ A few more years shall roll,
| troubling, and the weary are at rest.
A few more seasons come,
But I suppose every one must have
And we shall be with those that rest
asked himself in what can the pleasures
Asleep within the tomb.
of heaven consist.
“ A few more struggles here.
A few more partings o’er,
A few more toils, a few more tears,
And we shall weep no more.”
“ For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is that they sing, and that they love.” 3
By no one has this, however, been
It would indeed accord with few men’s
more grandly expressed than by Shelley. ideal that there should be any “struggle
for existence ” in heaven. We should then
“ Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not be little better off than we are now. This
sleep 1
world is very beautiful, if we would only
He hath awakened from the dream of life.
enjoy it in peace. And yet mere passive
’Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
existence—mere vegetation—would in
He has outsoared the shadows of our night.
itself offer few attractions.
It would
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
indeed be almost intolerable.
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Again, the anxiety of change seems
Can touch him not and torture not again.
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain inconsistent with .perfect happiness ; and
He is secure, and now can never mourn
I yet a wearisome, interminable monotony,
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray, in
1 the same thing over and over again for
vain—”
ever and ever without relief or variety,
Most men, however, decline to believe I suggests dulness rather than delight.
that
1 Cicero.
1 Shakespeare.
2 Longfellow.
3 Waller.
�106
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
“For still the doubt came back,—Can God misconceiving us, or being harassed by us :
provide
—of glorious work to do, and adequate
For the large heart of man what shall not
faculties to do it—-a world of solved
pall,
problems, as well as of realised ideals.”
Nor through eternal ages’ endless tide
On tired spirits fall ?
| Cicero surely did not exaggerate when
he said, “ 0 glorious day ! when I shall
depart to that divine company and assem
blage of spirits, and quit this troubled and
polluted scene. For I shall go not only
to those great men of whom I have spoken
“ What shall the eyes that wait for him survey
When his own presence gloriously appears before, but also to my dear Cato, than
whom never was better man born, nor
In worlds that were not founded for a day,
But for eternal years ? ” 1
more distinguished for pious affection;
whose body was burned by me, whereas,
Here Science seems to suggest a on the contrary, it was fitting that mine
possible answer : the solution of problems should be burned by him. But his soul
which have puzzled us here; the acqui not deserting me, but oft looking back, no
sition of new ideas ; the unrolling the doubt departed to these regions whither it
history of the past; the world of animals saw that I myself was destined to come.
and plants; the secrets of space; the Which, though a distress to me, I seemed
wonders of the stars and of the regions patiently to endure : not that I bore it
beyond the stars. To become acquainted with indifference, but I comforted myself
with all the beautiful and interesting spots with the recollection that the separation
of our own world would indeed be some and distance between us would not con
thing to look forward to—and our world tinue long. For these reasons, O Scipio
is but one of many millions. I some (since you said that you with Laelius were
times ■wonder as I look away to the stars accustomed to wonder at this), old age is
at night whether it will ever be my tolerable to me, and not only not irksome,
privilege as a disembodied spirit to visit but even delightful. And if I am wrong
and explore them. When we had made in this, that I believe the souls of men to
the great tour fresh interests would have be immortal, I willingly delude myself:
arisen, and we might well begin again.
nor do I desire that this mistake, in
Here then is an infinity of interest which I take pleasure, should be wrested
without anxiety. So that at last the only from me as long as I live ; but if I, when
doubt may be
dead, shall have no consciousness, as some
narrow-minded philosophers imagine, I do
“ Lest an eternity should not suffice
To take the measure and the breadth and not fear lest dead philosophers should
height
ridicule this my delusion.”
