diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:19:20 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:19:20 -0700 |
| commit | b65a7c4f562157bb0162eb8f4b9d0ddb30979137 (patch) | |
| tree | 1271380fcf6b2d78c8ba622a91e9f20b70396866 /2537-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '2537-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 2537-h/2537-h.htm | 5645 |
1 files changed, 5645 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/2537-h/2537-h.htm b/2537-h/2537-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cb4550 --- /dev/null +++ b/2537-h/2537-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5645 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Pocket R. L. S., by Robert Louis Stevenson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pocket R.L.S., by Robert Louis Stevenson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Pocket R.L.S. + Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: December 29, 2008 [EBook #2537] +Last Updated: September 14, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POCKET R.L.S. *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE POCKET R. L. S. + </h1> + <h3> + Being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Robert Louis Stevenson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + SELECTED PASSAGES + </h2> + <p> + When you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man himself; + it is as though you had touched a loyal hand, looked into brave eyes, and + made a noble friend; there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding + you to life and to the love of virtue. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is to some more specific memory that youth looks forward in its vigils. + Old kings are sometimes disinterred in all the emphasis of life, the hands + untainted by decay, the beard that had so often wagged in camp or senate + still spread upon the royal bosom; and in busts and pictures, some + similitude of the great and beautiful of former days is handed down. In + this way, public curiosity may be gratified, but hardly any private + aspiration after fame. It is not likely that posterity will fall in love + with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathise; and so a + man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a + portrait of his face, FIGURA ANIMI MAGIS QUAM CORPORIS. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The pleasure that we take in beautiful nature is essentially capricious. + It comes sometimes when we least look for it; and sometimes, when we + expect it most certainly, it leaves us to gape joylessly for days + together, in the very homeland of the beautiful. We may have passed a + place a thousand times and one; and on the thousand and second it will be + transfigured, and stand forth in a certain splendour of reality from the + dull circle of surroundings; so that we see it ‘with a child’s first + pleasure,’ as Wordsworth saw the daffodils by the lake-side. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But every one sees the world in his own way. To some the glad moment may + have arrived on other provocations; and their recollection may be most + vivid of the stately gait of women carrying burthens on their heads; of + tropical effect, with caves and naked rock and sunlight; of the relief of + cypresses; of the troubled, busy-looking groups of sea-pines, that seem + always as if they were being wielded and swept together by a whirlwind; of + the air coming, laden with virginal perfumes, over the myrtles and the + scented underwoods; of the empurpled hills standing up, solemn and sharp, + out of the green-gold air of the east at evening. There go many elements, + without doubt, to the making of one such moment of intense perception; and + it is on the happy agreement of these many elements, on the harmonious + vibration of many nerves, that the whole delight of the moment must + depend. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + You should have heard him speak of what he loved; of the tent pitched + beside the talking water; of the stars overhead at night; of the blest + return of morning, the peep of day over the moors, the awaking birds among + the birches; how he abhorred the long winter shut in cities; and with what + delight, at the return of the spring, he once more pitched his camp in the + living out-of-doors. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was one of the best things I got from my education as an engineer: of + which, however, as a way of life, I wish to speak with sympathy. It takes + a man into the open air; it keeps him hanging about harbour-sides, which + is the richest form of idling; it carries him to wild islands; it gives + him a taste of the genial dangers of the sea; it supplies him with + dexterities to exercise; it makes demands upon his ingenuity; it will go + far to cure him of any taste (if ever he had one) for the miserable life + of cities. And when it has done so, it carries him back and shuts him in + an office! From the roaring skerry and the wet thwart of the tossing boat, + he passes to the stool and desk; and with a memory full of ships, and + seas, and perilous headlands, and the shining Pharos, he must apply his + long-sighted eyes to the pretty niceties of drawing, or measure his + inaccurate mind with several pages of consecutive figures. He is a wise + youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two + parts of drudgery between four walls, and for the sake of the one, + manfully accept the other. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + No one knows the stars who has not slept, as the French happily put it, A + LA BELLE ETOILE. He may know all their names and distances and magnitudes, + and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns mankind,—their serene and + gladsome influence on the mind. The greater part of poetry is about the + stars; and very justly, for they are themselves the most classical of + poets. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + He surprised himself by a sudden impulse to write poetry—he did so + sometimes, loose, galloping octosyllabics in the vein of Scott—and + when he had taken his place on a boulder, near some fairy falls, and + shaded by a whip of a tree that was already radiant with new leaves, it + still more surprised him that he should find nothing to write. His heart + perhaps beat in time to some vast indwelling rhythm of the universe. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + No man can find out the world, says Solomon, from beginning to end, + because the world is in his heart; and so it is impossible for any of us + to understand, from beginning to end, that agreement of harmonious + circumstances that creates in us the highest pleasure of admiration, + precisely because some of these circumstances are hidden from us for ever + in the constitution of our own bodies. After we have reckoned up all that + we can see or hear or feel, there still remains to be taken into account + some sensibility more delicate than usual in the nerves affected, or some + exquisite refinement in the architecture of the brain, which is indeed to + the sense of the beautiful as the eye or the ear to the sense of hearing + or sight. We admire splendid views and great pictures; and yet what is + truly admirable is rather the mind within us, that gathers together these + scattered details for its delight, and snakes out of certain colours, + certain distributions of graduated light and darkness, that intelligible + whole which alone we call a picture or a view. Hazlitt, relating in one of + his essays how he went on foot from one great man’s house to another’s in + search of works of art, begins suddenly to triumph over these noble and + wealthy owners, because he was more capable of enjoying their costly + possessions than they were; because they had paid the money and he had + received the pleasure. And the occasion is a fair one for + self-complacency. While the one man was working to be able to buy the + picture, the other was working to be able to enjoy the picture. An + inherited aptitude will have been diligently improved in either case; only + the one man has made for himself a fortune, and the other has made for + himself a living spirit. It is a fair occasion for self-complacency, I + repeat, when the event shows a man to have chosen the better part, and + laid out his life more wisely, in the long-run, than those who have credit + for most wisdom. And yet even this is not a good unmixed; and like all + other possessions, although in a less degree, the possession of a brain + that has been thus improved and cultivated, and made into the prime organ + of a man’s enjoyment, brings with it certain inevitable cares and + disappointments. The happiness of such an one comes to depend greatly upon + those fine shades of sensation that heighten and harmonise the coarser + elements of beauty. And thus a degree of nervous prostration, that to + other men would be hardly disagreeable, is enough to overthrow for him the + whole fabric of his life, to take, except at rare moments, the edge off + his pleasures, and to meet him wherever he goes with failure, and the + sense of want, and disenchantment of the world and life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + THE VAGABOND (TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT) + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Give to me the life I love, + Let the lave go by me, + Give the jolly heaven above + And the byway nigh me. + + Bed in the bush with stars to see, + Bread I dip in the river— + There’s the life for a man like me, + There’s the life for ever. + + Let the blow fall soon or late, + Let what will be o’er me; + Give the face of earth around, + And the road before me. + + Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, + Nor a friend to know me; + All I ask, the heaven above + And the road below me. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + Every one who has been upon a walking or a boating tour, living in the + open air, with the body in constant exercise and the mind in fallow, knows + true ease and quiet. The irritating action of the brain is set at rest; we + think in a plain, unfeverish temper; little things seem big enough, and + great things no longer portentous; and the world is smilingly accepted as + it is. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s + sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our + life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and + find the globe granite under foot and strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as + we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a + holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a + pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, + but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the + present is so exacting who can annoy himself about the future? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A SONG OF THE ROAD + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The gauger walked with willing foot, + And aye the gauger played the flute: + And what should Master Gauger play + But OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY? + + Whene’er I buckle on my pack + And foot it gaily in the track, + O pleasant gauger, long since dead, + I hear you fluting on ahead. + + You go with me the selfsame way— + The selfsame air for me you play; + For I do think and so do you + It is the tune to travel to. + + For who would gravely set his face + To go to this or t’other place? + There’s nothing under Heav’n so blue + That’s fairly worth the travelling to. + + On every hand the roads begin, + And people walk with zeal therein; + But wheresoe’er the highways tend, + Be sure there’s nothing at the end. + + Then follow you, wherever hie + The travelling mountains of the sky. + Or let the streams in civil mode + Direct your choice upon a road; + + For one and all, or high or low, + Will lead you where you wish to go; + And one and all go night and day + OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY! +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the + essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way + or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, + and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a + girl. And then you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts + take colour from what you see. You should be as a pipe for any wind to + play upon. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us fancy, + is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways + of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of + canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking + tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not + voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of + the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace + and spiritual repletion of the evening’s rest. He cannot tell whether he + puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more delight. The excitement + of the departure puts him in key for that of the arrival. Whatever he does + is not only a reward in itself, but will be further rewarded in the + sequel; and so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an endless chain. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts affect + the scenery. We see places through our humours as through + differently-coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation, a + note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no + fear for the result, if we can but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the + country that surrounds and follows us, so that we are ever thinking + suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some suitable sort of story as we + go. We become thus, in some sense, a centre of beauty; we are provocative + of beauty, much as a gentle and sincere character is provocative of + sincerity and gentleness in others. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is nobody under thirty so dead but his heart will stir a little at + sight of a gypsies’ camp. ‘We are not cotton-spinners all;’ or, at least, + not all through. There is some life in humanity yet; and youth will now + and again find a brave word to say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a + situation to go strolling with a knapsack. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I began my little pilgrimage in the most enviable of all humours: that in + which a person, with a sufficiency of money and a knapsack, turns his back + on a town and walks forward into a country of which he knows only by the + vague report of others. Such an one has not surrendered his will and + contracted for the next hundred miles, like a man on a railway. He may + change his mind at every finger-post, and, where ways meet, follow vague + preferences freely and go the low road or the high, choose the shadow or + the sunshine, suffer himself to be tempted by the lane that turns + immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open before him + into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a + range of mountain-tops, or a run of sea, perhaps, along a low horizon. In + short, he may gratify his every whim and fancy, without a pang of reposing + conscience, or the least jostle of his self-respect. It is true, however, + that most men do not possess the faculty of free action, the priceless + gift of being able to live for the moment only; and as they begin to go + forward on their journey, they will find that they have made for + themselves new fetters. Slight projects they may have entertained for a + moment, half in jest, become iron laws to them, they know not why. They + will be led by the nose by these vague reports of which I spoke above; and + the mere fact that their informant mentioned one village and not another + will compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet a little + while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and they will begin to + hear imperious voices calling on them to return; and some passion, some + duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon their + shoulder and lead them back into the old paths. Once and again we have all + made the experiment. We know the end of it right well. And yet if we make + it for the hundredth time to-morrow, it will have the same charm as ever; + our hearts will beat and our eyes will be bright, as we leave the town + behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we have felt so often before) + that we are cutting ourselves loose for ever from our whole past life, + with all its sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go forward as a + new creature into a new world. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Herein, I think, lies the chief attraction of railway travel. The speed is + so easy, and the train disturbs so little the scenes through which it + takes us, that our heart becomes full of the placidity and stillness of + the country; and while the body is borne forward in the flying chain of + carriages, the thoughts alight, as the humour moves them, at unfrequented + stations; they make haste up the poplar alley that leads towards town; + they are left behind with the signalman as, shading his eyes with his + hand, he watches the long train sweep away into the golden distance. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Now, there is no time when business habits are more mitigated than on a + walking tour. And so during these halts, as I say, you will feel almost + free. ... If the evening be fine and warm, there is nothing better in life + than to lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean over the parapet + of the bridge, to watch the weeds and the quick fishes. It is then, if + ever, that you taste joviality to the full significance of that audacious + word. Your muscles are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean and so strong + and so idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever you do is done + with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in talk with any one, + wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it seems as if a hot walk purged you, + more than of anything else, of all narrowness and pride, and left + curiosity to play its part freely, as in a child or a man of science. You + lay aside all your own hobbies to watch provincial humours develop + themselves before you, now as a laughable farce, and now grave and + beautiful like an old tale. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is almost as if the millennium were arrived, when we shall throw our + clocks and watches over the housetops, and remember time and seasons no + more. Not to keep hours for a lifetime is, I was going to say, to live for + ever. You have no idea, unless you have tried it, how endlessly long is a + summer’s day that you measure out only by hunger, and bring to an end only + when you are drowsy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I know a village where there are hardly any clocks, where no one knows + more of the days of the week than by a sort of instinct for the fete on + Sundays, and where only one person can tell you the day of the month, and + she is generally wrong; and if people were aware how slow Time journeyed + in that village, and what armfuls of spare hours he gives, over and above + the bargain, to its wise inhabitants, I believe there would be a stampede + out of London, Liverpool, Paris, and a variety of large towns, where the + clocks lose their heads, and shake the hours out each one faster than the + other, as though they were all in a wager. And all these foolish pilgrims + would each bring his own misery along with him, in a watch-pocket! + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The bed was made, the room was fit, + By punctual eve the stars were lit; + The air was still, the water ran; + No need there was for maid or man, + When we put us, my ass and I, + At God’s green caravanserai. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + To wash in one of God’s rivers in the open air seems to me a sort of + cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble among dishes in + a bedroom may perhaps make clean the body; but the imagination takes no + share in such a cleansing. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I own I like definite form in what my eyes are to rest upon; and if + landscapes were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one + penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence + every day of my life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded on the + shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more striking + to man’s eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and to see such + a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every nook along the + shore is enough to infect a silly human with alarm. Perhaps they are only + a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist deep in the stream. Or, perhaps, + they have never got accustomed to the speed and fury of the river’s flux, + or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan once played upon their + forefathers; and so, by the hands of his river, he still plays upon these + later generations down all the valley of the Oise; and plays the same air, + both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty and the terror of the + world. + </p> + <p> + The reeds might nod their heads in warning, and with tremulous gestures + tell how the river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and how death + lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. But the reeds had to stand + where they were; and those who stand still are always timid advisers. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The wholeday was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were soaked + to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But + there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirting the + forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place most gratifying + to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the riverside, drooping its + boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. + What is a forest but a city of nature’s own, full of hardy and innocuous + living things, where there is nothing dead and nothing made with the + hands, but the citizens themselves are the houses and public monuments? + There is nothing so much alive and yet so quiet as a woodland; and a pair + of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very small and bustling by + comparison. + </p> + <p> + I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the most civil + society. An old oak that has been growing where he stands since before the + Reformation, taller than many spires, more stately than the greater part + of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sicknesses and death, like + you and me: is not that in itself a speaking lesson in history? But acres + on acres full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green tops + billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings pushing up about their + knees; a whole forest, healthy and beautiful, giving colour to the light, + giving perfume to the air; what is this but the most imposing piece in + nature’s repertory? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But indeed it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim + upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of the air, + that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews + a weary spirit. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the paradox + that any place is good enough to live a life in, while it is only in a + few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hours agreeably. + For, if we only stay long enough, we become at home in the neighbourhood. + Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting corners. We + forget to some degree the superior loveliness of other places, and fall + into a tolerant and sympathetic spirit which is its own reward and + justification. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially + if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set + ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of + a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the art + of seeing nature more favourably. We learn to live with her, as people + learn to live with fretful or violent spouses: we dwell lovingly on what + is good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. We + learn, also, to come to each place in the right spirit. The traveller, as + Brantome quaintly tells us, ‘fait des discours en soi pour se soutenir en + chemin.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is no end, indeed, to making books or experiments, or to travel, or + to gathering wealth. Problem gives rise to problem. We may study for ever, + and we are never as learned as we would. We have never made a statue + worthy of our dreams. And when we have discovered a continent, or crossed + a chain of mountains, it is only to find another ocean or another plain + upon the farther side. In the infinite universe there is room for our + swiftest diligence and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, + which can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private park, or + in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet, the weather and the seasons keep + so deftly changing that although we walk there for a lifetime there will + be always something to startle and delight us. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any man continues + to exist with even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and + people, and that he wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work + and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through which he sees + the world in the most enchanted colours: it is they that make women + beautiful or fossils interesting: and the man may squander his estate and + come to beggary, but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the + possibilities of pleasure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To look on the happy side of nature is common, in their hours, to all + created things. Some are vocal under a good influence, are pleasing + whenever they are pleased, and hand on their happiness to others, as a + child who, looking upon lovely things, looks lovely. Some leap to the + strains with unapt foot, and make a halting figure in the universal dance. + And some, like sour spectators at the play, receive the music into their + hearts with an unmoved countenance, and walk like strangers through the + general rejoicing. But let him feign never so carefully, there is not a + man but has his pulses shaken when Pan trolls out a stave of ecstasy and + sets the world a-singing. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Science writes of the world as if with the cold finger of a starfish; it + is all true; but what is it when compared to the reality of which it + discourses? where hearts beat high in April, and death strikes, and hills + totter in the earthquake, and there is a glamour over all the objects of + sight, and a thrill in all noises for the ear, and Romance herself has + made her dwelling among men? So we come back to the old myth, and hear the + goat-footed piper making the music which is itself the charm and terror of + things; and when a glen invites our visiting footsteps, fancy that Pan + leads us thither with a gracious tremolo; or when our hearts quail at the + thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves that he has stamped his hoof in + the nigh thicket. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The Greeks figured Pan, the god of Nature, now terribly stamping his foot, + so that armies were dispersed; now by the woodside on a summer noon + trolling on his pipe until he charmed the hearts of upland ploughmen. And + the Greeks, in so figuring, uttered the last word of human experience. To + certain smoke-dried spirits matter and motion and elastic ethers, and the + hypothesis of this or that other spectacled professor, tell a speaking + story; but for youth and all ductile and congenial minds, Pan is not dead, + but of all the classic hierarchy alone survives in triumph; goat-footed, + with a gleeful and an angry look, the type of the shaggy world: and in + every wood, if you go with a spirit properly prepared, you shall hear the + note of his pipe. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with novelties; + but when years have come, it only casts a more endearing light upon the + past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. Galton’s, the image of each + new sitter brings out but the more clearly the central features of the + race; when once youth has flown, each new impression only deepens the + sense of nationality and the desire of native places. So may some cadet of + Royal Ecossais or the Albany Regiment, as he mounted guard about French + citadels, so may some officer marching his company of the Scots-Dutch + among the polders, have felt the soft rains of the Hebrides upon his brow, + or started in the ranks at the remembered aroma of peat-smoke. And the + rivers of home are dear in particular to all men. This is as old as + Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and Pharpar; it is confined to no race + nor country, for I know one of Scottish blood but a child of Suffolk, + whose fancy still lingers about the hued lowland waters of that shire. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + We travelled in the print of olden wars; + Yet all the land was green; + And love we found, and peace, + Where fire and war had been. + They pass and smile, the children of the sword— + No more the sword they wield; + And O, how deep the corn + Along the battlefield! +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + To reckon dangers too curiously, to hearken too intently for the threat + that runs through all the winning music of the world, to hold back the + hand from the rose because of the thorn, and from life because of death: + this it is to be afraid of Pan. Highly respectable citizens who flee + life’s pleasures and responsibilities and keep, with upright hat, upon the + midway of custom, avoiding the right hand and the left, the ecstasies and + the agonies, how surprised they would be if they could hear their attitude + mythologically expressed, and knew themselves as tooth-chattering ones, + who flee from Nature because they fear the hand of Nature’s God! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a kind of + contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in our lot, we + must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a fall + whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power of + character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Extreme BUSYNESS, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a + symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a + catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort + of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of + living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these + fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how + they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they + cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take + pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless + Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is + no good speaking to such folk: they CANNOT be idle, their nature is not + generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are + not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + If a person cannot be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. + It is a revolutionary precept; but thanks to hunger and the workhouse, one + not easily to be abused; and within practical limits, it is one of the + most incontestable truths in the whole Body of Morality. Look at one of + your industrious fellows for a moment, I beseech you. He sows hurry and + reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and + receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he + absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in a + garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people + swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous system, to + discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much or + how well he works, this fellow is an evil feature in other people’s lives. + They would be happier if he were dead. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening, + VOYEZ-VOUS, NOUS SOMMES SERIEUX.’ These were the words. They were all + employed over the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day; + but in the evening they found some hours for the serious concerns of life. + I may have a wrong idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise + remark. People connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their + days in getting rid of second-hand notions and false standards. It is + their profession, in the sweat of their brows, by dogged thinking, to + recover their old fresh view of life, and distinguish what they really and + originally like from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. And + these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction still quite legible in + their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what is nice and + nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen + refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age, the bear’s + hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out of a man’s soul, had not + yet begun for these happy-starr’d young Belgians. They still knew that the + interest they took in their business was a trifling affair compared to + their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. To know + what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you + you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a man may be + generous; he may be honest in something more than the commercial sense; he + may love his friends with an elective, personal sympathy, and not accept + them as an adjunct of the station to which he has been called. He may be a + man, in short, acting on his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that + God made him in; and not a mere crank in the social engine-house, welded + on principles that he does not understand, and for purposes that he does + not care for. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is played in life by + eating and drinking. The appetite is so imperious that we can stomach the + least interesting viands, and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on + bread and water; just as there are men who must read something, if it were + only ‘Bradshaw’s Guide.’ But there is a romance about the matter, after + all. Probably the table has more devotees than love; and I am sure that + food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. Do you give in, as + Walt Whitman would say, that you are any the less immortal for that? The + true materialism is to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavour of + an olive is no less a piece of human perfection than to find beauty in the + colours of the sunset. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill-tops, is one thing; it + is another for the citizen, from the thick of his affairs, to overlook the + country. It should be a genial and ameliorating influence in life; it + should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature’s unconcern: that he + can watch from day to day, as he trots officeward, how the spring green + brightens in the wood, or the field grows black under a moving + ploughshare. I have been tempted, in this connection, to deplore the + slender faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a voice, + its dull ears, and its narrow range of sight. If you could see as people + are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a superior + race, if you could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only a + few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:—think how agreeably + your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts would be + diversified, as you walk the Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in + some business perplexity, in the midst of the city traffic, and perhaps + catch the eye of a shepherd as he sat down to breathe upon a heathery + shoulder of the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a country + elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and rustic + visage; or as a fisher racing seaward, with the tiller under his elbow, + and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a salutation from + between Anst’er and the May. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So you sit, like Jupiter on Olympus, and look down from afar upon men’s + life. The city is as silent as a city of the dead: from all its humming + thoroughfares, not a voice, not a footfall, reaches you upon the hill. The + sea-surf, the cries of plough-men, the streams and the mill-wheels, the + birds and the wind, keep up an animated concert through the plain; from + farm to farm, dogs and crowing cocks contend together in defiance; and yet + from this Olympian station, except for the whispering rumour of a train, + the world has fallen into a dead silence, and the business of town and + country grown voiceless in your ears. A crying hill-bird, the bleat of a + sheep, a wind singing in the dry grass, seem not so much to interrupt, as + to accompany, the stillness; but to the spiritual ear, the whole scene + makes a music at once human and rural, and discourses pleasant reflections + on the destiny of man. The spiry habitable city, ships, the divided + fields, and browsing herds, and the straight highways, tell visibly of + man’s active and comfortable ways; and you may be never so laggard and + never so unimpressionable, but there is something in the view that spirits + up your blood and puts you in the vein for cheerful labour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The night, though we were so little past midsummer, was as dark as + January. Intervals of a groping twilight alternated with spells of utter + blackness; and it was impossible to trace the reason of these changes in + the flying horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath out of a man’s + nostrils; all heaven seemed to thunder overhead like one huge sail; and + when there fell a momentary lull on Aros, we could hear the gusts dismally + sweeping in the distance. Over all the lowlands of the Ross the wind must + have blown as fierce as on the open sea; and God only knows the uproar + that was raging around the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and + rain were driven in our faces. All round the isle of Aros, the surf, with + an incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefs and beaches. Now + louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of + orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for a + moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the changeful + voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the Merry Men. At that + hour there flashed into my mind the reason of the name that they were + called. For the noise of them seemed almost mirthful, as it out-topped the + other noises of the night; or if not mirthful, yet instinct with a + portentous joviality. Nay, and it seemed even human. As when savage men + have drunk away their reason, and, discarding speech bawl together in + their madness by the hour; so, to my ears, these deadly breakers shouted + by Aros in the night. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I was walking one night in the verandah of a small house in which I lived, + outside the hamlet of Saranac. It was winter; the night was very dark; the + air extraordinary clear and cold, and sweet with the purity of forests. + From a good way below, the river was to be heard contending with ice and + boulders; a few lights, scattered unevenly among the darkness, but so far + away as not to lessen the sense of isolation. For the making of a story + here were fine conditions. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + On all this part of the coast, and especially near Aros, these great + granite rocks that I have spoken of go down together in troops into the + sea, like cattle on a summer’s day. There they stand, for all the world + like their neighbours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them + instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides + instead of heather; and the great sea-conger to wreathe about the base of + them instead of the poisonous viper of the land. On calm days you can go + wandering between them in a boat for hours, echoes following you about the + labyrinth; but when the sea is up, Heaven help the man that hears that + caldron boiling. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were tucked + in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the pliant + counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made + ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet weather, + leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An effusion of + coppery light on the summit of Brown Carrick showed where the sun was + trying to look through; but along the horizon clouds of cold fog had + settled down, so that there was no distinction of sky and sea. Over the + white shoulders of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was + nothing but a great vacancy and blackness; and the road as it drew near + the edge of the cliff, seemed to skirt the shores of creation and void + space. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When we are looking at a landscape we think ourselves pleased; but it is + only when it comes back upon us by the fire o’ nights that we can + disentangle the main charm from the thick of particulars. It is just so + with what is lately past. It is too much loaded with detail to be + distinct; and the canvas is too large for the eye to encompass. But this + is no more the case when our recollections have been strained long enough + through the hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much + thought, the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless + has been sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest + lights and the darkest shadows. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Burns, too proud and honest not to work, continued through all reverses to + sing of poverty with a light, defiant note. Beranger waited till he was + himself beyond the reach of want before writing the OLD VAGABOND or + JACQUES. Samuel Johnson, although he was very sorry to be poor, ‘was a + great arguer for the advantages of poverty’ in his ill days. Thus it is + that brave men carry their crosses, and smile with the fox burrowing in + their vitals. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Now, what I like so much in France is the clear, unflinching recognition + by everybody of his own luck. They all know on which side their bread is + buttered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, which is surely the + better part of religion. And they scorn to make a poor mouth over their + poverty, which I take to be the better part of manliness. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, so + long as he boasts of what he really has, I believe they would do it more + freely and with a better grace. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A girl at school in France began to describe one of our regiments on + parade to her French school-mates, and as she went on she told me the + recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman of + such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her voice + failed her and she burst into tears. I have never forgotten that girl, and + I think she very nearly deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with + all its many associations, would be to offer her an insult. She may rest + assured of one thing, although she never should marry a heroic general, + never see any great or immediate result of her life, she will not have + lived in vain for her native land. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As I went, I was thinking of Smethurst with admiration; a look into that + man’s mind was like a retrospect over the smiling champaign of his past + life, and very different from the Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a + terrified moment into the dark souls of many good, many wise, and many + prudent men. I cannot be very grateful to such men for their excellence, + and wisdom, and prudence. I find myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, + combative existence, full of doubt, difficulties, defeats, + disappointments, and dangers, quite a hard enough life without their dark + countenances at my elbow, so that what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst + placed here and there at ugly corners of my life’s wayside, preaching his + gospel of quiet and contentment. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is a certain critic, not indeed of execution but of matter, whom I + dare be known to set before the best: a certain low-browed, hairy + gentleman, at first a percher in the fork of trees, next (as they relate) + a dweller in caves, and whom I think I see squatting in cave-mouths, of a + pleasant afternoon, to munch his berries—his wife, that accomplished + lady, squatting by his side: his name I never heard, but he is often + described as Probably Arboreal, which may serve for recognition. Each has + his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; + in all our veins there run some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; + our civilised nerves still tingle with his rude terrors and pleasures; and + to that which would have moved our common ancestors, all must obediently + thrill. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + This is an age when genealogy has taken a new lease of life, and become + for the first time a human science; so that we no longer study it in quest + of the Guaith Voeths, but to trace out some of the secrets of descent and + destiny; and as we study, we think less of Sir Bernard Burke and more of + Mr. Galton. Not only do our character and talents lie upon the anvil and + receive their temper during generations; but the very plot of our life’s + story unfolds itself on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the man + is only an episode in the epic of the family. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of fancy; and + it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that we can follow + backward the careers of our HOMUNCULUS and be reminded of our antenatal + lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the elements + that build us. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What is mine, then, and what am I? If not a curve in this poor body of + mine (which you love, and for the sake of which you dotingly dream that + you love me), not a gesture that I can frame, not a tone of my voice, not + a look from my eyes, no, not even now when I speak to him I love, but has + belonged to others? Others, ages dead, have wooed other men with my eyes; + other men have heard the pleadings of the same voice that now sounds in + your ears. The hands of the dead are in my bosom; they move me, they pluck + me, they guide me; I am a puppet at their command; and I but re-inform + features and attributes that have long been laid aside from evil in the + quiet of the grave. Is it me you love, friend? or the race that made me? + The girl who does not know and cannot answer for the least portion of + herself? or the stream of which she is a transitory eddy, the tree of + which she is the passing fruit? The race exists; it is old, it is ever + young, it carries its eternal destiny in its bosom; upon it, like waves + upon the sea, individual succeeds individual, mocked with a semblance of + self-control, but they are nothing. We speak of the soul, but the soul is + in the race. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The future is nothing; but the past is myself, my own history, the seed of + my present thoughts, the mould of my present disposition. It is not in + vain that I return to the nothings of my childhood; for every one of them + has left some stamp upon me or put some fetter on my boasted free-will. In + the past is my present fate; and in the past also is my real life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For as the race of man, after centuries of civilisation, still keeps some + traits of their barbarian fathers, so man the individual is not altogether + quit of youth, when he is already old and honoured, and Lord Chancellor of + England. We advance in years somewhat in the manner of an invading army in + a barren land; the age that we have reached, as the phrase goes, we but + hold with an outpost, and still keep open our communications with the + extreme rear and first beginnings of the march. There is our true base; + that is not only the beginning, but the perennial spring of our faculties; + and grandfather William can retire upon occasion into the green enchanted + forest of his boyhood. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The regret we have for our childhood is not wholly justifiable: so much a + man may lay down without fear of public ribaldry; for although we shake + our heads over the change, we are not unconscious of the manifold + advantages of our new state. What we lose in generous impulse we more than + gain in the habit of generously watching others; and the capacity to enjoy + Shakespeare may balance a lost appetite for playing at soldiers. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + If a man lives to any considerable age, it cannot be denied that he + laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal + more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is something irreverent in the speculation, but perhaps the want of + power has more to do with wise resolutions of age than we are always + willing to admit. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + People may lay down their lives with cheerfulness in the sure expectation + of a blessed immortality; but that is a different affair from giving up + youth, with all its admirable pleasures, in the hope of a better quality + of gruel in a more than problematical, nay, more than improbable, old age. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Childhood must pass away, and then youth, as surely as, age approaches. + The true wisdom is to be always seasonable, and to change with a good + grace in changing circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, to + lead an adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when the time + arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good artist in life and + deserve well of yourself and your neighbour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Age asks with timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking + fortune by the beard, demands joy like a right. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not possible to keep the mind in a state of accurate balance and + blank; and even if you could do so, instead of coming ultimately to the + right conclusion, you would be very apt to remain in a state of balance + and blank to perpetuity. Even in quite intermediate stages, a dash of + enthusiasm is not a thing to be ashamed of in the retrospect: if St. Paul + had not been a very zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder + Christian. For my part, I look back to the time when I was a Socialist + with something like regret. I have convinced myself (for the moment) that + we had better leave these great changes to what we call blind forces; + their blindness being so much more perspicacious than the little, peering, + partial eyesight of men. I seem to see that my own scheme would not + answer; and all the other schemes I ever heard propounded would depress + some elements of goodness just as much as they encouraged others. Now I + know that in thus turning Conservative with years, I am going through the + normal cycle of change and travelling in the common orbit of men’s + opinions. + </p> + <p> + Those who go the devil in youth, with anything like a fair chance, were + probably little worth saving from the first; they must have been feeble + fellows—creatures made of putty and pack-thread, without steel or + fire, anger or true joyfulness, in their composition; we may sympathise + with their parents, but there is not much cause to go into mourning for + themselves; for to be quite honest, the weak brother is the worst of + mankind. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The follies of youth have a basis in sound reason, just as much as the + embarrassing questions put by babes and sucklings. Their most anti-social + acts indicate the defects of our society. When the torrent sweeps the man + against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be + surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. ... But it is better to be + a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a + theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of + life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people + swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like + smiling images pushed from behind. For God’s sake give me the young man + who has brains enough to make a fool of himself! As for the others, the + irony of facts shall take it out of their hands, and make fools of them in + downright earnest, ere the farce be over. There shall be such a mopping + and a mowing at the last day, and such blushing and confusion of + countenance for all those who have been wise in their own esteem, and have + not learnt the rough lessons that youth hands on to age. If we are indeed + here to perfect and complete our own natures, and grow larger, stronger, + and more sympathetic against some nobler career in the future, we had all + best bestir ourselves to the utmost while we have the time. To equip a + dull, respectable person with wings would be but to make a parody of an + angel. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Had he but talked—talked freely—let himself gush out in words + (the way youth loves to do, and should) there might have been no tale to + write upon the Weirs of Hermiston. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A young man feels himself one too many in the world; his is a painful + situation; he has no calling; no obvious utility; no ties but to his + parents, and these he is sure to disregard. I do not think that a proper + allowance has been made for this true cause of suffering in youth; but by + the mere fact of a prolonged existence, we outgrow either the fact or else + the feeling. Either we become so callously accustomed to our own useless + figure in the world, or else—and this, thank God, in the majority of + cases—we so collect about us the interest or the love of our + fellows, so multiply our effective part in the affairs of life, that we + need to entertain no longer the question of our right to be. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It had been long his practice to prophesy for his second son a career of + ruin and disgrace. There is an advantage in this artless parental habit. + Doubtless the father is interested in his son; but doubtless also the + prophet grows to be interested in his prophecies. If the one goes wrong + the others come true. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When the old man waggles his head and says, ‘Ah, so I thought when I was + your age,’ he has proved the youth’s case. Doubtless, whether from growth + of experience or decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but he + thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so while they were + young, since there was dew in the morning or hawthorn in May; and here is + another young man adding his vote to those of previous generations and + riveting another link to the chain of testimony. It is as natural and as + right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops + and circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly + captured, as it is for old men to turn grey, or mothers to love their + offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than their lives. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other + both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; to hear + the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and country; to be + converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting + verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to + applaud HERNANI. There is some meaning in the old theory about wild oats; + and a man who has not had his green-sickness and got done with it for good + is as little to be depended on as an unvaccinated infant. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When we grow elderly, how the room brightens and begins to look as it + ought to look, on the entrance of youth, grace, health and comeliness! You + do not want them for yourself, perhaps not even for your son, but you look + on smiling; and when you recall their images—again it is with a + smile. I defy you to see or think of them and not smile with an infinite + and intimate but quite impersonal pleasure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To speak truth there must be moral equality or else no respect; and hence + between parent and child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal + fencing-bout, and misapprehensions to become engrained. And there is + another side to this, for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of + the child’s character, formed in early years or during the equinoctial + gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only the facts which suit with + his pre-conception; and wherever a person fancies himself unjustly judged, + he at once and finally gives up the effort to speak truth. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So, as we grow old, a sort of equable jog-trot of feeling is substituted + for the violent ups and downs of passion and disgust; the same influence + that restrains our hopes quiets our apprehensions; if the pleasures are + less intense, the troubles are milder and more tolerable; and in a word, + this period for which we are asked to hoard up everything as for a time of + famine, is, in its own right, the richest, easiest, and happiest of life. + Nay, by managing its own work and following its own happy inspiration, + youth is doing the best it can to endow the leisure of age. A full, busy + youth is your only prelude to a self-contained and independent age; and + the muff inevitably develops into a bore. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To know what you like is the beginning of wisdom and of old age. Youth is + wholly experimental. The essence and charm of that unquiet and delightful + epoch is ignorance of self as well as ignorance of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The schoolboy has a keen sense of humour. Heroes he learns to understand + and to admire in books; but he is not forward to recognise the heroic + under the traits of any contemporary. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Discredited as they are in practice, the cowardly proverbs hold their own + in theory; and it is another instance of the same spirit, that the + opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of + allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, + for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow + or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles + his head and says: ‘Ah, so I thought when I was your age.’ It is not + thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I + shall most probably think when I am yours.’ And yet the one is as good as + the other: pass for pass, tit for tat, a Roland for an Oliver. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What shall we be when we grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought to + lay on restrictions and acquire new deadweight of mournful experience with + every year, till he looked back on his youth as the very summer of impulse + and freedom. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And it may be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their + season, and that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth + in particular are things but of a moment. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Through what little channels, by what hints and premonitions, the + consciousness of the man’s art dawns first upon the child, it should be + not only interesting but instructive to inquire. A matter of curiosity + to-day, it will become the ground of science to-morrow. From the mind of + childhood there is more history and more philosophy to be fished up than + from all the printed volumes in a library. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I could not finish THE PIRATE when I was a child, I have never finished it + yet; PEVERIL OF THE PEAK dropped half way through from my schoolboy hands, + and though I have since waded to an end in a kind of wager with myself, + the exercise was quite without enjoyment. There is something disquieting + in the considerations. I still think the visit to Ponto’s the best part of + the BOOK OF SNOBS: does that mean that I was right when I was a child, or + does it mean that I have never grown since then, that the child is not the + man’s father, but the man? and that I came into the world with all my + faculties complete, and have only learned sinsyne to be more tolerant of + boredom? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The child thinks much in images, words are very live to him, phrases that + imply a picture eloquent beyond their value. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Somehow my playmate had vanished, or is out of the story, as the sagas + say, but I was sent into the village on an errand; and, taking a book of + fairy tales, went down alone through a fir-wood, reading as I walked. How + often since then has it befallen me to be happy even so; but that was the + first time: the shock of that pleasure I have never since forgot, and if + my mind serves me to the last, I never shall; for it was then I knew I + loved reading. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The remainder of my childish recollections are all of the matter that was + read to me, and not of any manner in the words. If these pleased me, it + was unconsciously; I listened for news of the great vacant world upon + whose edge I stood; I listened for delightful plots that I might re-enact + in play, and romantic scenes and circumstances that I might call up before + me, with closed eyes, when I was tired of Scotland, and home, and that + weary prison of the sick-chamber in which I lay so long in durance. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt of the garden + I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and there a lighted window. + How often before had my nurse lifted me out of bed and pointed them out to + me, while we wondered together if, there also, there were children that + could not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were signs of those that + waited like us for the morning. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There never was a child but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a + military commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and + suffered shipwreck and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and + gallantly retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence + and beauty. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + None more than children are concerned for beauty, and, above all, for + beauty in the old. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So in youth, like Moses from the mountain, we have sights of that House + Beautiful of art which we shall never enter. They are dreams and + unsubstantial; visions of style that repose upon no base of human meaning; + the last heart-throb of that excited amateur who has to die in all of us + before the artist can be born. But they come in such a rainbow of glory + that all subsequent achievement appears dull and earthly in comparison. We + are all artists; almost all in the age of illusion, cultivating an + imaginary genius, and walking to the strains of some deceiving Ariel; + small wonder, indeed, if we were happy! But art, of whatever nature, is a + kind of mistress; and though these dreams of youth fall by their own + baselessness, others succeed, grave and more substantial; the symptoms + change, the amiable malady endures; and still at an equal distance, the + House Beautiful shines upon its hill-top. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Children, for instance, are able enough to see, but they have no great + faculty for looking; they do not use their eyes for the pleasure of using + them, but for by-ends of their own; and the things I call to mind seeing + most vividly were not beautiful in themselves, but merely interesting or + enviable to me, as I thought they might be turned to practical account in + play. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The true parallel for play is not to be found, of course, in conscious + art, which, though it be derived from play, is itself an abstract, + impersonal thing, and depends largely upon philosophical interests beyond + the scope of childhood. It is when we make castles in the air and + personate the leading character in our own romances, that we return to the + spirit of our first years. Only, there are several reasons why the spirit + is no longer so agreeable to indulge. Nowadays, when we admit this + personal element into our divagations, we are apt to stir up uncomfortable + and sorrowful memories, and remind ourselves sharply of old wounds..Alas! + when we betake ourselves to our intellectual form of play, sitting quietly + by the fire or lying prone in bed, we rouse many hot feelings for which we + can find no outlet. Substitutes are not acceptable to the mature mind, + which desires the thing itself; and even to rehearse a triumphant dialogue + with one’s enemy, although it is perhaps the most satisfactory piece of + play still left within our reach, is not entirely satisfying, and is even + apt to lead to a visit and an interview which may be the reverse of + triumphant after all. + </p> + <p> + Whatever we are to expect at the hands of children, it should not be any + peddling exactitude about matters of fact. They walk in a vain show, and + among mists and rainbows; they are passionate after dreams and unconcerned + about realities; speech is a difficult art not wholly learned; and there + is nothing in their own tastes or purposes to teach them what we mean by + abstract truthfulness. When a bad writer is inexact, even if he can look + back on half a century of years, we charge him with incompetence and not, + with dishonesty. And why not extend the same allowance to imperfect + speakers? Let a stockbroker be dead stupid about poetry, or a poet inexact + in the details of business, and we excuse them heartily from blame. But + show us a miserable, unbreeched, human entity, whose whole profession it + is to take a tub for a fortified town and a shaving-brush for the deadly + stiletto, and who passes three-fourths of his time in a dream and the rest + in open self-deception, and we expect him to be as nice upon a matter of + fact as a scientific expert bearing evidence. Upon my heart, I think it + less than decent: you do not consider how little the child sees, or how + swift he is to weave what he has seen into bewildering fiction; and that + he cares no more for what you call truth, than you for a gingerbread + dragoon. It would be easy to leave them in their native cloudland, where + they figure so prettily—pretty like flowers and innocent like dogs. + They will come out of their gardens soon enough, and have to go into + offices and the witness-box. Spare them yet a while, O conscientious + parent! Let them doze among their playthings yet a little! for who knows + what a rough, warfaring existence lies before them in the future? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘You are a friend of Archie Weir’s?’ said one to Frank Innes; and Innes + replied, with his usual flippancy and more than his usual insight: ‘I know + Weir, but I never met Archie.’ No one had met Archie, a malady most + incident to only sons. He flew his private signal, and none heeded it; It + seemed he was abroad in a world from which the very hope of intimacy was + banished; and he looked round about him on the concourse of his + fellow-students, and forward to the trivial days and acquaintances that + were to come, without hope or interest. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘My poor, dear boy!’ observed Glenalmond. ‘My poor, dear and, if you will + allow me to say so, very foolish boy! You are only discovering where you + are; to one of your temperament, or of mine, a painful discovery. The + world was not made for us; it was made for ten hundred millions of me, all + different from each other and from us; there’s no royal road, we just have + to sclamber and tumble.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Alas and alas! you may take it how you will, but the services of no single + individual are indispensable. Atlas was just a gentleman with a protracted + nightmare! And yet you see merchants who go and labour themselves into a + great fortune and thence into the bankruptcy court; scribblers who keep + scribbling at little articles until their temper is a cross to all who + come about them, as though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin + instead of a pyramid; and fine young men who work themselves into a + decline, and are driven off in a hearse with white plumes upon it. Would + you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the Master of the + Ceremonies the promise of some momentous destiny? and that this Lukewarm + bullet on which they play their farces was the bull’s-eye and centrepoint + of all the universe? And yet it is not so. The ends for which they give + away their priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical, or + hurtful; the glory and riches they expect may never come, or may find them + indifferent; and they and the world they inhabit are so inconsiderable + that the mind freezes at the thought. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As we go catching and catching at this or that corner of knowledge, now + getting a foresight of generous possibilities, now chilled with a glimpse + of prudence, we may compare the headlong course of our years to a swift + torrent in which a man is carried away; now he is dashed against a + boulder, now he grapples for a moment to a trailing spray; at the end, he + is hurled out and overwhelmed in a dark and bottomless ocean. We have no + more than glimpses and touches; we are torn away from our theories; we are + spun round and round and shown this or the other view of life, until only + fools or knaves can hold to their opinions.... All our attributes are + modified or changed; and it will be a poor account of us if our views do + not modify and change in a proportion. To hold the same views at forty as + we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take + rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none + the wiser. It is as if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port + of London; and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first + setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is good to have been young in youth and, as years go on, to grow older. + Many are already old before they are through their teens; but to travel + deliberately through one’s ages is to get the heart out of a liberal + education. Times change, opinions vary to their opposite, and still this + world appears a brave gymnasium, full of sea-bathing, and horse exercise, + and bracing, manly virtues; and what can be more encouraging than to find + the friend who was welcome at one age, still welcome at another? Our + affections and beliefs are wiser than we; the best that is in us is better + than we can understand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides + us, blindfold but safe, from one age on to another. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But faces have a trick of growing more and more spiritualised and abstract + in the memory, until nothing remains of them but a look, a haunting + expression; just that secret quality in a face that is apt to slip out + somehow under the cunningest painter’s touch, and leave the portrait dead + for the lack of it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the face; pitiful that + of the deaf who cannot follow the changes of the voice. And there are + others also to be pitied; for there are some of an inert, uneloquent + nature, who have been denied all the symbols of communication, who have + neither a lively play of facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor a + responsive voice, nor yet the gift of frank, explanatory speech: people + truly made of clay, people tied for life into a bag which no one can undo. + They are poorer than the gipsy, for their heart can speak no language + under heaven. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For my part, I can see few things more desirable, after the possession of + such radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos, than to have a + lively and not a stolid countenance; to have looks to correspond with + every feeling; to be elegant arid delightful in person, so that we shall + please even in the intervals of active pleasing, and may never discredit + speech with uncouth manners or become unconsciously our own burlesques. + But of all unfortunates there is one creature (for I will not call him + man) conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited his + birthright of expression, who has cultivated artful intonations, who has + taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, and on every side perverted or + cut off his means of communication with his fellow-men. The body is a + house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on + the passersby to come and love us. But this fellow has filled his windows + with opaque glass, elegantly coloured. His house may be admired for its + design, the crowd may pause before the stained windows, but meanwhile the + poor proprietor must lie languishing within, uncomforted, unchangeably + alone. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The lads go forth pricked with the spirit of adventure and the desire to + rise in Life, and leave their homespun elders grumbling and wondering over + the event. Once, at a village called Lausanne, I met one of these + disappointed parents: a drake who had fathered a wild swan and seen it + take wing and disappear. The wild swan in question was now an apothecary + in Brazil. He had flown by way of Bordeaux, and first landed in America, + bare-headed and bare-footed, and with a single halfpenny in his pocket. + And now he was an apothecary! Such a wonderful thing is an adventurous + life! I thought he might as well have stayed at home; but you never can + tell wherein a man’s life consists, nor in what he sets his pleasure: one + to drink, another to marry, a third to write scurrilous articles and be + repeatedly caned in public, and now this fourth, perhaps, to be an + apothecary in Brazil. As for his old father, he could conceive no reason + for the lad’s behaviour. ‘I had always bread for him,’ he said; ‘he ran + away to annoy me. He loved to annoy me. He had no gratitude.’ But at heart + he was swelling with pride over his travelled offspring, and he produced a + letter out of his pocket, where, as he said, it was rotting, a mere lump + of paper rags, and waved it gloriously in the air. ‘This comes from + America,’ he cried, ‘six thousand leagues away!’ And the wine-shop + audience looked upon it with a certain thrill. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The fame of other lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city + rang in their ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled + towards wine and gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something + higher. That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity that + makes all high achievements and all miserable failures, the same that + spread wings with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate + Atlantic, inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is more adventure in the life of the working man who descends as a + common soldier into the battle of life, than in that of the millionaire + who sits apart in an office, like Von Moltke, and only directs the + manoeuvres by telegraph. Give me to hear about the career of him who is in + the thick of the business; to whom one change of market means an empty + belly, and another a copious and savoury meal. This is not the + philosophical, but the human side of economics; it interests like a story; + and the life of all who are thus situated partakes in a small way of the + charm of Robinson Crusoe; for every step is critical, and human life is + presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, + a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a + revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be + spiritually rich. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in + life; and perhaps only in law and the higher mathematics may this devotion + be maintained, suffice to itself without reaction, and find continual + rewards without excitement. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Study and experiment, to some rare natures, is the unbroken pastime of a + life. These are enviable natures; people shut in the house by sickness + often bitterly envy them; but the commoner man cannot continue to exist + upon such altitudes: his feet itch for physical adventure; his blood boils + for physical dangers, pleasures, and triumphs; his fancy, the looker after + new things, cannot continue to look for them in books and crucibles, but + must seek them on the breathing stage of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Life goes before us, infinite in complication; attended by the most + various and surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the ear, + to the mind—the seat of wonder, to the touch—so thrillingly + delicate, and to the belly—so imperious when starved. It combines + and employs in its manifestation the method and material, not of one art + only, but of all the arts. Music is but an arbitrary trifling with a few + of life’s majestic chords; painting is but a shadow of its pageantry of + light and colour; literature does but drily indicate that wealth of + incident, of moral obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture and agony, + with which it teems. To ‘compete with life,’ whose sun we cannot look + upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay us—to compete with + the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the + bitterness of death and separation here is, indeed, a projected escalade + of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed + with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of + superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art + is true in this sense: none can ‘compete with life’: not even history, + built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of their + vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city or the + fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly commend the author’s + talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a last differentia, that + this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every case, purely agreeable; + that these phantom reproductions of experience, even at their most acute, + convey decided pleasure; while experience itself, in the cockpit of life, + can torture and slay. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Into how many houses would not the note of the monastery bell, dividing + the day into manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful + activity of body! We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a + dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish + manner. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But struggle as you please, a man has to work in this world. He must be an + honest man or a thief, Loudon. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Industry is, in itself and when properly chosen, delightful and profitable + to the worker; and when your toil has been a pleasure, you have not earned + money merely, but money, health, delight, and moral profit, all in one. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘The cost of a thing,’ says he, ‘is the amount OF WHAT I WILL CALL LIFE + which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long-run.’ + I have been accustomed to put it to myself, perhaps more clearly, that the + price we have to pay for money is paid in liberty. Between these two ways + of it, at least, the reader will probably not fail to find a third + definition of his own; and it follows, on one or other, that a man may pay + too dearly for his livelihood, by giving, in Thoreau’s terms, his whole + life for it, or, in mine, bartering for it the whole of his available + liberty, and becoming a slave till death. There are two questions to be + considered—the quality of what we buy, and the price we have to pay + for it. Do you want a thousand a year, a two thousand a year, or a ten + thousand a year livelihood? and can you afford the one you want? It is a + matter of taste; it is not in the least degree a question of duty, though + commonly supposed so. But there is no authority for that view anywhere. It + is nowhere in the Bible. It is true that we might do a vast amount of good + if we were wealthy, but it is also highly improbable; not many do; and the + art of growing rich is not only quite distinct from that of doing good, + but the practice of the one does not at all train a man for practising the + other. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We may escape uncongenial toil, only to devote ourselves to that which is + congenial. It is only to transact some higher business that even Apollo + dare play the truant from Admetus. We must all work for the sake of work; + we must all work, as Thoreau says again, in any ‘absorbing pursuit—it + does not much matter what, so it be honest’; but the most profitable work + is that which combines into one continued effort the largest proportion of + the powers and desires of a man’s nature; that into which he will plunge + with ardour, and from which he will desist with reluctance; in which he + will know the weariness of fatigue, but not that of satiety; and which + will be ever fresh, pleasing and stimulating to his taste. Such work holds + a man together, braced at all points; it does not suffer him to doze or + wander; it keeps him actively conscious of himself, yet raised among + superior interests; it gives him the profit of industry with the pleasures + of a pastime. This is what his art should be to the true artist, and that + to a degree unknown in other and less intimate pursuits. For other + professions stand apart from the human business of life; but an art has + the seat at the centre of the artist’s doings and sufferings, deals + directly with his experiences, teaches him the lessons of his own fortunes + and mishaps, and becomes a part of his biography. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Farewell fair day and fading light! + The clay-born here, with westward sight, + Marks the huge sun now downward soar. + Farewell. We twain shall meet no more. + + Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh + My late contemned occasion die. + I linger useless in my tent: + Farewell, fair day, so foully spent! + + Farewell, fair day. If any God + At all consider this poor clod, + He who the fair occasion sent + Prepared and placed the impediment. + + Let him diviner vengeance take— + Give me to sleep, give me to wake + Girded and shod, and bid me play + The hero in the coming day! +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be + sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. And it is not by any + means certain that a man’s business is the most important thing he has to + do. To an impartial estimate it will seem clear that many of the wisest, + most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are to be played upon the + Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous performers, and pass, among the + world at large, as phases of idleness. For in that Theatre, not only the + walking gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and diligent fiddlers in the + orchestra, but those who look on and clap their hands from the benches, do + really play a part and fulfil important offices towards the general + result. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The fact is, fame may be a forethought and an afterthought, but it is too + abstract an idea to move people greatly in moments of swift and momentous + decision. It is from something more immediate, some determination of blood + to the head, some trick of the fancy, that the breach is stormed or the + bold word spoken. I am sure a fellow shooting an ugly weir in a canoe has + exactly as much thought about fame as most commanders going into battle; + and yet the action, fall out how it will, is not one of those the muse + delights to celebrate. Indeed, it is difficult to see why the fellow does + a thing so nameless and yet so formidable to look at, unless on the theory + that he likes it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is but a lying cant that would represent the merchant and the banker as + people disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful when + absorbed in their transactions; for the man is more important than his + services. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was my custom, as the hours dragged on, to repeat the question, ‘When + will the carts come in?’ and repeat it again and again until at last those + sounds arose in the street that I have heard once more this morning. The + road before our house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. I know not, + and I never have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they + go. But I know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream + continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels, and the + same clink of horses’ feet. It was not for nothing that they made the + burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first + throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to + hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a + hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the + freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hear the carters + cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one + another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter comes + up to you through the darkness. There is now an end to mystery and fear. + Like the knocking at the door in MACBETH, or the cry of the watchman in + the TOUR DE NESLE, they show that the horrible caesura is over, and the + nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and the ordinary + life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the streets. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw; no more than bone and + parchment, curiously put together. Her eyes, with which she interrogated + mine, were vacant of sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether + you might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love; perhaps borne + children, suckled them, and given them pet names. But now that was all + gone by, and had left her neither happier nor wiser; and the best she + could do with her mornings was to come up here into the cold church and + juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not without a gulp that I escaped + into the streets and the keen morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it + she would be before night! and if she did not sleep, how then? It is + fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly to justify our lives + at the bar of threescore years and ten; fortunate that such a number are + knocked opportunely on the head in what they call the flower of their + years, and go away to suffer for their follies in private somewhere else. + Otherwise, between sick children and discontented old folk, we might be + put out of all conceit of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with his hat. ‘I am + afraid,’ said he, ‘that monsieur will think me altogether a beggar; but I + have another demand to make upon him.’ I began to hate him on the spot. + ‘We play again to-night,’ he went on. ‘Of course I shall refuse to accept + any more money from monsieur and his friends, who have been already so + liberal. But our programme of to-night is something truly creditable; and + I cling to the idea that monsieur will honour us with his presence. And + then, with a shrug and a smile: ‘Monsieur understands—the vanity of + an artist!’ Save the mark! The vanity of an artist! That is the kind of + thing that reconciles me to life: a ragged, tippling, incompetent old + rogue, with the manners of a gentleman and the vanity of an artist, to + keep up his self-respect! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Time went on, and the boy’s health still slowly declined. The Doctor + blamed the weather, which was cold and boisterous. He called in his + CONFRERE from Burron, took a fancy for him, magnified his capacity, and + was pretty soon under treatment himself—it scarcely appeared for + what complaint. He and Jean-Marie had each medicine to take at different + periods of the day. The Doctor used to lie in wait for the exact moment, + watch in hand. ‘There is nothing like regularity,’ he would say, fill out + the doses, and dilate on the virtues of the draught; and if the boy seemed + none the better, the Doctor was not at all the worse. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘I lead you,’ he would say, ‘by the green pastures. My system, my beliefs, + my medicines, are resumed in one phrase—to avoid excess. Blessed + nature, healthy, temperate nature, abhors and exterminates excess. Human + law in this matter imitates at a great distance her provisions; and we + must strive to supplement the efforts of the law. Yes, boy, we must be a + law to ourselves and for our neighbours—LEX ARMATA—armed, + emphatic, tyrannous law. If you see a crapulous human ruin snuffing, dash + from him his box! The judge, though in a way an admission of disease, is + less offensive to me than either the doctor or the priest. Above all, the + doctor—the doctor and the purulent trash and garbage of his + pharmacopoeia! Pure air—from the neighbourhood of a pinetum for the + sake of the turpentine—unadulterated wine, and the reflections of an + unsophisticated spirit in the presence of the works of nature—these, + my boy, are the best medical appliances and the best religious comforts. + Devote yourself to these. Hark! there are the bells of Bourron (the wind + is in the North, it will be fair). How clear and airy is the sound! The + nerves are harmonised and quieted; the mind attuned to silence; and + observe how easily and regularly beats the heart! Your unenlightened + doctor would see nothing in these sensations; and yet you yourself + perceive they are a part of health. Did you remember your cinchona this + morning? Good. Cinchona also is a work of nature; it is, after all, only + the bark of a tree which we might gather for, ourselves if we lived in the + locality.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The accepted novelist may take his novel up and put it down, spend days + upon it in vain, and write not any more than he makes haste to blot. Not + so the Beginner. Human nature has certain rights; instinct—the + instinct of self-preservation—forbids that any man (cheered and + supported by the consciousness of no previous victory) should endure the + miseries of unsuccessful literary toil beyond a period to be measured in + weeks. There must be something for hope to feed upon. The beginner must + have a slant of wind, a lucky vein must be running, he must be in one of + those hours when the words come and the phrases balance themselves—EVEN + TO BEGIN. And having begun, what a dread looking forward is that until the + book shall be accomplished! For so long a time the slant is to continue + unchanged, the vein to keep running, for so long a time you must keep at + command the same quality of style: for so long a time your puppets are to + be always vital, always consistent, always vigorous! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What is this fortunate circumstance, my friend? inquired Anastasie, not + heeding his protest, which was of daily recurrence. + </p> + <p> + ‘That we have no children, my beautiful,’ replied the Doctor. ‘I think of + it more and more as the years go on, and with more and more gratitude + towards the Power that dispenses such afflictions. Your health, my + darling, my studious quiet, our little kitchen delicacies, how they would + all have suffered, how they would all have been sacrificed! And for what? + Children are the last word of human imperfection. Health flees before + their face. They cry, my dear; they put vexatious questions; they demand + to be fed, to be washed, to be educated, to have their noses blowed; and + then, when the time comes, they break our hearts, as I break this piece of + sugar. A pair of professed egoists, like you and me, should avoid + offspring, like an infidelity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed!’ said she; and she laughed. ‘Now, that is like you—to take + credit for the thing you could not help.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound + for ever on man’s shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, + it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Forth from the casement, on the plain + Where honour has the world to gain, + Pour forth and bravely do your part, + O knights of the unshielded heart! + ‘Forth and for ever forward!—out + From prudent turret and redoubt, + And in the mellay charge amain, + To fall, but yet to rise again! + Captive? Ah, still, to honour bright, + A captive soldier of the right! + Or free and fighting, good with ill? + Unconquering but unconquered still! + + O to be up and doing, O + Unfearing and unshamed to go + In all the uproar and the press + About my human business! + My undissuaded heart I hear + Whisper courage in my ear. + With voiceless calls, the ancient earth + Summons me to a daily birth. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + Yet it is to this very responsibility that the rich are born. They can + shuffle off the duty on no other; they are their own paymasters on parole; + and must pay themselves fair wages and no more. For I suppose that in the + course of ages, and through reform and civil war and invasion, mankind was + pursuing some other and more general design than to set one or two + Englishmen of the nineteenth century beyond the reach of needs and duties. + Society was scarce put together, and defended with so much eloquence and + blood, for the convenience of two or three millionaires and a few hundred + other persons of wealth and position. It is plain that if mankind thus + acted and suffered during all these generations, they hoped some benefit, + some ease, some wellbeing, for themselves and their descendants; that if + they supported law and order, it was to secure fair-play for all; that if + they denied themselves in the present, they must have had some designs on + the future. Now a great hereditary fortune is a miracle of man’s wisdom + and mankind’s forbearance; it has not only been amassed and handed down, + it has been suffered to be amassed and handed down; and surely in such + consideration as this, its possessor should find only a new spur to + activity and honour, that with all this power of service he should not + prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure should return in + benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand + at his banker’s, or if all Yorkshire or all California were his to manage + or to sell, he would still be morally penniless, and have the world to + begin like Whittington, until he had found some way of serving mankind. + His wage is physically in his own hand; but, in honour, that wage must + still be earned. He is only steward on parole of what is called his + fortune. He must honourably perform his stewardship. He must estimate his + own services and allow himself a salary in proportion, for that will be + one among his functions. And while he will then be free to spend that + salary, great or little, on his own private pleasures, the rest of his + fortune he but holds and disposes under trust for mankind; it is not his, + because he has not earned it; it cannot be his, because his services have + already been paid; but year by year it is his to distribute, whether to + help individuals whose birthright and outfit has been swallowed up in his, + or to further public works and institutions. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Tis a fine thing to smart for one’s duty; even in the pangs of it there + is contentment. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a little poverty; + but such considerations should not move us in the choice of that which is + to be the business and justification of so great a portion of our lives + and like the missionary, the patriot, or the philosopher, we should all + choose that poor and brave career in which we can do the most and best for + mankind. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The salary in any business under heaven is not the only, nor indeed the + first, question. That you should continue to exist is a matter for your + own consideration; but that your business should be first honest, and + second useful, are points in which honour and morality are concerned. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is only one wish realisable on the earth; only one thing that can be + perfectly attained: Death. And from a variety of circumstances we have no + one to tell us whether it be worth attaining. + </p> + <p> + A strange picture we make on our way to our chimaeras, ceaselessly + marching, grudging ourselves the time for rest; indefatigable, adventurous + pioneers. It is true that we shall never reach the goal; it is even more + than probable that there is no such place; and if we lived for centuries + and were endowed with the powers of a god, we should find ourselves not + much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O + unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to + you,’ you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little + way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. + Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a + better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A man who must separate himself from his neighbours’ habits in order to be + happy, is in much the same case with one who requires to take opium for + the same purpose. What we want to see is one who can breast into the + world, do a man’s work, and still preserve his first and pure enjoyment of + existence. + </p> + <p> + There is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a + life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing + contact of the world. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or + perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Life as a matter of fact, partakes largely of the nature of tragedy. The + gospel according to Whitman, even if it be not so logical, has this + advantage over the gospel according to Pangloss, that it does not utterly + disregard the existence of temporal evil. Whitman accepts the fact of + disease and wretchedness like an honest man; and instead of trying to + qualify it in the interest of his optimism, sets himself to spur people up + to be helpful. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Indeed, I believe this is the lesson; if it is for fame that men do brave + actions, they are only silly fellows after all. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to + push forward pluckily and make a fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be + not led into temptation; but not lawful to skulk from those that come to + us. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little and to spend a little + less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to + renounce when that shall be necessary and not to be embittered, to keep a + few friends, but these without capitulation—above all, on the same + grim conditions, to keep friends with himself—here is a task for all + that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and under the + imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the erected, the + reasoner, the wise in his own eyes’—God forbid it should be man that + wearies in welldoing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the + language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation + groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: surely not + all in vain. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I find I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of + mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a + cathedral: a thing as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, + and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail. + The height of spires cannot be taken by trigonometry; they measure + absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring eye! And where we + have so many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other, and all + together into one, it seems as if proportion transcended itself and became + something different and more imposing. I could never fathom how a man + dares to lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is he to say + that will not be an anti-climax? For though I have heard a considerable + variety of sermons, I never yet heard one that was so expressive as a + cathedral. ‘Tis the best preacher itself, and preaches day and night; not + only telling you of man’s art and aspirations in the past, but convicting + your own soul of ardent sympathies; or rather, like all good preachers, it + sets you preaching to yourself—and every man is his own doctor of + divinity in the last resort. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As the business man comes to love the toil, which he only looked upon at + first as a ladder towards other desires and less unnatural gratifications, + so the dumb man has felt the charm of his trade and fallen captivated + before the eyes of sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice + is hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Horsel and her devotees, + who love her’ for her own sake. + </p> + <p> + Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory + in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between + them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive + apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the + pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or + but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he + conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; + Hyde had more than a son’s indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll was + to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged, and had of + late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde was to die to a thousand + interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and for ever, despised + and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still + another consideration in the scale; for while Jekyll would suffer + smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of + all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this + debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and + alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out + with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose + the better part, and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty + of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid + them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting + nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults that + made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of + men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and + compound man’s dual nature. In this case I was driven to reflect deeply + and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of + religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so + profound a double dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me + were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and + plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the + furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it + chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly + towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light + on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every + day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the + intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial + discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not + truly one, but truly two. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It may be argued again that dissatisfaction with our life’s endeavour + springs in some degree from dulness. We require higher tasks because we do + not recognise the height of those we have. Trying to be kind and honest + seems an affair too simple and too inconsequential for gentlemen of our + heroic mould; we had rather set ourselves something bold, arduous, and + conclusive; we had rather found a schism or suppress a heresy, cut off a + hand or mortify an appetite. But the task before us, which is to co-endure + with our existence, is rather one of microscopic fineness, and the heroism + required is that of patience. There is no cutting of the Gordian knots of + life; each must be smilingly unravelled. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting + shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, + it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand + pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel no joy + in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and ever new. To + become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, an antiquary, or an + artist, is to enlarge one’s possessions in the universe by an incalculably + higher degree, and by a far surer sort of property, than to purchase a + farm of many acres. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + He who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up riches + against the day of riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter poor into + his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of + money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and + briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of + Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and + satisfaction. ETRE ET PAS AVOIR—to be, not to possess—that is + the problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite + and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in + all honourable curiosities, to be rich in admiration and free from envy, + to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of + heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness—these + are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy, and without which money + can buy nothing. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be + found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Mr. Archer was telling me in some strange land they used to run races + each with a lighted candle, and the art was to keep the candle burning. + Well, now, I thought that was like life; a man’s good conscience is the + flame he gets to carry, and if he comes to the winning-post with that + still burning, why, take it how you will, the man is a hero—even if + he was low-born like you and me.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Hope, they say, deserts us at no period of our existence. From first to + last, and in the face of smarting disillusions, we continue to expect good + fortune, better health, and better conduct; and that so confidently, that + we judge it needless to deserve them. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Do I, indeed, lack courage?’ inquired Mr. Archer of himself. ‘Courage, + the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand? Courage, that a poor + private carrying a musket has to spare of; that does not fail a weasel or + a rat; that is a brutish faculty? I to fail there, I wonder? But what is + courage? The constancy to endure oneself or to see others suffer? The itch + of ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still and + patient? To inquire of the significance of words is to rob ourselves of + what we seem to know, and yet, of all things, certainly to stand still is + the least heroic.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the + only end of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But let the man learn to love a woman as far as he is capable of love; and + for this random affection of the body there is substituted a steady + determination, a consent of all his powers and faculties, which + supersedes, adopts, and commands the others. The desire survives, + strengthened, perhaps, but taught obedience, and changed in scope and + character. Life is no longer a tale of betrayals and regrets; for the man + now lives as a whole; his consciousness now moves on uninterrupted like a + river; through all the extremes and ups and downs of passion, he remains + approvingly conscious of himself. + </p> + <p> + Now to me, this seems a type of that righteousness which the soul demands. + It demands that we shall not live alternately with our opposing tendencies + in continual see-saw of passion and disgust, but seek some path on which + the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each other to a common + end. It demands that we shall not pursue broken ends, but great and + comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite, like notes in a + harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of peace and pleasure, that were + indeed a heaven upon earth. It does not demand, however, or, to speak in + measure, it does not demand of me, that I should starve my appetites for + no purpose under heaven but as a purpose in itself; or, if in a weak + despair, pluck out the eye that I have not learned to guide and enjoy with + wisdom. The soul demands unity of purpose, not the dismemberment of man; + it seeks to roll up all his strength and sweetness, all his passion and + wisdom, into one, and make of him a perfect man exulting in perfection. To + conclude ascetically is to give up, and not to solve, the problem. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly + closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above our + heads, on life’s raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. + A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in their + manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called a + good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle + class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age + and, add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded + more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the + march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they have + battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have held their + course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and harbour. It + may be we have been struck with one of fortune’s darts; we can scarce be + civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we were so much as + thought upon, the like calamity befel the old man or woman that now, with + pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, sitting composed in the + holy evening of man’s life, in the clear shining after rain. We grow + ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse, like villainous + roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under the heavens of + faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of contented elders, + look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before them ‘like a thing + reproved,’ not the flitting and ineffectual fear of death, but the + instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and revenges of life. + Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in the path; they + counsel a meticulous footing; but their serene, marred faces are more + eloquent and tell another story. ‘Where they have gone, we will go also, + not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, we also, God + helping us, will make a shift to bear. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of him, + unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of the majority of + his contemporaries, you must discredit in his eyes the authoritative voice + of his own soul. He may be a docile citizen; he will never be a man. It is + ours, on the other hand, to disregard this babble and chattering of other + men better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before us by what + light we have. They may be right; but so, before heaven, are we. They may + know; but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall. There + is such a thing as loyalty to a man’s own better self; and from those who + have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to others? The + most dull, the most imbecile, at a certain moment turn round, at a certain + point will hear no further argument, but stand unflinching by their own + dumb, irrational sense of right. It is not only by steel or fire, but + through contempt and blame, that the martyr fulfils the calling of his + dear soul. Be glad if you are not tried by such extremities. But although + all the world ranged themselves in one line to tell ‘This is wrong,’ be + you your own faithful vassal and the ambassador of God—throw down + the glove and answer, ‘This is right.’ Do you think you are only declaring + yourself? Perhaps in some dim way, like a child who delivers a message not + fully understood, you are opening wider the straits of prejudice and + preparing mankind for some truer and more spiritual grasp of truth; + perhaps, as you stand forth for your own judgment, you are covering a + thousand weak ones with your body; perhaps, by this declaration alone, you + have avoided the guilt of false witness against humanity and the little + ones unborn. It is good, I believe, to be respectable, but much nobler to + respect oneself and utter the voice of God. + </p> + <p> + I think it worth noting how this optimist was acquainted with pain. It + will seem strange only to the superficial. The disease of pessimism + springs never from real troubles, which it braces men to bear, which it + delights men to bear well. Nor does it readily spring at all, in minds + that have conceived of life as a field of ordered duties, not as a chase + in which to hunt for gratifications. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But the race of man, like that indomitable nature whence it sprang, has + medicating virtues of its own; the years and seasons bring various + harvests; the sun returns after the rain; and mankind outlives secular + animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions of a day. We judge + our ancestors from a more divine position; and the dust being a little + laid with several centuries, we can see both sides adorned with human + virtues and fighting with a show of right. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is a commonplace that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have + been tried. But it is not so common a reflection, and surely more + consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better + than we thought. I believe this is every one’s experience; but an + apprehension that they may belie themselves in the future prevents mankind + from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it + would have saved me much trouble, there had been some one to put me in a + good heart about life when I was younger; to tell sue how dangers are most + portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in a man’s spirit will not + suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the hour + of need. But we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in + literature; and not a man among us will go to the head of the march to + sound the heady drums. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept the conditions of + life with some heroic readiness. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; and at any rate judged + it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in the arrangement + of life. Life itself I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole + to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is nothing but tit for tat in this world, though sometimes it be a + little difficult to trace; for the scores are older than we ourselves, and + there has never yet been a settling day since things were. You get + entertainment pretty much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a + sort of odd wanderers, to be stared at and followed like a quack doctor or + a caravan, we had no want of amusement in return; but as soon as we sunk + into commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted. + And here is one reason of a dozen why the world is dull to dull persons. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + All literature, from Job and Omar Khayam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt + Whitman, is but an attempt to look upon the human state with such + largeness of view as shall enable us to rise from the consideration of + living to the Definition of Life. And our sages give us about the best + satisfaction in their power when they say that it is a vapour, or a show, + or made out of the same stuff with dreams. Philosophy, in its more rigid + sense, has been at the same work for ages; and after a myriad bald heads + have wagged over the problem, and piles of words have been heaped one upon + another into dry and cloudy volumes without end, philosophy has the honour + of laying before us, with modest pride, her contribution towards the + subject: that life is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine + result! A man may very well love beef, or hunting, or a woman; but surely, + surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sensation! He may be afraid of a + precipice, or a dentist, or a large enemy with a club, or even an + undertaker’s man; but not certainly of abstract death. We may trick with + the word life in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; we may + argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth, but one fact remains true + throughout—that we do not love life in the sense that we are greatly + preoccupied about its conservation; that we do not, properly speaking, + love life at all, but living. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead wall—a mere bag’s + end, as the French say—or whether we think of it as a vestibule or + gymnasium, where we wait our turn and prepare our faculties for some more + noble destiny; whether we thunder in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic + poetry-books, about its vanity and brevity; whether we look justly for + years of health and vigour, or are about to mount into a bath-chair, as a + step towards the hearse; in each and all of these views and situations + there is but one conclusion possible: that a man should stop his ears + against paralysing terror, and run the race that is set before him with a + single mind. + </p> + <p> + As courage and intelligence are the two qualities best worth a good man’s + cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognise our + precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all + abashed before the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not + looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over the + past, stamps the man who is well armoured for this world. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not over the virtues of a curate-and-tea-party novel that people are + abashed into high resolutions. It may be because their hearts are crass, + but to stir them properly they must have men entering into glory with + sonic pomp and circumstance. And that is why these stories of our + sea-captains, printed, so to speak, in capitals, and full of bracing moral + influence, are more valuable to England than any material benefit in all + the books of political economy between Westminster and Birmingham. + Greenville chewing wine-glasses at table makes no very pleasant figure, + any more than a thousand other artists when they are viewed in the body, + or met in private life; but his work of art, his finished tragedy, is an + elegant performance; and I contend it ought not only to enliven men of the + sword as they go into battle, but send back merchant-clerks with more + heart and spirit to their book-keeping by double entry. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most stolid. + ‘It may be contended, rather, that this (somewhat minor) bard in almost + every case survives, and is the spice of life to his possessor. Justice is + not done to the versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man’s + imagination. His life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there + will be some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which he dwells + delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will + have some kind of a bull’s-eye at his belt. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For, to repeat, the ground of a man’s joy is often hard to hit. It may + hinge at times upon a mere accessory, like the lantern; it may reside, + like Dancer’s in the mysterious inwards of psychology. It may consist with + perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase. It has so + little bond with externals (such as the observer scribbles in his + notebook) that it may even touch them not; and the man’s true life, for + which he consents to live, lie altogether in the field of fancy. The + clergyman in his spare hours may be winning battles, the farmer sailing + ships, the banker reaping triumph in the arts: all leading another life, + plying another trade from that they chose; like the poet’s house-builder, + who, after all, is cased in stone, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts, + Rebuilds it to his liking.’ +</pre> + <p> + In such a case the poetry runs underground. The observer (poor soul, with + his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court + deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but + he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed + through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were + that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some + glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And the true realism, always and + everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give + it voice beyond singing. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is the same that + formed us in frailty. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and + castles in the fire to turn into solid habitable mansions on a gravel + soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought + and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all + night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of + us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy + thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering + gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of + eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts—namely, + to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth + like frightened sheep. And now you are to ask yourself if, when all is + done, you would not have been better to sit by the fire at home, and be + happy thinking. To sit still and contemplate—to remember the faces + of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without + envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to + remain where and what you are—is not this to know both wisdom and + virtue, and to dwell with happiness? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Of those who fail, I do not speak—despair should be sacred; but to + those who even modestly succeed, the changes of their life bring interest: + a job found, a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of + pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is not from + these, but from the villa-dweller, that we hear complaints of the + unworthiness of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and misconduct man at + large presents: of organised injustice, cowardly violence and treacherous + crime; and of the damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too + darkly drawn. Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. + But where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable that + all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it both touching + and inspiriting, that in a field from which success is banished, our race + should not cease to labour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Poor soul, here for so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with + desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, + savagely descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives: + who should have blamed him had he been of a piece with his destiny and a + being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with + imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often + touchingly kind; sitting down amidst his momentary life, to debate of + right and wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up to do battle + for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with + cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing, with long-suffering + solicitude, his young. To touch the heart of his mystery, we find in him + one thought, strange to the point of lunacy: the thought of duty, the + thought of something owing to himself, to his neighbour, to his God: an + ideal of decency, to which he would rise if it were possible; a limit of + shame, below which, if it be possible, he will not stoop. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There are two just reasons for the choice any way of life: the first is + inbred taste in the chooser; the second some high utility in the industry + selected. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their + neighbours good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my + neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him + happy—if I may. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In his own life, then, a man is not to expect happiness, only to profit by + it gladly when it shall arise; he is on duty here; he knows not how or + why, and does not need to know; he knows not for what hire, and must not + ask. Somehow or other, though he does not know what goodness is, he must + try to be good; somehow or other, though he cannot tell what will do it, + he must try to give happiness to others. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Of this one thing I am sure: that every one thawed and became more + humanised and conversible as soon as these innocent people appeared upon + the scene. I would not readily trust the travelling merchant with any + extravagant sum of money, but I am sure his heart was in the right place. + </p> + <p> + In this mixed world, if you can find one or two sensible places in a man; + above all, if you should find a whole family living together on such + pleasant terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for + granted; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up your mind that + you can do perfectly well without the rest, and that ten thousand bad + traits cannot make a single good one any the less good. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + His was, indeed, a good influence in life while he was still among us; he + had a fresh laugh; it did you good to see him; and, however sad he may + have been at heart, he always bore a bold and cheerful countenance and + took fortune’s worst as it were the showers of spring. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of + mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must always + be two in a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there + is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among + generous people, received with confusion. + </p> + <p> + There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being + happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even + to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the + benefactor. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He + or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is + as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they + could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than + that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the Liveableness + of Life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Mme. Bazin came out after a while; she was tired with her day’s work, I + suppose; and she nestled up to her husband and laid her head upon his + breast. He had his arm about her and kept gently patting her on the + shoulder. I think Bazin was right, and he was really married. Of how few + people can the same be said! + </p> + <p> + Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. We were charged for + candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was + nothing in the bill for the husband’s pleasant talk; nor for the pretty + spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another item uncharged. + For these people’s, politeness really set us up again in our own esteem. + We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of insult was still hot in + our spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our position in the + world. + </p> + <p> + How little we pay our way in life! Although we have our purses continually + in our hand, the better part of service goes still unrewarded. But I like + to fancy that a grateful spirit gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the + Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they, also, were healed of some + slights by the thanks that I gave them in my manner? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + No art, it may be said, was ever perfect, and not many noble, that has not + been mirthfully conceived. And no man, it may be added, was ever anything + but a wet blanket and a cross to his companions who boasted not a copious + spirit of enjoyment. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is yet another class who do not depend on corporal advantages, but + support the winter in virtue of a brave and merry heart. One shivering + evening, cold enough for frost, but with too high a wind, and a little + past sundown, when the Lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles in + the growing dusk, a brace of barefooted lassies were seen coming eastward + in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much as nine, the other was + certainly not more than seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement + was so cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked foot on it + unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder + sang a tune to give them music. The person who saw this, and whose heart + was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of + use to him ever since, and which he now hands on, with his good wishes, to + the reader. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Happiness, at least, is not solitary; it joys to communicate; it loves + others, for it depends on them for its existence; it sanctions and + encourages to all delights that are not unkind in themselves; if it lived + to a thousand, it would not make excision of a single humorous passage; + and while the self-improver dwindles toward the prig, and, if he be not of + an excellent constitution, may even grow deformed into an Obermann, the + very name and appearance of a happy man breathe of good-nature, and help + the rest of us to live. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is never a thankful office to offer advice; and advice is the more + unpalatable, not only from the difficulty of the service recommended, but + often from its very obviousness. We are fired with anger against those who + make themselves the spokesmen of plain obligations; for they seem to + insult us as they advise. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are not all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us human + beings with feelings and tempers of our own. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Men, whether lay or clerical, suffer better the flame of the stake than a + daily inconvenience or a pointed sneer, and will not readily be martyred + without some external circumstance and a concourse looking on. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + An imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot + be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their + own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The ways of men seem always very trivial to us when we find ourselves + alone on a church top, with the blue sky and a few tall pinnacles, and see + far below us the steep roofs and foreshortened buttresses, and the silent + activity of the city streets. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if + not an antidote, at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the + blues, go nowhere else. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Honour can survive a wound; it can live and thrive without member. The man + rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the ruins of + the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do valiantly with his + dagger. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is easy to be virtuous when one’s own convenience is not affected; and + it is no shame to any man to follow the advice of an outsider who owns + that, while he sees which is the better part, he might not have the + courage to profit himself by this opinion. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal + fungus, it finds its expression in a paralysis of generous acts. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is a useful accomplishment to be able to say NO, but surely it is the + essence of amiability to prefer to say YES where it is possible. There is + something wanting in the man who does not hate himself whenever he is + constrained to say no. And there was a great deal wanting in this born + dissenter. He was almost shockingly devoid of weaknesses; he had not + enough of them to be truly polar with humanity; whether you call him + demi-god or demi-man, he was at least not altogether one of us, for he was + not touched with a feeling of our infirmities. The world’s heroes have + room for all positive qualities, even those which are disreputable, in the + capacious theatre of their dispositions. Such can live many lives; while a + Thoreau can live but one, and that only with perpetual foresight. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We can all be angry with our neighbour; what we want is to be shown, not + his defects, of which we are too conscious, but his merits, to which we + are too blind. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And methought that beauty and terror are only one, not two; + And the world has room for love, and death, and thunder, and dew; + And all the sinews of hell slumber in summer air; + And the face of God is a rock, but the face of the rock is fair. + Beneficent streams of tears flow at the finger of pain; + And out of the cloud that smites, beneficent rivers of rain. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘The longest and most abstruse flight of a philosopher becomes clear and + shallow, in the flash of a moment, when we suddenly perceive the aspect + and drift of his intention. The longest argument is but a finger pointed; + once we get our own finger rightly parallel, and we see what the man + meant, whether it be a new Star or an old street-lamp. And briefly, if a + saying is hard to understand, it is because we are thinking of something + else. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they + both get paid in the end, but the fools first. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Whether people’s gratitude for the good gifts that come to them be wisely + conceived or dutifully expressed is a secondary matter, after all, so long + as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man does not know + that he has received a good gift, or begins to imagine that he has got it + for himself. The self-made man is the funniest windbag after all! There is + a marked difference between decreeing light in chaos, and lighting the gas + in a metropolitan back parlour with a box of patent matches; and, do what + we will, there is always something made to our hand, if it were only our + fingers. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man, because he once paid + too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a deeper + source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did not want one. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no more nurses, + and that every mother will nurse her own offspring; for what can be more + hardening and demoralising than to call forth the tenderest feelings of a + woman’s heart and cherish them yourself as long as you need them, as long + as your children require a nurse to love them, and then to blight and + thwart and destroy them, whenever your own use for them is at an end. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We had needs invent heaven if it had not been revealed to us; there are + some things that fall so bitterly ill on this side time! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To write with authority about another man, we must have fellow-feeling and + some common ground of experience with our subject. We may praise or blame + according as we find him related to us by the best or worst in ourselves; + but it is only in virtue of some relationship that we can be his judges, + even to condemn. Feelings which we share and understand enter for us into + the tissue of the man’s character; those to which we are strangers in our + own experience we are inclined to regard as blots, exceptions, + inconsistencies, and excursions of the diabolic; we conceive them with + repugnance, explain them with difficulty, and raise our hands to heaven in + wonder when we find them in conjunction with talents that we respect or + virtues that we admire. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first who fairly pointed out + the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life—who + seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic + appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, like + the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight of name + into the abysses of social failure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It would be well if nations and races could communicate their qualities; + but in practice when they look upon each other, they have an eye to + nothing but defects. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Many a man’s destiny has been settled by nothing apparently more grave + than a pretty face on the opposite side of the street and a couple of bad + companions round the corner. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So kindly is the world arranged, such great profit may arise from a small + degree of human reliance on oneself, and such, in particular, is the happy + star of this trade of writing, that it should combine pleasure and profit + to both parties, and be at once agreeable, like fiddling, and useful, like + good preaching. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveilles, and such like, make a + fine, romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles, and drums, and fifes + are of themselves most excellent things in nature, and when they carry the + mind to marching armies and the picturesque vicissitudes of war they stir + up something proud in the heart. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and + dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of their + pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marking’ overtakes them; + they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the chime of + fair words or the march of the stately period. NON RAGIONIAM of these. But + to all the step is dangerous; it involves coming of age; it is even a kind + of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice of others; they + chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune + the books of childhood. In the future we are to approach the silent, + inexpressive type alone, like pioneers; and the choice of what we are to + read is in our own hands thenceforward. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It remains to be seen whether you can prove yourselves as generous as you + have been wise and patient. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘If folk dinna ken what ye’re doing, Davie, they’re terrible taken up with + it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what I do + for pease porridge.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our + own composure might seem little less surprising. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For charity begins blindfold; and only through a series of + misapprehensions rises at length into a settled principle of love and + patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country are much more + charitably disposed than their superiors in wealth. And I fancy it must + arise a great deal from the comparative indistinction of the easy and the + not so easy in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter himself + off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he treats himself to a + luxury, he must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. And what should + more directly lead to charitable thoughts? Thus the poor man, camping out + in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouthful he puts in his + belly has been wrenched out of the fingers of the hungry. + </p> + <p> + But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, the + fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and sublunary matters + are thenceforward hidden from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly + bodies, all in admirable order, and positively as good as new. He finds + himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the attentions of + Providence, and compares himself involuntarily with the lilies and the + skylarks. He does not precisely sing, of course; but then he looks so + unassuming in his open laudau! If all the world dined at one table, this + philosophy would meet with some rude knocks. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Forgive me, if I seem to teach, who am as ignorant as the trees of the + mountain; but those who learn much do but skim the face of knowledge; they + seize the laws, they conceive the dignity of the design—the horror + of the living fact fades from the memory. It is we who sit at home with + evil who remember, I think, and are warned and pity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Look back now, for a moment, on your own brief experience of life; and + although you lived it feelingly in your own person, and had every step of + conduct burned in by pains and joys upon your memory, tell me what + definite lesson does experience hand on from youth to manhood, or from + both to age? The settled tenor which first strikes the eye is but the + shadow of a delusion. This is gone; that never truly was; and you yourself + are altered beyond recognition. Times and men and circumstances change + about your changing character, with a speed of which no earthly hurricane + affords an image. What was the best yesterday, is it still the best in + this changed theatre of a to-morrow? Will your own Past truly guide you in + your own violent and unexpected Future? And if this be questionable, with + what humble, with what hopeless eyes, should we not watch other men + driving beside us on their unknown careers, seeing with unlike eyes, + impelled by different gales, doing and suffering in another sphere of + things? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. + Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and + profoundly than he speaks; and the best teachers can impart only broken + images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to + another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, + is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer + to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead + language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Culture is not measured by the greatness of the field which is covered by + our knowledge, but by the nicety with which we can perceive relations in + that field, whether great or small. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are accustomed nowadays to a great deal of puling over the + circumstances in which we are placed. The great refinement of many + poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jostling + and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable + length. The bold and awful poetry of Job’s complaint produces too many + flimsy imitators; for there is always something consolatory in grandeur, + but the symphony transposed for the piano becomes hysterically sad. This + literature of woe, as Whitman calls it, this MALADIE DE RENE, as we like + to call it in Europe, is in many ways a most humiliating and sickly + phenomenon. Young gentlemen with three or four hundred a year of private + means look down from a pinnacle of doleful experience on all the grown and + hearty men who have dared to say a good word for life since the beginning + of the world. There is no prophet but the melancholy Jacques, and the blue + devils dance on all our literary wires. + </p> + <p> + It would be a poor service to spread culture, if this be its result, among + the comparatively innocent and cheerful ranks of men. When our little + poets have to be sent to look at the ploughman and learn wisdom, we must + be careful how we tamper with our ploughmen. Where a man in not the best + of circumstances preserves composure of mind, and relishes ale and + tobacco, and his wife and children, in the intervals of dull and + unremunerative labour; where a man in this predicament can afford a lesson + by the way to what are called his intellectual superiors, there is plainly + something to be lost, as well as something to be gained, by teaching him + to think differently. It is better to leave him as he is than to teach him + whining. It is better that he should go without the cheerful lights of + culture, if cheerless doubt and paralysing sentimentalism are to be the + consequence. Let us, by all means, fight against that hide-bound stolidity + of sensation and sluggishness of mind which blurs and decolorises for poor + natures the wonderful pageant of consciousness; let us teach people, as + much as we can, to enjoy, and they will learn for themselves to + sympathise; but let us see to it, above all, that we give these lessons in + a brave, vivacious note, and build the man up in courage while we demolish + its substitute, indifference. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + All opinions, properly so called, are stages on the road to truth. It does + not follow that a man will travel any further; but if he has really + considered the world and drawn a conclusion, he has travelled so far. This + does not apply to formulae got by rote, which are stages on the road to + nowhere but second childhood and the grave. To have a catchword in your + mouth is not the same thing as to hold an opinion; still less is it the + same thing as to have made one for yourself. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal idle in + youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may escape from school + honours with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear for their + medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, and begin + the world bankrupt. And the same holds true during all the time a lad is + educating himself, or suffering others to educate him.... Books are good + enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for + life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, peering into a + mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle and glamour of reality. + And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have + little time for thought. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is supposed that all knowledge is at the bottom of a well, or the far + end of a telescope. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, looking + out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all + the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of + heroic vigils. There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be + found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all + round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the + warm and palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their memory + with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget before the week + is out, your truant may learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, + or to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who + have ‘plied their book diligently,’ and know all about some one branch or + another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and + owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the + better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune who remain + underbred and pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes the + idler, who began life along with them—by your leave, a different + picture. He has had time to take care of his health and his spirits; he + has been a great deal in the open air, which is the most salutary of all + things for both body and mind; and if he has never read the great Book in + very recondite places, he has dipped into it and skimmed it over to + excellent purpose. Might not the student afford some Hebrew roots, and the + business man some of his half-crowns, for a share of the idler’s knowledge + of life at large, and Art of Living? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Nay, and the idler has another and more important quality than these. I + mean his wisdom. He who has much looked on at the childish satisfaction of + other people in their hobbies, will regard his own with only a very + ironical indulgence. He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will + have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people and opinions. If + he finds no out-of-the-way truths, he will identify himself with no very + burning falsehood. His way takes him along a by-road, not much frequented, + but very even and pleasant, which is called Commonplace Lane, and leads to + the Belvedere of Commonsense. Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no + very noble prospect; and while others behold the East and West, the Devil + and the sunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort of morning hour + upon all sublunary things, with an army of shadows running speedily and in + many different directions into the great daylight of Eternity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I begin to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the + bottom—were it only literature. And yet, sir, the man of the world + is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an extraordinary mass + and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at home; he has seen life in + all its phases; and it is impossible but that this great habit of + existence should bear fruit. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I am sorry indeed that I have no Greek, but I should be sorrier still if I + were dead; nor do I know the name of that branch of knowledge which is + worth acquiring at the price of a brain fever. There are many sordid + tragedies in the life of the student, above all if he be poor, or drunken, + or both; but nothing more moves a wise man s pity than the case of the lad + who is in too much hurry to be learned. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘My friend,’ said I, ‘it is not easy to say who know the Lord; and it is + none of our business. Protestants and Catholics, and even those who + worship stones, may know Him and be known by Him; for He has made all.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Cheylard scrapes together halfpence or the darkened souls in Edinburgh; + while Balquhidder and Dunrossness bemoans the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to + the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each other with + evangelists, like schoolboys bickering in the snow. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For courage respects courage; but where a faith has been trodden out, we + may look for a mean and narrow population. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Its not only a great flight of confidence for a man to change his creed + and go out of his family for heaven’s sake; but the odds are—nay, + and the hope is—that, with all this great transition in the eyes of + man, he has not changed himself a hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour + to those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues something + narrow, whether of strength or weakness, whether of the prophet or the + fool, in those who can take a sufficient interest in such infinitesimal + and human operations, or who can quit a friendship for a doubtful + operation of the mind. And I think I should not leave my old creed for + another, changing only words for words; but by some brave reading, embrace + it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of + other communions. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and pistol-butts of a + regiment of horse, that can change one tittle of a ploughman’s thoughts. + Outdoor rustic people have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy + plants, and thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who has grown a long + while in the sweat of laborious noons, and under the stars at night, a + frequenter of hills and forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the + end, a sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and amicable + relations towards his God. Like my mountain Plymouth Brother, he knows the + Lord. His religion does not repose upon a choice of logic; it is the + poetry of the man’s existence, the philosophy of the history of his life. + God, like a great power, like a great shining sun, has appeared to this + simple fellow in the course of years, and become the ground and essence of + his least reflections; and you may change creeds and dogmas by authority, + or proclaim, a new religion with the sound of trumpets, if you will; but + here is a man who has his own thoughts, and will stubbornly adhere to them + in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, + in the same indefeasible sense that a man is not a woman, or a woman is + not a man. For he could not vary from his faith, unless he could eradicate + all memory of the past, and, in a strict and not conventional meaning, + change his mind. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + For still the Lord is Lord of might; + In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight; + The plough, the spear, the laden barks, + The field, the founded city, marks; + He marks the smiler of the streets, + The singer upon garden seats; + He sees the climber in the rocks: + To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. + For those he loves that underprop + With daily virtues Heaven’s top, + And bear the falling sky with ease, + Unfrowning caryatides. + Those he approves that ply the trade, + That rock the child, that wed the maid, + That with weak virtues, weaker hands, + Sow gladness on the peopled lands, + And still with laughter, song and shout, + Spin the great wheel of earth about. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + The shadow of a great oak lies abroad upon the ground at noon, perfect, + clear, and stable like the earth. But let a man set himself to mark out + the boundary with cords and pegs, and were he never so nimble and never so + exact, what with the multiplicity of the leaves and the progression of the + shadow as it flees before the travelling sun, long ere he has made the + circuit the whole figure will have changed. Life may be compared, not to a + single tree, but to a great and complicated forest; circumstance is more + swiftly changing than a shadow, language much more inexact than the tools + of a surveyor; from day to day the trees fall and are renewed; the very + essences are fleeting as we look; and the whole world of leaves is + swinging tempest-tossed among the winds of time. Look now for your + shadows. O man of formulae, is this a place for you? Have you fitted the + spirit to a single case? Alas, in the cycle of the ages when shall such + another be proposed for the judgment of man? Now when the sun shines and + the winds blow, the wood is filled with an innumerable multitude of + shadows, tumultuously tossed and changing; and at every gust the whole + carpet leaps and becomes new. Can you or your heart say more? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Indeed, I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and + especially in these high matters, where we have all a sufficient assurance + that, whoever may be in the wrong, we ourselves are not completely + right.... I know right well that we are all embarked upon a troublesome + world, the children of one Father, striving in many essential points to do + and to become the same. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The word ‘facts’ is, in some ways, crucial. I have spoken with Jesuits and + Plymouth Brethren, mathematicians and poets, dogmatic republicans and dear + old gentlemen in bird’s-eye neckcloths; and each understood the word + ‘facts’ in an occult sense of his own. Try as I might, I could get no + nearer the principle of their division. What was essential to them, seemed + to me trivial or untrue. We could come to no compromise as to what was, or + what was not, important in the life of man. Turn as we pleased, we all + stood back to back in a big ring, and saw another quarter of the heavens, + with different mountain-tops along the sky-line and different + constellations overhead. We had each of us some whimsy in the brain, which + we believed more than anything else, and which discoloured all experience + to its own shade. How would you have people agree, when one is deaf and + the other blind? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The average man lives, and must live, so wholly in convention, that + gunpowder charges of the truth are more apt to discompose than to + invigorate his creed. Either he cries out upon blasphemy and indecency, + and crouches the closer round that little idol of part-truth and + part-conveniences which is the contemporary deity, or he is convinced by + what is new, forgets what is old, and becomes truly blasphemous and + indecent himself. New truth is only wanted to expand, not to destroy, our + civil and often elegant conventions. He who cannot judge had better stick + to fiction and the daily papers. There he will get little harm, and, in + the first at least, some good. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten commandments; and the + bones and the revolutions of the Kosmos in whose joints we are but moss + and fungus, more ancient still. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we look abroad, even + on the face of our small earth, and find them change with every climate, + and no country where some action is not honoured for a virtue and none + where it is not branded for a vice; and we look into our experience, and + find no vital congruity in the wisest rules, but at the best a municipal + fitness. It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask + too much. Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, + till they are all emasculate and sentimentalised, and only please and + weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can + read a bracing gospel. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the + perfect duties.... If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are + wrong. I do not say ‘give them up,’ for they may be all you have; but + conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and + simpler people. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is no quite good book without a good morality; but the world is + wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who have dipped into Sir + Richard Burton’s Thousand and One Nights, one shall have been offended by + the animal details; another to whom these were harmless, perhaps even + pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by the rascality and + cruelty of all the characters. Of two readers, again, one shall have been + pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by that of the VICOMTE + DE BRAGELONNE. And the point is that neither need be wrong. We shall + always shock each other both in life and art; we cannot get the sun into + our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there be such a thing) into our + books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer some hint of the great light + that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in the other, there shine, even + upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For to do anything because others do it, and not because the thing is + good, or kind, or honest in its own right, is to resign all moral control + and captaincy upon yourself, and go post-haste to the devil with the + greater number. The respectable are not led so much by any desire of + applause as by a positive need for countenance. The weaker and the tamer + the man, the more will he require this support; and any positive quality + relieves him, by just so much, of this dependence. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Happiness and goodness, according to canting moralists, stand in the + relation of effect and cause. There was never anything less proved or less + probable: our happiness is never in our own hands; we inherit our + constitutions; we stand buffet among friends and enemies; we may be so + built as to feel a sneer or an aspersion with unusual keenness, and so + circumstanced as to be unusually exposed to them; we may have nerves very + sensitive to pain, and be afflicted with a disease more painful. Virtue + will not help us, and it is not meant to help us. It is not even its own + reward, except for the self-centred and—I had almost said—the + unamiable. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Noble disappointment, noble self-denial, are not to be admired, not even + to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one thing to enter the + kingdom of heaven maim; another to maim yourself and stay without. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the + imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret + element of gusto. If a thing is wrong for us, we should not dwell upon the + thought of it; or we shall soon dwell upon it with inverted pleasure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is a certain class, professors of that low morality so greatly more + distressing than the better sort of vice, to whom you must never represent + an act that was virtuous in itself, as attended by any other consequences + than a large family and fortune. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + All have some fault. The fault of each grinds down the hearts of those + about him, and—let us not blink the truth—hurries both him and + them into the grave. And when we find a man persevering indeed, in his + fault, as all of us do, and openly overtaken, as not all of us are, by its + consequences, to gloss the matte over, with too polite biographers, is to + do the work of the wrecker disfiguring beacons on a perilous seaboard; but + to call him bad, with a self-righteous chuckle, is to be talking in one’s + sleep with Heedless and Too-bold in the arbour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works + of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must + afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach a lesson, which he + must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the + lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to + the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as + we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that + monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To be + so, they must be reasonably true to the human comedy; and any work that is + so serves the turn of instruction. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures + next, if not superior, to virtue. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The soul asks honour and not fame; to be upright, not to be successful; to + be good, not prosperous; to be essentially, not outwardly, respectable. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Practice is a more intricate and desperate business than the toughest + theorising; life is an affair of cavalry, where rapid judgment and prompt + action are alone possible and right. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Each man should learn what is within him, that he may strive to mend; he + must be taught what is without him, that he may be kind to others. It can + never be wrong to tell him the truth; for, in his disputable state, + weaving as he goes his theory of life, steering himself, cheering or + reproving others, all facts are of the first importance to his conduct; + and even if a fact shall discourage or corrupt him, it is still best that + he should know it; for it is in this world as it is, and not in a world + made easy by educational suppression, that he must win his way to shame or + glory. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may be refused, + but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious + visitation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + EVENSONG + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The embers of the day are red + Beyond the murky hill. + The kitchen smokes: the bed + In the darkling house is spread: + The great sky darkens overhead, + And the great woods are shrill. + So far have I been led, + Lord, by Thy will: + So far I have followed, Lord, and wondered still. + + The breeze from the enbalmed land + Blows sudden toward the shore, + And claps my cottage door. + I hear the signal, Lord—I understand. + The night at Thy command + Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not at all a strong thing to put one’s reliance upon logic; and our + own logic particularly, for it is generally wrong. We never know where we + are to end if once we begin following words or doctors. There is an + upright stock in a man’s own heart that is trustier than any syllogism; + and the eyes, and the sympathies, and appetites know a thing or two that + have never yet been stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as + blackberries; and, like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. + Doctrines do not stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in so + far as they are cleverly put. An able controversialist no more than an + able general demonstrates the justice of his cause. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To any man there may come at times a consciousness that there blows, + through all the articulations of his body, the wind of a spirit not wholly + his; that his mind rebels; that another girds him and carries him whither + he would not. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The child, the seed, the grain of corn, + The acorn on the hill, + Each for some separate end is born + In season fit, and still + Each must in strength arise to work the almighty will. + + So from the hearth the children flee, + By that almighty hand + Austerely led; so one by sea + Goes forth, and one by land; + Nor aught of all man’s sons escapes from that command. + + So from the sally each obeys + The unseen almighty nod; + So till the ending all their ways + Blindfolded loth have trod: + Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + A few restrictions, indeed, remain to influence the followers of + individual branches of study. The DIVINITY, for example, must be an avowed + believer; and as this, in the present day, is unhappily considered by many + as a confession of weakness, he is fain to choose one of two ways of + gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of + metaphysics; for it is even a credit to believe in God on the evidence of + some crack-jaw philosopher, although it is a decided slur to believe in + Him on His own authority. Others again (and this we think the worst + method), finding German grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own + little heresy as a proof of independence; and deny one of the cardinal + doctrines that they may hold the others without being laughed at. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In particular, I heard of clergymen who were employing their time in + explaining to a delighted audience the physics of the Second Coming. It is + not very likely any of us will be asked to help. If we were, it is likely + we should receive instructions for the occasion, and that on more reliable + authority. And so I can only figure to myself a congregation truly curious + in such flights of theological fancy, as one of veteran and accomplished + saints, who have fought the good fight to an end and outlived all worldly + passion, and are to be regarded rather as a part of the Church Triumphant + than the poor, imperfect company on earth. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. It is the common and + the god-like law of life. The browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy + coats of field and forest, the squirrel in the oak, the thousand-footed + creeper in the dust, as they share with us the gift of life, share with us + the love of an ideal; strive like us—like us are tempted to grow + weary of the struggle—to do well; like us receive at times unmerited + refreshment, visitings of support, returns of courage; and are condemned + like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the + will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some + sugar with the drug? Do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at + the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and + the prosperity of such as in our blindness we call wicked? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as our prophet, + and to think of different things in the same order. To be of the same mind + with another is to see all things in the same perspective; it is not to + agree in a few indifferent matters near at hand and not much debated; it + is to follow him in his farthest flights, to see the force of his + hyperboles, to stand so exactly in the centre of his vision that whatever + he may express, your eyes will light at once on the original, that + whatever he may see to declare, your mind will at once accept.... + </p> + <p> + Now, every now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christ finds a + word that transcends all commonplace morality; every now and then He quits + the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed, and throws out a pregnant and + magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only by some bold poetry of thought that + men can be strung up above the level of everyday conceptions to take a + broader look upon experience or accept some higher principle of conduct. + To a man who is of the same mind that was in Christ, who stand at some + centre not too far from His, and looks at the world and conduct from some + not dissimilar or, at least, not opposing attitude—or, shortly, to a + man who is of Christ’s philosophy—every such saying should come home + with a thrill of joy and corroboration; he should feel each one below his + feet as another sure foundation in the flux of time and chance; each + should be another proof that in the torrent of the years and generations, + where doctrines and great armaments and empires are swept away and + swallowed, he stands immovable, holding by the eternal stars. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Those who play by rule will never be more than tolerable players; and you + and I would like to play our game in life to the noblest and the most + divine advantage....For no definite precept can be more than an + illustration, though its truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was + announced from heaven by the voice of God. And life is so intricate and + changing, that perhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in the ages, + shall we find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it can + apply.... + </p> + <p> + It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed + design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious + education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp + ferule of calamity under which we are all God’s scholars till we die. If, + as teachers, we are to say anything to the purpose, we must say what will + remind the pupil of his soul; we must speak that soul’s dialect; we must + talk of life and conduct as his soul would have him think of them. If, + from some conformity between us and the pupil, or perhaps among all men, + we do in truth speak in such a dialect and express such views, beyond + question we shall touch in him a spring; beyond question he will recognise + the dialect as one that he himself has spoken in his better hours; beyond + question he will cry, ‘I had forgotten, but now I remember; I too have + eyes, and I had forgot to use them! I too have a soul of my own, + arrogantly upright, and to that I will listen and conform.’ In short, say + to him anything that he has once thought, or been upon the point of + thinking, or show him any view of life that he has once clearly seen, or + been on the point of clearly seeing; and you have done your part and may + leave him to complete the education for himself. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + God, if there be any God, speaks daily in a new language, by the tongues + of men; the thoughts and habits of each fresh generation and each + new-coined spirit throw another light upon the universe, and contain + another commentary on the printed Bibles; every scruple, every true dissent, + every glimpse of something new, is a letter of God’s alphabet; and though + there is a grave responsibility for all who speak, is there none for those + who unrighteously keep silent and conform? Is not that also to conceal and + cloak God’s counsel? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Mankind is not only the whole in general, but every one in particular. + Every man or woman is one of mankind’s dear possessions; to his or her + just brain, and kind heart, and active hands, mankind intrusts some of its + hopes for the future; he or she is a possible wellspring of good acts and + source of blessings to the race. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Morals are a personal affair; in the war of righteousness every man fights + for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake + my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, + and my decisions absolute for the time and case. The moralist is not a + judge of appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal. He has to show + not the law, but that the law applies. Can he convince me? then he gains + the cause. And thus you find Christ giving various counsels to varying + people, and often jealously careful to avoid definite precept. Is He + asked, for example, to divide a heritage? He refuses; and the best advice + that He will offer is but a paraphrase of the tenth commandment which + figures so strangely among the rest. Take heed, and beware of + covetousness. If you complain that this is vague, I have failed to carry + you along with me in my argument. For no definite precept can be more than + an illustration, though its truth were resplendent like the sun, and it + was announced from heaven by the voice of God. And life is so intricate + and changing, that perhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in the + ages, shall we find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it + can apply. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But if it is righteousness thus to fuse together our divisive impulses and + march with one mind through life, there is plainly one thing more + unrighteous than all others, and one declension which is irretrievable and + draws on the rest. And this is to lose consciousness of oneself. In the + best of times, it is but by flashes, when our whole nature is clear, + strong, and conscious, and events conspire to leave us free, that we enjoy + communion with our soul. At the worst we are so fallen and passive that we + may say shortly we have none. An arctic torpor seizes upon men. Although + built of nerves, and set adrift in a stimulating world, they develop a + tendency to go bodily to sleep; consciousness becomes engrossed among the + reflex and mechanical parts of life; and soon loses both the will and + power to look higher considerations in the face. This is ruin; this is the + last failure in life; this is temporal damnation, damnation on the spot + and without the form of judgment: ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain + the whole world and LOSE HIMSELF?’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but a transcendental way of + serving for reward; and what we take to be contempt of self is only greed + of hire. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are are all such as He was—the inheritors of sin; we must all + bear and expiate a past which was not ours; there is in all of us—ay, + even in me—a sparkle of the divine. Like Him, we must endure for a + little while, until morning returns, bringing peace. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A human truth, which is always very much a lie, hides as much of life as + it displays. It is men who hold another truth, or, as it seems to us, + perhaps, a dangerous lie, who can extend our restricted field of + knowledge, and rouse our drowsy consciences. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to refrain from open + lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood and yet not tell the truth. It is + not enough to answer formal questions. To reach the truth by yea and nay + communications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration, such as + is often found in mutual love. YEA and NAY mean nothing; the meaning must + have been related in the question. Many Words are often necessary to + convey a very simple statement; for in this sort of exercise we never hit + the gold; the most that we can hope is by many arrows, more or less far + off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what + target we are aiming, and after an hour’s talk, back and forward, to + convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The cruellist lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room + for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet come out of that room a + disloyal friend or a vile calumniator. And how many loves have perished + because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which + withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical + point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue? And, + again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a truth conveyed through a lie. + Truth to facts is not always truth to sentiment; and part of the truth, as + often happens in answer to a question, may be the foulest calumny. A fact + may be an exception; but the feeling is the law, and it is that which you + must neither garble nor belie. The whole tenor of a conversation is a part + of the meaning of each separate statement; the beginning and the end + define and travesty the intermediate conversation. You never speak to God; + you address a fellow-man, full of his own tempers: and to tell truth, + rightly understood, is not to state the true facts, but to convey a true + impression; truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true veracity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + He talked for the pleasure of airing himself. He was essentially glib, as + becomes the young advocate, and essentially careless of the truth, which + is the mark of the young ass; and so he talked at random. There was no + particular bias, but that one which is indigenous and universal, to + flatter himself, and to please and interest the present friend. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + How wholly we all lie at the mercy of a single prater, not needfully with + any malign purpose! And if a man but talk of himself in the right spirit, + refers to his virtuous actions by the way, and never applies to them the + name of virtues, how easily his evidence is accepted in the court of + public opinion! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In one word, it must always be foul to tell what is false; and it can + never be safe to suppress what is true. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by + private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the exercise, + and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on any + subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, + however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, + conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an + exploration. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, + rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, + anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the + whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in + hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental + elevation and abasement—these are the material with which talk is + fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is + proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should + proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should keep + close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of men, + at the level where history, fiction, and experience intersect and + illuminate each other. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, + ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an illustration, + pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of time among our + intimates, but bear our part in that great international congress, always + sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public errors first + corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by day, a little + nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament but it has been + long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no book is written + that has not been largely composed by their assistance. Literature in many + of its branches is no other than the shadow of good talk; but the + imitation falls far short of the original in life, freedom, and effect. + There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing experience + and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, continually ‘in + further search and progress’; while written words remain fixed, become + idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of + obvious error in the amber of the truth. Last and chief, while literature, + gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the life of + man, talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a spade. Talk has none of + the freezing immunities of the pulpit. It cannot, even if it would, become + merely aesthetic or merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, + the solemn humbug is dissolved in laughter, and speech runs forth out of + the contemporary groove into the open fields of nature, cheery and + cheering, like schoolboys out of school. And it is in talk alone that we + can learn our period and ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is + to speak; that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the + harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of + pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our + education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any + age and in almost any state of health. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And it happens that literature is, in some ways, but an indifferent means + to such an end. Language is but a poor bull’s-eye lantern wherewith to + show off the vast cathedral of the world; and yet a particular thing once + said in words is so definite and memorable, that it makes us forget the + absence of the many which remain unexpressed; like a bright window in a + distant view, which dazzles and confuses our sight of its surroundings. + There are not words enough in all Shakespeare to express the merest + fraction of a man’s experience in an hour. The speed of the eyesight and + the hearing, and the continual industry of the mind, produce; in ten + minutes, what it would require a laborious volume to shadow forth by + comparisons and roundabout approaches. If verbal logic were sufficient, + life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid. But, as a matter of + fact, we make a travesty of the simplest process of thought when we put it + into words; for the words are all coloured and forsworn, apply + inaccurately, and bring with them, from former uses, ideas of praise and + blame that have nothing to do with the question in hand. So we must always + see to it nearly, that we judge by the realities of life and not by the + partial terms that represent them in man’s speech; and at times of choice, + we must leave words upon one side, and act upon those brute convictions, + unexpressed and perhaps inexpressible, which cannot be flourished in an + argument, but which are truly the sum and fruit of our experience. Words + are for communication, not for judgment. This is what every thoughtful man + knows for himself, for only fools and silly schoolmasters push definitions + over far into the domain of conduct; and the majority of women, not + learned in these scholastic refinements, live all-of-a-piece and + unconsciously, as a tree grows, without caring to put a name upon their + acts or motives. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have + transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man + were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But + when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour + at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare + place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as + if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and ready, with a + shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of the discipline. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of the game + each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is from that reason that + we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly + eloquent, and that we swell in each other’s eyes to such a vast + proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of + their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret pretensions, + and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, + that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for + themselves with words and for a while inhabit a palace of delights, temple + at once and theatre, where they fill the round of the world’s dignities, + and feast with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, + each goes his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still + trailing clouds of glory; each declines from the height of his ideal + orgie, not in a moment, but by slow declension. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + No man was ever so poor that he could express all he has in him by words, + looks, or actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable, for it + is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by no process + of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keeps varying from + hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events and + circumstances. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Overmastering pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life—alas! + pain has its own way with all of us; it breaks in, a rude visitant, upon + the fairy garden where the child wanders in a dream, no less surely than + it rules upon the field of battle, or sends the immortal war-god + whimpering to his father; and innocence, no more than philosophy, can + protect us from this sting. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Where did you hear that it was easy to be honest? Do you find that in your + Bible? Easy? It is easy to be an ass and follow the multitude like a + blind, besotted bull in a stampede; and that, I am well aware, is what you + and Mrs. Grundy mean by being honest. But it will not bear the stress of + time nor the scrutiny of conscience. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Though I have all my life been eager for legitimate distinction, I can lay + my hand upon my heart, at the end of my career, and declare there is not + one—no, nor yet life itself—which is worth acquiring or + preserving at the slightest cost of dignity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For surely, at this time of the day in the nineteenth century, there is + nothing that an honest man should fear more timorously than getting and + spending more than he deserves. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It remains to be seen, by each man who would live a true life to himself + and not a merely specious life to society, how many luxuries he truly + wants and to how many he merely submits as to a social propriety; and all + these last he will immediately forswear. Let him do this, and he will be + surprised to find how little money it requires to keep him in complete + contentment and activity of mind and senses. Life at any level among the + easy classes is conceived upon a principle of rivalry, where each man and + each household must ape the tastes and emulate the display of others. One + is delicate in eating, another in wine, a third in furniture or works of + art or dress; and I, who care nothing for any of these refinements, who am + perhaps a plain athletic creature and love exercise, beef, beer, + flannel-shirts, and a camp bed, am yet called upon to assimilate all these + other tastes and make these foreign occasions of expenditure my own. It + may be cynical; I am sure I will be told it is selfish; but I will spend + my money as I please and for my own intimate personal gratification, and + should count myself a nincompoop indeed to lay out the colour of a + halfpenny on any fancied social decency or duty. I shall not wear gloves + unless my hands are cold, or unless I am born with a delight in them. + Dress is my own affair, and that of one other in the world; that, in fact, + and for an obvious reason, of any woman who shall chance to be in love + with me. I shall lodge where I have a mind. If I do not ask society to + live with me, they must be silent; and even if I do, they have no further + right but to refuse the invitation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To a gentleman is to be one all the world over, and in every relation and + grade of society. It is a high calling, to which a man must first be born, + and then devote himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a certain + so-called upper grade have a kind of currency, and meet with a certain + external acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to keep us + well satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments + of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and central. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Respectability is a very thing in its way, but it does not rise superior + to all considerations. I would not for a moment venture to hint that it + was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this: that if a + position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and + superfluously useless, although it were as respectable as the Church of + England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself and all + concerned. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough into his + neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go farther + and discover what is really true. He is content to find that things are + not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they do not exist + at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they are; and, on + the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue altogether. He + has learned the first lesson, that no man is wholly good; but he has not + even suspected that there is another equally true, to wit, that no man is + wholly bad. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Or take the case of men of letters. Every piece of work which is not as + good as you can make it, which you have palmed off imperfect, meagrely + thought, niggardly in execution, upon mankind, who is your paymaster on + parole, and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue + performance, should rise up against you in the court of your own heart and + condemn you for a thief. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Sympathy is a thing to be encouraged, apart from humane considerations, + because it supplies us with the materials for wisdom. It is probably more + instructive to entertain a sneaking kindness for any unpopular person.... + than to give way to perfect raptures of moral indignation against his + abstract vices. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In the best fabric of duplicity there is some weak point, if you can + strike it, which will loosen all. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is at best but a pettifogging, pickthank business to decompose actions + into little personal motives, and explain heroism away. The Abstract + Bagman will grow like an Admiral at heart, not by ungrateful carping, but + in a heat of admiration. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + After an hospital, what uglier piece is there in civilisation than a court + of law? Hither come envy, malice, and all uncharitableness to wrestle it + out in public tourney; crimes, broken fortunes, severed households, the + knave and his victim, gravitate to this low building with the arcade. To + how many has not St. Giles’s bell told the first hour after ruin? I think + I see them pause to count the strokes and wander on again into the moving + High Street, stunned and sick at heart. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There are two things that men should never weary of—goodness and + humility. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not enough to have earned our livelihood. Either the earning itself + should have been serviceable to mankind, or something else must follow. To + live is sometimes very difficult, but it is never meritorious in itself; + and we must have a reason to allege to our own conscience why we should + continue to exist upon this crowded earth. If Thoreau had simply dwelt in + his house at Walden, a lover of trees, birds, and fishes, and the open air + and virtue, a reader of wise books, an idle, selfish self-improver, he + would have managed to cheat Admetus, but, to cling to metaphor, the devil + would have had him in the end. Those who can avoid toil altogether and + dwell in the Arcadia of private means, and even those who can, by + abstinence, reduce the necessary amount of it to some six weeks a year, + having the more liberty, have only the higher moral obligation to be up + and doing in the interest of man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A man may have done well for years, and then he may fail; he will hear of + his failure. Or he may have done well for years, and still do well, but + the critic may have tired of praising him, or there may have sprung up + some new idol of the instant, some ‘dust a little gilt,’ to whom they now + prefer to offer sacrifice. Here is the obverse and the reverse of that + empty and ugly thing called popularity. Will any man suppose it worth + gaining? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Among sayings that have a currency in spite of being wholly false upon the + face of them for the sake of a half-truth upon another subject which is + accidentally combined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest + conveys the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and + hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. But the truth is one; it has + first to be discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For such things as honour and love and faith are not only nobler than food + and drink, but indeed I think that we desire them more, and suffer more + sharply for their absence. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. + The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be + received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same + person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should + be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for + the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, + and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people + constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it + does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the + other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, + than Mr. Samuel Budgett the successful merchant. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘You know it very well, it cannot in any way help that you should brood + upon it, and I sometimes wonder whether you and I—who are a pair of + sentimentalists—are quite good judges of plain men.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For, after all, we are vessels of a very limited content. Not all men can + read all books; it is only in a chosen few that any man will find his + appointed food; and the fittest lessons are the most, palatable, and make + themselves welcome to the mind. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. Six hours of police + surveillance (such as I have had) or one brutal rejection from an inn-door + change your views upon the subject like a course of lectures. As long as + you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing to you as you go, + social arrangements have a very handsome air; but once get under the + wheels and you wish society were at the devil. I will give most + respectable men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them + twopence for what remains of their morality. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless, perhaps, + the two were the same thing? And yet ‘tis a good tonic; the cold tub and + bath-towel of the sentiments; and positively necessary to life in cases of + advanced sensibility. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own disgrace, rail the + louder against God or destiny. Most men, when they repent, oblige their + friends to share the bitterness of that repentance. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing that + undoes men. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Every man has a sane spot somewhere. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is a great thing if you can persuade people that they are somehow or + other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel bigger. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But it is an evil age for the gypsily inclined among men. He who can sit + squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the + enemy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not always the most faithful believer who makes the cunningest + apostle. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + No class of man is altogether bad; but each has its own faults and + virtues. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But it is odd enough, the very women who profess most contempt for mankind + as a sex seem to find even its ugliest particulars rather lively and + high-minded in their own sons. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But we have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, must all pretend to + be as dull and foolish as our neighbours. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It always warms a man to see a woman brave. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the + pleasure of it is! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There was never an ill thing made better by meddling. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A man dissatisfied with endeavour is a man tempted to sadness. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is one of the most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on + the whole by adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth + judging, whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must be + judged upon its merits as a whole. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative point + of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. Although it + runs to considerably over a hundred pages, it contains not a single + reference to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor so much as a single + hint that I could have made a better one myself—I really do not know + where my head can have been. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It’s deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces are the great + poetic truths. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of their + recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories of men and + scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in the attire of a + buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or murder to be done, on the + playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which cannot + be worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, the little + sunbright pictures of the past still shine in the mind’s eye with not a + lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. GLUCK UND UNGLUCK WIRD GESANG, if + Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the original re-embodying + after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to wonder at the perdurable + life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to fancy that he wrongs them + when he weaves them in with fiction; and looking back on them with + ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, substantive jewels, in a setting + of their own. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail in yellow overalls, do what + you will, young Jessamy finds young Jenny. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘You fret against the common law,’ I said. ‘You rebel against the voice of + God, which He has made so winning to convince, so imperious to command. + Hear it, and how it speaks between us! Your hand clings to mine, your + heart leaps at my touch, the unknown elements of which we are compounded + awake and run together at a look; the clay of the earth remembers its + independent life, and yearns to join us; we are drawn together as the + stars are turned about in space, or as the tides ebb and flow; by things + older and greater than we ourselves.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Olalla,’ I said, ‘the soul and the body are one, and mostly so in love. + What the body chooses, the soul loves; where the body clings, the soul + cleaves; body for body, soul to soul, they come together at God’s signal; + and the lower part (if we can call aught low) is only the footstool and + foundation of the highest.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + She sent me away, and yet I had but to call upon her name and she came to + me. These were but the weaknesses of girls, from which even she, the + strangest of her sex, was not exempted. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For even in love there are unlovely humours; ambiguous acts, unpardonable + words, may yet have sprung from a kind sentiment. If the injured one could + read your heart, you may be sure that he would understand and pardon; but, + alas! the heart cannot be shown—it has to be demonstrated in words. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a young woman fits in + a man’s mind, and stays there, and he could never tell you why; it just + seems it was the thing he wanted. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There are many matters in which you may waylay Destiny, and bid him stand + and deliver. Hard work, high thinking, adventurous excitement, and a great + deal more that forms a part of this or the other person’s spiritual bill + of fare, are within the reach of almost any one who can dare a little and + be patient. But it is by no means in the way of every one to fall in + love....A wet rag goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind, he + cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery. Apart from all + this, many lovable people miss each other in the world, or meet under some + unfavourable star. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To deal plainly, if they only married when they fell in love, most people + would die unwed; and among the others, there would be not a few tumultuous + households. The Lion is the King of Beasts, but he is scarcely suitable + for a domestic pet. In the same way, I suspect love is rather too violent + a passion to make, in all cases, a good domestic sentiment. Like other + violent excitements, it throws up not only what is best, but what is worst + and smallest, in men’s characters. Just as some people are malicious in + drink, or brawling and virulent under the influence of religious feeling, + some are moody, jealous, and exacting when they are in love, who are + honest, downright, good-hearted fellows enough in the everyday affairs and + humours of the world. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is only one event in life which really astonishes a man and startles + him out of his prepared opinions. Everything else befalls him very much as + he expected. Event succeeds to event, with an agreeable variety indeed, + but with little that is either startling or intense; they form together no + more than a sort of background, or running accompaniment to the man’s own + reflections; and he falls naturally into a cool, curious, and smiling + habit of mind, and builds himself up in a conception of life which expects + to-morrow to be after the pattern of to-day and yesterday. He may be + accustomed to the vagaries of his friend and acquaintances under the + influence of love. He may sometime look forward to it for himself with an + incomprehensible expectation. But it is a subject in which neither + intuition nor the behaviour of others will help the philosopher to the + truth. There is probably nothing rightly thought or rightly written on + this matter of love that is not a piece of the person’s experience. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first + time after long, like the flowers in spring, to re-awaken in us the sharp + edge of sense, and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise + passes out of life with the coming years; but the sight of a loved face is + what renews a man’s character from the fountain upwards. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Nothing is given for nothing in this world; there can be no true love, + even on your own side, without devotion; devotion is the exercise of love, + by which it grows; but if you will give enough of that, if you will pay + the price in a sufficient ‘amount of what you call life,’ why then, + indeed, whether with wife or comrade, you may have months and even years + of such easy, natural, pleasurable, and yet improving intercourse as shall + make time a moment and kindness a delight. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Love is not blind, nor yet forgiving. ‘O yes, believe me,’ as the song + says, ‘Love has eyes!’ The nearer the intimacy, the more cuttingly do we + feel the unworthiness of those we love; and because you love one, and + would die for that love to-morrow, you have not forgiven, and you never + will forgive that friend’s misconduct. If you want a person’s faults, go + to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know. And herein + lies the magnanimous courage of love, that it endures this knowledge + without change. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Certainly, whatever it may be with regard to the world at large, this idea + of beneficent pleasure is true as between the sweethearts. To do good and + communicate is the lover’s grand intention. It is the happiness of the + other that makes his own most intense gratification. It is not possible to + disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility, pity, and + passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected + caress. To make one’s self beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, + to do anything and all things that puff out the character and attributes + and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to magnify one’s + self, but to offer the most delicate homage at the same time. And it is in + this latter intention that they are done by lovers, for the essence of + love is kindness; and, indeed, it may be best defined as passionate + kindness; kindness, so to speak, run mad and become importunate and + violent. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What sound is so full of music as one’s own name uttered for the first + time in the voice of her we love! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it. It is with the + heart only that one captures a heart. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + O, have it your own way; I am too old a hand to argue with young gentlemen + who choose to fancy themselves in love; I have too much experience, thank + you. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And love, considered as a spectacle, must have attractions for many who + are not of the confraternity. The sentimental old maid is a commonplace of + the novelists; and he must be rather a poor sort of human being, to be + sure, who can look on at this pretty madness without indulgence and + sympathy. For nature commends itself to people with a most insinuating + art; the busiest is now and again arrested by a great sunset; and you may + be as pacific or as cold-blooded as you will, but you cannot help some + emotion when you read of well-disputed battles, or meet a pair of lovers + in the lane. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Jealousy, at any rate, is one of the consequences of love; you may like it + or not, at pleasure; but there it is. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + With our chosen friends, on the other hand, and still more between lovers + (for mutual understanding is love’s essence), the truth is easily + indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the other. A hint taken, a + look understood, conveys the gist of long and delicate explanations; and + where the life is known even YEA and NAY become luminous. In the closest + of all relations—that of a love well founded and equally + shared-speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, infantile process or a + ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two communicate directly by their + presences, and with few looks and fewer words contrive to share their good + and evil and uphold each other’s hearts in joy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a + strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent + and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more + quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made + perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all + lives the most complete and free. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The flower of the hedgerow and the star of heaven satisfy and delight us: + how much more the look of the exquisite being who was created to bear and + rear, to madden and rejoice mankind! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So strangely are we built: so much more strong is the love of woman than + the mere love of life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + You think that pity—and the kindred sentiments-have the greatest + power upon the heart. I think more nobly of women. To my view, the man + they love will first of all command their respect; he will be + steadfast-proud, if you please; dry-possibly-but of all things steadfast. + They will look at him in doubt; at last they will see that stern face + which he presents to all of the rest of the world soften to them alone. + First, trust, I say. It is so that a woman loves who is worthy of heroes. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The sex likes to pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It is + good policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. If a man finds a + woman admires him, were it only for his acquaintance with geography, he + will begin at once to build upon the admiration. It is only by + unintermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. + Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have said, ‘are such encroachers.’ + For my part, I am body and soul with the women; and after a well-married + couple, there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of the + divine huntress. It is no use for a man to take to the woods; we know him; + Anthony tried the same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all + accounts. But there is this about some women, which overtops the best + gymnosophist among men, that they suffice themselves, and can walk in a + high and cold zone without the countenance of any trousered being. I + declare, although the reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to + women for this ideal than I should be to the majority of them, or indeed + to any but one, for a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as + the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and lovely + maidens, running the woods all night to the note of Diana’s horn; moving + among the old oaks, as fancy-free as they; things of the forest and the + starlight, not touched by the commotion of man’s hot and turbid + life-although there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer—I + find my heart beat at the thought of this one. ‘Tis to fail in life, but + to fail with what a grace! That is not lost which is not regretted. And + where—here slips out the male—where would be much of the glory + of inspiring love, if there were no contempt to overcome? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our choice + and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them + from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; + their motherly, superior tenderness to man’s vanity and self-importance; + their managing arts-the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured + barbarians-are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. + It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine + relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the + road or the hillside, or TETE-A-TETE and apart from interruptions, + occasions arise when we may learn much from any single woman; and nowhere + more often than in married life. Marriage is one long conversation, + chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the + difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at once to nail her + colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost unconsciously and with + no desire to shine, the whole material of life is turned over and over, + ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt their + notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, without sound of + trumpet, they conduct each other into new worlds of thought. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Kirstie was now over fifty, and might have sat to a sculptor. Long of + limb, and still light of foot, deep-breasted, robust-loined, her golden + hair not yet mingled with any trace of silver, the years had but caressed + and embellished her. By the lines of a rich and vigorous maternity, she + seemed destined to be the bride of heroes and the mother of their + children. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And lastly, he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, the + everlasting fountain of interest. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The effervescency of her passionate and irritable nature rose within her + at times to bursting point. This is the price paid by age for unseasonable + ardours of feeling. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Weir must have supposed his bride to be somewhat suitable; perhaps he + belonged to that class of men who think a weak head the ornament of women—an + opinion invariably punished in this life. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Never ask women folk. They’re bound to answer ‘No.’ God never made the + lass that could resist the temptation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is an odd thing how happily two people, if there are two, can live in a + place where they have no acquaintance. I think the spectacle of a whole + life in which you have no part paralyses personal desire. You are content + to become a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door; the colonel with + his three medals goes by to the CAFE at night; the troops drum and trumpet + and man the ramparts as bold as so many lions. It would task language to + say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where you have taken some + root you are provoked out of your indifference; you have a hand in the + game—your friends are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, + not small enough to grow too soon familiar, nor so large as to have laid + itself out for travellers, you stand so far apart from the business that + you positively forget it would be possible to go nearer; you have so + little human interest around you that you do not remember yourself to be a + man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the loved one’s faults, + although it has an air of freedom, is to kiss the chain. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, + variable men by its very awfulness. They have been so tried among the + inconstant squalls and currents, so often sailed for islands in the air or + lain becalmed with burning heart, that they will risk all for solid ground + below their feet. Desperate pilots, they run their sea-sick, weary bark + upon the dashing rocks. It seems as if marriage were the royal road + through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on + summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at night when we cannot sleep for + the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those + who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the + coil and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the devil’s. To the end, + spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind + them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For + marriage is like life in this-that it is a field of battle, and not a bed + of roses. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + For there is something in marriage so natural and inviting, that the step + has an air of great simplicity and ease; it offers to bury for ever many + aching preoccupations; it is to afford us unfailing and familiar company + through life; it opens up a smiling prospect of the blest and passive kind + of love, rather than the blessing and active; it is approached not only + through the delights of courtship, but by a public performance and + repeated legal signatures. A man naturally thinks it will go hard within + such august circumvallations. And yet there is probably no other act in a + man’s life so hot-headed and foolhardy as this one of marriage. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Again, when you have married your wife, you would think you were got upon + a hilltop, and might begin to go downward by an easy slope. But you have + only ended courting to begin marriage. Falling in love and winning love + are often difficult tasks to overbearing and rebellious spirits; but to + keep in love is also a business of some importance, to which both man and + wife must bring kindness and goodwill. The true love story commences at + the altar, when there lies before the married pair a most beautiful + contest of wisdom and generosity, and a life-long struggle towards an + unattainable ideal. Unattainable? Ay, surely unattainable, from the very + fact that they are two instead of one. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When the generation is gone, when the play is over, when the thirty years’ + panorama has been withdrawn in tatters from the stage of the world, we may + ask what has become of these great, weighty, and undying loves and the + sweethearts who despised mortal conditions in a fine credulity; and they + can only show us a few songs in a bygone taste, a few actions worth + remembering, and a few children who have retained some happy stamp from + the disposition of their parents. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, + and takes honourable defeat to be a form of victory. In the first, he + expects an angel for a wife; in the last, he knows that she is like + himself—erring, thoughtless, and untrue; but like himself also, + filled with a struggling radiancy of better things, and adorned with + ineffective qualities. You may safely go to school with hope; but, ere you + marry, should have learned the mingled lesson of the world: that dolls are + stuffed with sawdust, and yet are excellent playthings; that hope and love + address themselves to a perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, + become the salt and staff of life; that you yourself are compacted of + infirmities, perfect, you might say, in imperfections, and yet you have a + something in you lovable and worth preserving; and that, while the mass of + mankind lies under this scurvy condemnation, you will scarce find one but, + by some generous reading, will become to you a lesson, a model, and a + noble spouse through life. So thinking, you will constantly support your + own unworthiness, and easily forgive the failings of your friend. Nay, you + will be wisely glad that you retain the sense of blemishes; for the faults + of married people continually spur up each of them, hour by hour, to do + better and to meet and love upon a higher ground. And ever, between the + failures, there will come glimpses of kind virtues to encourage and + console. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But it is the object of a liberal education not only to obscure the + knowledge of one sex by another, but to magnify the natural differences + between the two. Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but + principally by catchwords; and the little rift between the sexes is + astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the + girls and another to the boys. To the first, there is shown but a very + small field of experience, and taught a very trenchant principle for + judgment and action; to the other, the world of life is more largely + displayed, and their rule of conduct is proportionally widened. They are + taught to follow different virtues, to hate different vices, to place + their ideal, even for each other, in different achievements. What should + be the result of such a course? When a horse has run away, and the two + flustered people in the gig have each possessed themselves of a rein, we + know the end of that conveyance will be in the ditch. So, when I see a raw + youth and a green girl, fluted and fiddled in a dancing measure into that + most serious contract, and setting out upon life’s journey with ideas so + monstrously divergent, I am not surprised that some make shipwreck, but + that any come to port. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Those who have a few intimates are to be avoided; while those who swim + loose, who have their hat in their hand all along the street, who can + number an infinity of acquaintances, and are not chargeable with any one + friend, promise an easy disposition and no rival to the wife’s influence. + I will not say they are the best of men, but they are the stuff out of + which adroit and capable women manufacture the best husbands. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A ship captain is a good man to marry if it is a marriage of love, for + absences are a good influence in love, and keep it bright and delicate; + but he is just the worst man if the feeling is more pedestrian, as habit + is too frequently torn open and the solder has never time to set. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A certain sort of talent is almost indispensable for people who would + spend years together and not bore themselves to death. But the talent, + like the agreement, must be for and about life. To dwell happily together, + they should be versed in the niceties of the heart, and born with a + faculty for willing compromise. The woman must be talented as a woman, and + it will not much matter although she is talented in nothing else. She must + know HER METIER DE FEMME, and have a fine touch for the affections. And it + is more important that a person should be a good gossip, and talk + pleasantly and smartly of common friends and the thousand and one nothings + of the day and hour, than that she should speak with the tongues of men + and angels; for a while together by the fire happens more frequently in + marriage than the presence of a distinguished foreigner to dinner.... You + could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with + some one else. You can forgive people who do not follow you through a + philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife laughing when you had + tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would + go some way towards a dissolution of the marriage. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Now this is where there should be community between man and wife. They + should be agreed on their catchword in FACTS OF RELIGION, OR FACTS OF + SCIENCE, OR SOCIETY, MY DEAR; for without such an agreement all + intercourse is a painful strain upon the mind.... For there are + differences which no habit nor affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian + must not intermarry with the Pharisee. Imagine Consuelo as Mrs. Samuel + Budgett, the wife of the successful merchant! The best of men and the best + of women may sometimes live together all their lives, and, for want of + some consent on fundamental questions, hold each other lost spirits to the + end. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Marriage is of so much use to women, opens out to her so much more of + life, and puts her in the way of so much more freedom and usefulness, + that, whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly miss some benefit. It + is true, however, that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are + old maids; and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, + have often most of the true motherly touch. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The fact is, we are much more afraid of life than our ancestors, and + cannot find it in our hearts either to marry or not to marry. Marriage is + terrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age. People who share a cell + in the Bastile, or are thrown together on an uninhabited isle, if they do + not immediately fall to fisticuffs, will find some possible ground of + compromise. They will learn each other’s ways and humours, so as to know + where they must go warily, and where they may lean their whole weight. The + discretion of the first years becomes the settled habit of the last; and + so, with wisdom and patience, two lives may grow indissolubly into one. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘Well, an ye like maids so little, y’are true natural man; for God made + them twain by intention, and brought true love into the world, to be man’s + hope and woman’s comfort.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There are no persons so far away as those who are both married and + estranged, so that they seem out of earshot, or to have no common tongue. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + My idea of man’s chief end was to enrich the world with things of beauty, + and have a fairly good time myself while doing so. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But the gymnast is not my favourite; he has little or no tincture of the + artist in his composition; his soul is small and pedestrian, for the most + part, since his profession makes no call upon it, and does not accustom + him to high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor that he can + stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new order of thoughts. He + has something else to think about beside the money-box. He has a pride of + his own, and, what is of far more importance, he has an aim before him + that he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a pilgrimage that will + last him his life long, because there is no end to it short of perfection. + He will better himself a little day by day; or, even if he has given up + the attempt, he will always remember that once upon a time he had + conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time he fell in love with a + star. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost.’ Although the moon should have + nothing to say to Endymion, although he should settle down with Audrey and + feed pigs, do you not think he would move with a better grace and cherish + higher thoughts to the end? The louts he meets at church never had a fancy + above Audrey’s snood; but there is a reminiscence in Endymion’s heart + that, like a spice, keeps it fresh and haughty. + </p> + <p> + People do things, and suffer martyrdom, because they have an inclination + that way. The best artist is not the man who fixes his eye on posterity, + but the one who loves the practice of his art. And instead of having a + taste for being successful merchants and retiring at thirty, some people + have a taste for high and what we call heroic forms of excitement. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + These are predestined; if a man love the labour of any trade, apart from + any question of success or fame, the gods have called him. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The incommunicable thrill of things, that is the tuning-fork by which we + test the flatness of our art. Here it is that Nature teaches and condemns, + and still spurs us up to further effort and new failure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + To please is to serve; and so far from its being difficult to instruct + while you amuse, it is difficult to do the one thoroughly without the + other. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We shall never learn the affinities of beauty, for they lie too deep in + nature and too far back in the mysterious history of man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Mirth, lyric mirth, and a vivacious contentment are of the very essence of + the better kind of art. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + This is the particular crown and triumph of the artist—not to be + true merely, but to be lovable; not simply to convince, but to enchant. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely + embittered for them by bad art. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + So that the first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. + Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up for a leader in the minds + of men; and he must see that his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and + bright. Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him; he + should see the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does + not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and he should + recognise from the first that he has only one tool in his workshop, and + that tool is sympathy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness of a man’s + affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall find faithfully paraded the + quaintness and the power, the triviality and the surprising freshness of + the author’s fancy; there you shall find him outstripped in ready + symbolism and the art of bringing things essentially invisible before the + eyes: but to feel the contact of essential goodness, to be made in love + with piety, the book must be read and not the prints examined. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And then I had an idea for John Silver from which I promised myself funds + of entertainment: to take an admired friend of mine (whom the reader very + likely knows and admires as much as I do), to deprive him of all his finer + qualities and higher graces of temperament, to leave him with nothing but + his strength, his courage, his quickness, and his magnificent geniality, + and to try to express these in terms of the culture of a raw tarpaulin, + such physical surgery is, I think, a common way of ‘making character’; + perhaps it is, indeed, the only way. We can put in the quaint figure that + spoke a hundred words with us yesterday by the wayside; but do we know + him? Our friend with his infinite variety and flexibility, we know-but can + we put him in? Upon the first, we must engraft secondary and imaginary + qualities, possibly all wrong; from the second, knife in hand, we must cut + away and deduct the needless arborescence of his nature, but the trunk and + the few branches that remain we may at least be fairly sure of. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself + should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt + clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with + the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of + continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run + thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it + be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The obvious is not of necessity the normal; fashion rules and deforms; the + majority fall tamely into the contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the + eyes of the true observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the + danger is lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, + and write the novel of society instead of the romance of man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and + Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who + cannot edit one author without disparaging all others. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Style is the invariable mark of any master; and for the student who does + not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one + quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative + force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour of birth, + and can be neither learned nor stimulated. But the just and dexterous use + of what qualities we have, the proportion of one part to another and to + the whole, the elision of the useless, the accentuation of the important, + and the preservation of a uniform character end to end—these, which + taken together constitute technical perfection, are to some degree within + the reach of industry and intellectual courage. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The love of words and not a desire to publish new discoveries, the love, + of form and not a novel reading of historical events, mark the vocation of + the writer and the painter. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The life of the apprentice to any art is both unstrained and pleasing; it + is strewn with small successes in the midst of a career of failure, + patiently supported; the heaviest scholar is conscious of a certain + progress; and if he come not appreciably nearer to the art of Shakespeare, + grows letter-perfect in the domain of A-B, ab. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that writes, but + as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who reads; and when I + hear with a particular thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it + is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. + Thus novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of + mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of manner and + still-born niceties of motive, and begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, + adventure, death or childbirth; and thus ancient outdoor crafts and + occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields the shepherd’s crook or Count + Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift romance into a near neighbourhood with + epic. These aged things have on them the dew of man’s morning; they lie + near, not so much to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk + and aboriginal taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring up in the + process of the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now an eccentricity or + a lost art which was once the fashion of an empire; and those only are + perennial matters that rouse us to-day, and that roused men in all epochs + of the past. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + L’ART DE BIEN DIRE is but a drawing-room accomplishment unless it be + pressed into the service of the truth. The difficulty of literature is not + to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to + affect him precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood in the case + of books or set orations; even in making your will, or writing an explicit + letter, some difficulty is admitted by the world. But one thing you can + never make Philistine natures understand; one thing, which yet lies on the + surface, remains as unseizable to their wits as a high flight of + metaphysics-namely, that the business of life is mainly carried on by + means of this difficult art of literature, and according to a man’s + proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and fulness of his + intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is supposed, can say what he + means; and, in spite of their notorious experience to the contrary, people + so continue to suppose. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Even women, who understand men so well for practical purposes, do not know + them well enough for the purposes of art. Take even the very best of their + male creations, take Tito Melema, for instance, and you will find he has + an equivocal air, and every now and again remembers he has a comb in the + back of his head. Of course, no woman will believe this, and many men will + be so polite as to humour their incredulity. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A dogma learned is only a new error—the old one was perhaps as good; + but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers + climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves, and what is + best in themselves, that they communicate. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In this world of imperfections we gladly welcome even partial intimacies. + And if we find but one to whom we can speak out our heart freely, with + whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we have no + ground of quarrel with the world or God. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this + world-all, too, travellers with a donkey; and the best that we find in our + travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We + travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the reward of life. + They keep us worthy of. ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only + nearer to the absent. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are all INCOMPRIS, only more or less concerned for the mischance; all + trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other’s feet like dumb, + neglected lap-dogs. Sometimes we catch an eye-this is our opportunity in + the ages—and we wag our tail with a poor smile. ‘IS THAT ALL?’ All? + If you only knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the more + fools we to squander life on the indifferent. But the morality of the + thing, you will be glad to hear, is excellent; for it is only by trying to + understand others that we can get our own hearts understood; and in + matters of human feeling the clement judge is the most successful pleader. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is no friendship so noble, but it is the product of the time; and a + world of little finical observances, and little frail proprieties and + fashions of the hour, go to make or to mar, to stint or to perfect, the + union of spirits the most loving and the most intolerant of such + interference. The trick of the country and the age steps in even between + the mother and her child, counts out their caresses upon niggardly + fingers, and says, in the voice of authority, that this one thing shall be + a matter of confidence between them, and this other thing shall not. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live truly with his + wife and friends; while another man who never told a formal falsehood in + his life may yet be himself one lie-heart and face, from top to bottom. + This is the kind of lie which poisons intimacy. And, vice versa, veracity + to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to your own heart and your + friends, never to feign or falsify emotion—that is the truth which + makes love possible and mankind happy. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But surely it is no very extravagant opinion that it is better to give + than to receive, to serve than to use our companions; and, above all, + where there is no question of service upon either side, that it is good to + enjoy their company like a natural man. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A man who has a few friends, or one who has a dozen (if there be any one + so wealthy on this earth), cannot forget on how precarious a base his + happiness reposes; and how by a stroke or two of fate—a death, a few + light words, a piece of stamped paper, or a woman’s bright eyes—he + may be left in a month destitute of all. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + In these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine times disappointed in our + beggarly selves for once that we are disappointed in our friend; that it + is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and + that it is by our friend’s conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet + strengthened for a fresh endeavour. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘There are some pains,’ said he, ‘too acute for consolation, or I would + bring them to my kind consoler.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But there are duties which come before gratitude and offences which justly + divide friends, far more acquaintances. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Life, though largely, is not entirely carried on by literature. We are + subject to physical passions and contortions; the voice breaks and + changes, and speaks by unconscious and winning inflections; we have + legible countenances, like an open book; things that cannot be said look + eloquently through the eyes; and the soul, not locked into the body as a + dungeon, dwells ever on the threshold with appealing signals. Groans and + tears, looks and gestures, a flush or a paleness, are often the most clear + reporters of the heart, and speak more directly to the hearts of others. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are different with different friends; yet if we look closely we shall + find that every such relation reposes on some particular apotheosis of + oneself; with each friend, although we could not distinguish it in words + from any other, we have at least one special reputation to preserve: and + it is thus that we run, when mortified, to our friend or the woman that we + love, not to hear ourselves called better, but to be better men in point + of fact. We seek this society to flatter ourselves with our own good + conduct. And hence any falsehood in the relation, any incomplete or + perverted understanding, will spoil even the pleasure of these visits. + </p> + <p> + But it follows that since they are neither of them so good as the other + hopes, and each is, in a very honest manner, playing a part above his + powers, such an intercourse must often be disappointing to both. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made + from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer’s way. His friends + were those of his own blood, or those whom he had known the longest; his + affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in + the object. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Of those who are to act influentially on their fellows, we should expect + always something large and public in their way of life, something more or + less urbane and comprehensive in their sentiment for others. We should not + expect to see them spend their sympathy in idyls, however beautiful. We + should not seek them among those who, if they have but a wife to their + bosom, ask no more of womankind, just as they ask no more of their own + sex, if they can find a friend or two for their immediate need. They will + be quick to feel all the pleasures of our association-not the great ones + alone, but all. They will know not love only, but all those other ways in + which man and woman mutually make each other happy-by sympathy, by + admiration, by the atmosphere they bear about them-down to the mere + impersonal pleasure of passing happy faces in the street. For, through all + this gradation, the difference of sex makes itself pleasurably felt. Down + to the most lukewarm courtesies of life, there is a special chivalry due + and a special pleasure received, when the two sexes are brought ever so + lightly into contact. We love our mothers otherwise than we love our + fathers; a sister is not as a brother to us; and friendship between man + and woman, be it never so unalloyed and innocent, is not the same as + friendship between man and man. Such friendship is not even possible for + all. To conjoin tenderness for a woman that is not far short of passionate + with such disinterestedness and beautiful gratuity of affection as there + is between friends of the same sex, requires no ordinary disposition in + the man. For either it would presuppose quite womanly delicacy of + perception, and, as it were, a curiosity in shades of differing sentiment; + or it would mean that he had accepted the large, simple divisions of + society: a strong and positive spirit robustly virtuous, who has chosen a + better part coarsely, and holds to it steadfastly, with all its + consequences of pain to himself and others; as one who should go straight + before him on a journey, neither tempted by wayside flowers nor very + scrupulous of small lives under foot. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + I could have thought he had been eaves-dropping at the doors of my heart, + so entire was the coincidence between his writing and my thought. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A knowledge that another has felt as we have felt, and seen things, even + as they are little things, not much otherwise than we have seen them, will + continue to the end to be one of life’s choicest pleasures. + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The morning drum-call on my eager ear + Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew + Lies yet undried along my field of noon. + But now I pause at whiles in what I do, + And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear + (My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + The ground of all youth’s suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting of + the grave, is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It is himself + that he sees dead; those are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the + vague epitaph. Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man + is all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire + unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be + gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable, and + tragic fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, + is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by and by his truant + interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad and gather flowers. + Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no longer as a + doom peculiar to himself, whether fate’s crowning injustice or his own + last vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as a power that + wounds him far more tenderly, not without solemn compensations, taking and + giving, bereaving and yet storing up. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah’s dove, + come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own nature, + that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and gray tide + of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his elders, fill + him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk among the + tombs of spirits; and it is only in the course of years, and after much + rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to see himself + from without and his fellows from within: to know his own for one among + the thousand undenoted countenances of the city street, and to divine in + others the throb of human agony and hope. In the meantime he will avoid + the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, the sweet whiff of + chloroform-for there, on the most thoughtless, the pains of others are + burned home; but he will continue to walk, in a divine self-pity, the + aisles of the forgotten graveyard. The length of man’s life, which is + endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious thought. He + cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go again so wholly. He + cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be still idle, and by way + of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. The parable of the talent + is the brief, epitome of youth. To believe in immortality is one thing, + but it is first needful to believe in life. Denunciatory preachers seem + not to suspect that they may be taken gravely and in evil part; that young + men may come to think of time as of a moment, and with the pride of Satan + wave back the inadequate gift. Yet here is a true peril; this it is that + sets them to pace the graveyard alleys and to read, with strange extremes + of pity and derision, the memorials of the dead. + </p> + <p> + Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon + their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance, and immediacy of + that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to + excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity of + that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back not + least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting itself in that + eternity of which we know, and need to know, so little; avoiding the + bright, crowded, and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits us. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And so in the majority of cases, a man who fancies himself dying will get + cold comfort from the very youthful view expressed in this essay. He, as a + living man, has some to help, some to love, some to correct; it may be + some to punish. These duties cling, not upon humanity, but upon the man + himself. It is he, not another, who is one woman’s son and a second + woman’s husband, and a third woman’s father. That life which began so + small has now grown, with a myriad filaments, into the lives of others. It + is not indispensable; another will take the place and shoulder the + discharged responsibilities; but the better the man and the nobler his + purposes, the more will he be tempted to regret the extinction of his + powers and the deletion of his personality. To have lived a generation is + not only to have grown at home in that perplexing medium, but to have + assumed innumerable duties. To die at such an age has, for all but the + entirely base, something of the air of a betrayal. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, + laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with + hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once + tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such + a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in + full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy + deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods + love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also + in their eye. For, surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to + die young. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + And so they were at last in ‘their resting graves.’ So long as men do + their duty, even if it be greatly in a misapprehension, they will be + leading pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside a + martyrs’ monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven somewhere in + the providence of God. It is not well to think of death, unless we temper + the thought with that of heroes who despised it. Upon what ground, is of + small account; if it be only the bishop who was burned for his faith in + the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes us walk undisturbed + among graves. And so the martyrs’ monument is a wholesome spot in the + field of the dead; and as we look upon it, a brave influence comes to us + from the land of those who have won their discharge, and in another phrase + of Patrick Walker’s, got ‘cleanly off the stage.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is not only our enemies, those desperate characters-it is we ourselves + who know not what we do;-thence springs the glimmering hope that perhaps + we do better than we think: that to scramble through this random business + with hands reasonably clean, to have played the part of a man or woman + with some reasonable fulness, to have often resisted the diabolic, and at + the end to be still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have + done right well. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are not content to pass away entirely from the scenes of our delight; + we would leave, if but in gratitude, a pillar and a legend. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + There are many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions-eyes of + the dead and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in our most private + hours, and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our witnesses and judges. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + How unsubstantial is this projection of a man s existence, which can lie + in abeyance for centuries and then be brushed up again and set forth for + the consideration of posterity by a few dips in an antiquary’s ink-pot! + This precarious tenure of fame goes a long way to justify those (and they + are not few) who prefer cakes and cream in the immediate present. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But I beard the voice of a woman singing some sad, old endless ballad not + far off. It seemed to be about love and a BEL AMOUREUX, her handsome + sweetheart; and I wished I could have taken up the strain and answered + her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland way, weaving, like Pippa in + the poem, my own thoughts with hers. What could I have told her? Little + enough; and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and takes + away, and brings sweethearts near only to separate them again into distant + and strange lands; but to love is the great amulet which makes the world a + garden; and ‘hope, which comes to all,’ outwears the accidents of life, + and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and death. Easy to say: + yea, but also, by God’s mercy, both easy and grateful to believe! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + As a matter of fact, although few things are spoken of with more fearful + whisperings than this prospect of death, few have less influence on + conduct under healthy circumstances.... If we clung as devotedly as some + philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea of life, or were half as + frightened as they make out we are, for the subversive accident that ends + it all, the trumpets might sound by the hour and no one would follow them + into battle—the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would + climb into a sea-going ship? Think (if these philosophers were right) with + what a preparation of spirit we should affront the daily peril of the + dinner-table: a deadlier spot than any battle-field in history, where the + far greater proportion of our ancestors have miserably left their bones! + What woman would ever be lured into marriage, so much more dangerous than + the wildest sea? And what would it be to grow old? + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + If a man knows he will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will + have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all his + extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And, above all, where, + instead of simply spending, he makes a profitable investment for some of + his money when it will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk + living, and, above all, when it is healthful, is just so much gained upon + the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the + more in our stomachs, when he cries, ‘Stand and deliver.’ + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a + miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the + sickroom. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give + you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and + see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished + undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of + the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All + who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, + although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart + that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it + in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Now the man who has his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling + weathercock of a brain, who reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly + used and cheerfully hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance of the + world, keeps all his pulses going true and fast, and gathers impetus as he + runs, until, if he be running towards anything better than wildfire, he + may shoot up and become a constellation in the end. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When the time comes that he should go, there need be few illusions left + about himself. Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed + much:-surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed, nor + will he complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from the + field; defeated, ay, if he were Paul or Marcus Aurelius!—but if + there is still one inch of fight in his old spirit, undishonoured. The + faith which sustained him in his lifelong blindness and lifelong + disappointment will scarce even be required in this last formality of + laying down his arms. Give him a march with his old bones; there, out of + the glorious sun-coloured earth, out of the day and the dust and the + ecstasy-there goes another Faithful Failure. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We are apt to make so much of the tragedy of the tragedy of death, and + think so little of the enduring tragedy of some men’s lives, that we see + more to lament for in a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, + than in one that miserably survives all love and usefulness, and goes + about the world the phantom of itself, without hope, or joy, or any + consolation. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + ‘You are a strange physician,’ said Will, looking steadfastly upon his + guest. + </p> + <p> + ‘I am a natural law,’ he replied, ‘and people call me Death.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why did you not tell me so at first?’ cried Will. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand, and + welcome.’ + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Under the wide and starry sky + Dig the grave and let me lie. + Glad did I live, and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will. + + This be the verse you grave for me: + Here he lies where he longed to be; + Home is the sailor, home from the sea, + And the hunter home from the hill. +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + But the girls picked up their skirts, as if they were sure they had good + ankles, and followed until their breath was out. The last to weary were + the three graces and a couple of companions; and just as they, too, had + had enough, the foremost of the three leaped upon a tree-stump and kissed + her hand to the canoeists. Not Diana herself, although this was more of a + Venus, after all, could have done a graceful thing more gracefully. ‘Come + back again!’ she cried; and all the others echoed her; and the hills about + Origny repeated the words, ‘Come back.’ But the river had us round an + angle in a twinkling, and we were alone with the green trees and running + water. + </p> + <p> + Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous stream + of life. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star, + The plowman from the sun his season takes.’ +</pre> + <p> + And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of fate. There is a + headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like + straw, and runs fast in time and space. It is full of curves like this, + your winding river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant + pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at all. For though + it should revisit the same acre of meadow in the same hour, it will have + made an ample sweep between-whiles; many little streams will have fallen + in; many exhalations risen toward the sun; and even although it were the + same acre, it will not be the same river Oise. And thus, oh graces of + Origny, although the wandering fortune of my life should carry me back + again to where you await death’s whistle by the river, that will not be + the old I who walks the streets; and those wives and mothers, say, will + those be you? + </p> + <hr /> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE CELESTIAL SURGEON + + If I have faltered more or less + In my great task of happiness; + If I have moved among my race + And shown no glorious morning face; + If beams from happy human eyes + Have moved me not; if morning skies, + Books, and my food, and summer rain + Knocked on my sullen heart in vain + Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take + And stab my spirit broad awake; + Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, + Choose Thou, before that spirit die, + A piercing pain, a killing sin, + And to my dead heart run them in! +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to + forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to + forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the + forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. + Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, + in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to + encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in + tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down + to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + PRAYER AT MORNING + </p> + <p> + The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and + duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform then with laughter and + kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely + on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and + content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + PRAYER AT EVENING + </p> + <p> + Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour come + to rest. We resign into Thy hands our sleeping bodies, our cold hearths + and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling. + As the sun returns in the east, so let our patience be renewed with dawn; + as the sun lightens the world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this + house of our habitations. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, + take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and + measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in + all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace + of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the + ruins of our happiness or our integrity; touch us with fire from the + altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many families and + nations gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak men and women + subsisting under the covert of Thy patience. Be patient still; suffer us + yet a while longer;—with our broken purposes of good, with our idle + endeavours against evil, suffer us a while longer to endure, and (if it + may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if + the day come when these must be taken, brace us to play the man under + affliction. Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of us to + rest; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when + the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter, and call us up with + morning faces and with morning hearts—eager to labour—eager to + be happy, if happiness shall be our portion—and if the day be marked + for sorrow, strong to endure it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Pocket R.L.S., by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POCKET R.L.S. *** + +***** This file should be named 2537-h.htm or 2537-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/3/2537/ + +Produced by Sean Hackett, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> |