Of what there is reserved in Paradise
Nor can I omit the striking passage
Its ever-new delight.”2
in the Apology, when, defending himself
I feel that to me, said Greg, “ God has before the people of Athens, Socrates says,
promised not the heaven of the ascetic “ Let us reflect in another way, and we
temper, or the dogmatic theologian, or of shall see that there is great reason to hope
the subtle mystic, or of the stern martyr that death is a good ; for one of two
ready alike to inflict and bear ; but a things—either death is a state of nothing
heaven of purified and permanent affec ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men
tions—of a book of knowledge with eternal say, there is a change and migration of
leaves, and unbounded capacities to read the soul from this world to another.
it—of those we love ever round us, never Now if you suppose that there is no con
sciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of
him who is undisturbed even by dreams,
1 Trench.
2 Ibid.
“ These make him say,—If God has so arrayed
A fading world that quickly passes by,
Such rich provision of delight has made
For every human eye,
�CHAP. XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
107
death will be an unspeakable gain. For' to death for asking questions1; assuredly
if a person were to select the night in not. For besides being happier in that
which his sleep was undisturbed by world than in this, they will be immortal,
dreams, and were to compare with this if what is said be true.
the other days and nights of his life, and ’ “ Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer
then were to tell us how many days and about death, and know of a certainty
nights he had passed in the course of his that no evil can happen to a good man,
life better and more pleasantly than this either in life or after death. He and his
one, I think that no man, I will not say a are not neglected by the gods ; nor has
private man, but not even the Great my own approaching end happened by
King, will find many such days or nights, mere chance. But I see clearly that to
when compared with the others. Now, die and be released was better for me;
if death is like this, I say that to die is and therefore the oracle gave no sign.
gain ; for eternity is then only a single For which reason, also, I am not angry
night. But if death is the journey to with my condemners, or with my accusers ;
another place, and there, as men say, they have done me no harm, although
all the dead are, what good, 0 my they did not mean to do me any good ;
friends and judges, can be greater than and for this I may gently blame them.
The hour of departure has arrived, and
this ?
“ If, indeed, when the pilgrim arrives in we go our ways—I to die and you to
the world below, he is delivered from the live. Which is better God only knows.’’
professors of justice in this world, and , In the Wisdom of Solomon we are
finds the true judges, who are said to promised that—
give judgment there,—Minos, and Rhada“ The souls of the righteous are in the
manthus, and yEacus, and Triptolemus, hand of God, and there shall no torment
and other sons of God who were righteous touch them.
in their own life,—that pilgrimage will
“ In the sight of the unwise they
indeed be worth making. What would seemed to die ; and their departure is
not a man give if he might converse with taken for misery.
Orpheus, and Musseus, and Hesiod, and
“ And their going from us to be utter
Homer ? Nay, if this be true, let me die destruction ; but they are in peace.
again and again. I myself, too, shall have
“ For though they be punished in the
a wonderful interest in there meeting and sight of men, yet is their hope full of
conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the immortality.
son of Telamon, and other heroes of old,
“ And having been a little chastised,
who have suffered death through an unjust they shall be greatly rewarded : for God
judgment ; and there will be no small proved them, and found them worthy for
pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own himself.”
sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall
And assuredly, if in the hour of death
then be able to continue my search into the conscience is at peace, the mind need
true and false knowledge ; as in this I not be troubled. The future is full of
world, so also in that ; and I shall find doubt, indeed, but fuller still of hope.
out who is wise, and who pretends to be
If we are entering upon a rest after the
wise, and is not. What would not a man struggles of life,
give, O judges, to be able to examine the ,
leader of the great Trojan expedition; |
“ Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest,”
or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless ;
others, men and women too 1 What in
that to many a weary soul will be a
finite delight would there be in conversing
with them and asking them questions.
1 Referring to the cause of his own condemna
In another world they do not put a man tion.
�108
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
welcome bourne, and even then we may read and enjoyed, but those also whom
say,
we have loved and lost; when we shall
“ 0 Death ! where is thy sting ?
leave behind us the bonds of the flesh and
0 Grave ! where is thy victory ? ”
the limitations of our earthly existence ;
On the other hand, if, trusting humbly when we shall join the Angels, the Arch
but confidently in the goodness of an angels, and all the company of Heaven,—
Almighty and loving Father, we are then, indeed, we may cherish a sure and
entering on a new sphere of existence, certain hope that the interests and
where we may look forward to meet not pleasures of this world are as nothing,
only those Great Men of whom we have compared to those of the life that awaits
heard so much, those whose works we have us in our Eternal Home.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh
�THREE INTERESTING BOOKS: READ THEM.
THE SCOURGE OF GOD: A Romance of Religious Persecution.
By J. BLOUN-
DELLE-BURTON. Crown Svo, cloth, 6s.
■ “Mr. Burton has both pathos and fire at his command.”—Western Morning News.
“ This splendid story. . . . We can
■ heartily recommend the book to all who love the reading of a good historical novel in which the times and scenes of the
■ period written about are faithfully reflected. The notorious Baville is drawn with a master hand ; the heroine of the story
K is charmingly portrayed.”—The Methodist Times. “ The Scourge of God marks the high-water line of Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s
I achievement as a writer of historical romance.”—The Daily Mail.
“A fascinating story.”—Dundee Advertiser.
Pictures of Lancashire Life.
[ THE SCOWCROFT CRITICS.
By JOHN ACKWORTH, Author of “ Clog-shop Chronicles,”
and “ Beckside Lights.” Crown Svo, art linen, gilt top, 3s. 6d. Clog-shop Chronicles is now in its Tenth Thousand.
“One of the most delightful series of Lancashire idylls that has yet been written.”—Dundee Advertiser.
New Work
by
Marianne Farninoham.
A WINDOW IN PARIS: A Romance of the Days of the Franco-German War.
Based upon Fact. By MARIANNE FARNINGHAM. Crown Svo, cloth, 5s. The story falls in the days of the
I Siege of Paris and the Commune, and is based on materials gathered from those who lived through that awful time.
“ .Any book from the pen of Marianne Farningham is sure of a warm welcome. A Window in Paris is a romance, but it is
r also history ; it may fairly be termed a fascinating and stirring chapter from the romance of history. The book, as may well be
I anticipated from the name of the publishers, is beautifully printed on good paper and is nicely bound.”—Northampton Reporter.
____ _______________ JAMES CLARKE AND CO., 13 AND 14 FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
A BEAUTIFUL 10/6 TEACHER’S BIBLE FOR 4/11
POST FREE.
Size 7 inches by 5 inches.
rpHIS Bible is handsomely bound in soft, flexible Leather, with overlapping edges, printed in a clear, large type. It is
furnished with a valuable “Bible Readers’ Manual” of 300 pages, edited by Rev. Charles H. H. Wright, D.D., and
contributed to by such experts in Biblical learning as Professors Adam Smith, A. B. Davidson, Owen C. Whitehouse, Dr.
Stainer, Canon Fausset, Mr. F. G. Pinches (British Museum), Rev. J. B. Heard, M.A. (late Hulsean Lecturer), President
Harper (of Chicago University), and Major Condor. Illustrations of inscriptions, coins, MSS., mummies, &c., are numerous,
and there is a concordance and an atlas. Send 4s. lid. to Manager, when you will receive, carriage paid, this beautiful
Bible, securely packed in a box ; or 6s. 6d. for a superior Morocco Binding. Abroad 6d. extra.
A customer writes“I am not only satisfied, but delighted with it.”
also
5000 BIBLES AT HALF-PRICE ! ! !
p0Sl^EE
THE LONDON BIBLE WAREHOUSE, 53 PATERNOSTER ROW.
E. BROWN & SON’S
BOOT PREPARATIONS
SOLD EVERYWHERE.
MELTONIAN BLACKING
(As used in the Royal
Househjold)
Renders the Boots Soft,
Durable, and Waterproof.
MELTONIAN CREAM
(White or Black)
Cannot be equalled for
Renovating all kinds
of Cace Kid Boots and
buoes.
ROYAL LUTETIAN i NONPAREIL DE 6UICHE
Parisian Polish
CREAM.
(For Varnishing Dress Boots
The best for Cleaning i
and Shoes)
and Polishing Russian i
and Brown Leather
is more elastic and easier to use
Boots, Tennis Shoes,&c. j
than any other.
7 GARRICK STREET, LONDON, W.C.; and at 26 RUE BERGERE, PARIS,
�MACMILLAN AND CO.’S SIXPENNY ISSU^
OF
POPULAR COPYRIGHT WORKS BY WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS.
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE.
By
the
Rt. Hon. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND
THERE. By LEWIS CARROLL.
With Fifty Illustrations by John Tenniel.
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND.
By LEWIS CARROLL.
With Forty-two Illustrations by John Tenniel.
THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER.
By A. E. W. MASON.
Punch. — “ Readers will, unless gratitude be extinct, thank me for my strong recommendation as to
the excellent entertainment provided for them in The Courtship of Morrice Buckler."
MR. ISAACS: A TALE OF MODERN INDIA.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
Athenaeum.—“A work of unusual ability. . . . It fully deserves the notice it is sure to attract.”
KIRSTEEN: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago.
By MRS. OLIPHANT. ■
Daily Chronicle.—“This story of Mrs. Oliphant’s is one not to be passed over.”
DOYE IN THE EAGLE’S NEST.
By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
Spectator.—“A pretty story nicely told, with an interesting plot.”
By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
WESTWARD HO!
HYPATIA.
ALTON LOCKE.
YEAST.
HEREWARD THE WAKE.
TWO YEARS AGO.
Athenaeum. — “The publishers deserve great credit for their enterprise and taste.”
SELECTED POEMS, including IN MEMORIAM.
By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
[February 24.
ENOCH ARDEN, THE PRINCESS, MAUD.
By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
[March 24.
To be followed by
MY FRIEND JIM.
By W. E. NORRIS.
MISUNDERSTOOD.
By FLORENCE MONTGOMERY.
A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
THE FOREST LOVERS: a Romance.
By MAURICE HEWLETT.
MACMILLAN AND CO.. LIMITED, LONDON
.
�BY RUDYARD KIPLING.
| The Day’s Work.
Forty-third Thousand.
6s.
Crown 8vo.
DAILY NEWS.— “They have all his strength.”
■ Plain Tales from the Hills.
Thirty-seventh Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in India, and is a
y born story-telier and a man of humour into the bargain. ... It would be hard to find better reading.”
B The Light that Failed.
b
Rewritten and considerably enlarged.
S Life’s Handicap. Being Stories of Mine Own People.
t
Twenty-sixth
Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.
ACADEMY.—“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling, it is the first truth about him that he has
power, real intrinsic power. . . . Mr. Kipling’s work has innumerable good qualities.”
Twenty-seventh Thousand.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
BLACK AND WHITE.—“ Life's Handicap contains much of the best work hitherto accomplished
by the author, and, taken as a whole, is a complete advance upon its predecessors.”
It Many Inventions.
Twenty-fourth Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“The completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in work | manship, the weightiest and most humane in breadth of view. ... It can only be regarded as a
| fresh landmark in the progression of his genius.”
I Wee Willie Winkie, and other Stories.
I Soldiers Three, and other Stories.
Crown 8vo.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
6s.
GLOBE.—“ Containing some of the best of his highly vivid work.”
1 “ Captains Courageous.” A Story
of the
Grand Banks.
Illustrated by I. W.
Taber. Twenty-second Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
ATHENAEUM.—“ Never in English prose has the sea in all its myriad aspects, with all its sounds
HI and sights and odours, been reproduced with such subtle skill as in these pages.”
Soldier Tales. With Illustrations by A. S. Hartrick.
Ninth Thousand.
Crown
8vo. 6s.
ATHENAEUM.—“By issuing a reprint of some of the best of Mr. Kipling’s Soldier Tales, Messrs.
Macmillan have laid us all under an obligation.”
The Jungle Book.
With Illustrations by J. L. Kipling, W. H. Drake, and P.
Frenzeny. Fortieth Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
PUNCH.—“ ‘ JEsop’s Fables and dear old Brer Fox and Co.,’ observes the Baron sagely, ‘may have
suggested to the fanciful genius of Rudyard Kipling the delightful idea, carried out in the most
fascinating style, of The Jungle Boole.' ”
The Second Jungle Book.
With Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling.
Twenty
ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
DAILY TELEGRAPH.—“The appearance of The Second Jungle Book is a literary event of which
no one will mistake the importance. Unlike most sequels, the various stories comprised in the new
volume are at least equal to their predecessors.”
A Fleet in Being. Notes
of
Two Trips
with the
Channel Squadron.
Twenty
ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo. Sewed, Is. net; Cloth, Is. 6d. net.
SPECTATOR.—“We have put up our signpost to Mr. Kipling’s wonderful little book, and bid the
English-speaking world read and not miss a real delight.”
i The Kipling Birthday Book.
Compiled by Joseph Finn.
Authorised by the
Author, with Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling. 16mo. 2s. 6d.
STANDARD.—“ Will make a welcome present to girls. Mr. Finn has done his work exceedingly
well.”
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
�BY SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART.
The Scenery of Switzerland, and the Causes to which it is Due.
6s.
Crown 8vo.
The Use Of Life.
sewed, Is.
Forty-third Thousand.
Library Edition.
3s. 6d.
The Beauties of Nature.
The Pleasures of Life.
Popular Edition.
sewed, Is.
Cloth, Is. 6d.
Part I.
The Pleasures of Life.
millan and Co., Ltd.)
Is. 6d. ;
Crown 8vo.
6s.
Library Edition.
New
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Paper, Is.
One hundred and twenty-eighth Thousand.
Part II.
3s. 6d.
Library Edition.
Popular Edition.
Thirty - eighth Thousand.
Is. 6d. ; sewed, Is.
The Pleasures of Life.
Globe 8vo.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Globe 8vo.
Edition, without Illustrations.
8vo.
Third Edition.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Globe
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
3s. 6d.
Globe 8vo.
Eighty-sixth Thousand.
Is. 6d.;
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
(Two Parts in one Vol.)
Sixpenny Edition.
Medium 8vo.
Scientific Lectures. Third Thousand.
8vo.
2s. 6d.
Globe 8vo.
(Mac
Sewed.
8s. 6d.
Addresses, Political and Educational.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
8s. 6d.
8vo.
(Macmillan and Co.,
Ltd.)
Fifty Years of Science.
Association, August 1881.
Being the Address delivered at York to the British
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
2s. 6d.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
British Wild Flowers, considered in Relation to Insects.
Illustrations.
Nature Series.
Ninth Thousand.
Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves.
Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
4s. 6d.
Crown 8vo.
With Illustrations.
Seventh Thousand.
Nature Series.
Sixth
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
The Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects.
Series.
With
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
4s. 6d.
Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
On Seedlings. With 690 Illustrations.
With Illustrations.
Nature
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)-
Two Volumes.
36s,
8vo.
(Kegan Paul,
Trench and Co.)
On Seedlings.
Popular Edition.
With 282 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
(Kegan
Paul, Trench and Co.)
Ants, Bees, and Wasps.
5s.
With Illustrations.
Thirteenth Edition.
Crown 8vo.
(Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.)
On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals.
Reference to Insects. With 100 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 5s. (Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.)
International Scientific Series.
Chapters in Popular Natural History.
12mo.
Is. 6d.
Monograph on the Collembola and Thysanura.
With Special
Fourth Edition.
(National Society.)
1871.
(Ray Society.)
Prehistoric Times. As Illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Customs
of Modern Savages.
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
18s.
(Williams and Norgate.)
The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man.
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
18s.
On Representation.
and Co.)
(Longmans, Green and Co.)
Sixth Edition.
Crown 8vo.
Is.
(Swan Sonnenschein
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The pleasures of life
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 108, [4] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list and advertisements on unnumbered pages at the begining and end. Paper covers. Pictorial cover - portrait of author. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Advertisements on preliminary pages and unnumbered pages at the end.
Contents: Part 1: The duty of happiness -- The happiness of duty -- A song of books -- The choice of books -- The blessing of friends -- The value of time -- The pleasures of travel -- The pleasures of home -- Science -- Education. Part 2: Ambition -- Wealth -- Health -- Love -- Art -- Poetry -- Music -- The beauties of nature -- The troubles of life -- Labour and rest -- Religion -- The hope of progress -- The destiny of man.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lubbock, John
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1899
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Macmillan and Co. Limited
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The pleasures of life), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G2829
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conduct of life
Education
Health
Life
Work