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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2537-0.txt b/2537-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..200d300 --- /dev/null +++ b/2537-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5628 @@ +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 + +Posting 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 + + + + + +THE POCKET R. L. S. + +Being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson. + + +By Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +SELECTED PASSAGES + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +THE VAGABOND + +(TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT) + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +A SONG OF THE ROAD + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS + + 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! + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Age asks with timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking +fortune by the beard, demands joy like a right. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +The child thinks much in images, words are very live to him, phrases +that imply a picture eloquent beyond their value. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +None more than children are concerned for beauty, and, above all, for +beauty in the old. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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? + +***** + +‘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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +But struggle as you please, a man has to work in this world. He must be +an honest man or a thief, Loudon. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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! + +***** + +What is this fortunate circumstance, my friend? inquired Anastasie, not +heeding his protest, which was of daily recurrence. + +‘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.’ + +‘Indeed!’ said she; and she laughed. ‘Now, that is like you--to take +credit for the thing you could not help.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘Tis a fine thing to smart for one’s duty; even in the pangs of it there +is contentment. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Indeed, I believe this is the lesson; if it is for fame that men do +brave actions, they are only silly fellows after all. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the +only end of life. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept the conditions +of life with some heroic readiness. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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, + + ‘By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts, + Rebuilds it to his liking.’ + +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. + +***** + +He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is the same that +formed us in frailty. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +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. + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +We are not all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us +human beings with feelings and tempers of our own. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +‘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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It remains to be seen whether you can prove yourselves as generous as +you have been wise and patient. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our +own composure might seem little less surprising. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +For courage respects courage; but where a faith has been trodden out, we +may look for a mean and narrow population. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures +next, if not superior, to virtue. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +EVENSONG + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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.... + +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. + +***** + +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.... + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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?’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +In one word, it must always be foul to tell what is false; and it can +never be safe to suppress what is true. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +In the best fabric of duplicity there is some weak point, if you can +strike it, which will loosen all. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +There are two things that men should never weary of--goodness and +humility. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing +that undoes men. + +***** + +Every man has a sane spot somewhere. + +***** + +That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +For truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the +enemy. + +***** + +But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it! + +***** + +It is not always the most faithful believer who makes the cunningest +apostle. + +***** + +Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man. + +***** + +A man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation. + +***** + +‘Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial.’ + +***** + +No class of man is altogether bad; but each has its own faults and +virtues. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man. + +***** + +But we have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, must all pretend to +be as dull and foolish as our neighbours. + +***** + +It always warms a man to see a woman brave. + +***** + +Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the +pleasure of it is! + +***** + +Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel. + +***** + +There was never an ill thing made better by meddling. + +***** + +Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers. + +***** + +Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it. + +***** + +A man dissatisfied with endeavour is a man tempted to sadness. + +***** + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It’s deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces are the great +poetic truths. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail in yellow overalls, do what +you will, young Jessamy finds young Jenny. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +What sound is so full of music as one’s own name uttered for the first +time in the voice of her we love! + +***** + +We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it. It is with +the heart only that one captures a heart. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Jealousy, at any rate, is one of the consequences of love; you may like +it or not, at pleasure; but there it is. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +So strangely are we built: so much more strong is the love of woman than +the mere love of life. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +And lastly, he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, +the everlasting fountain of interest. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Never ask women folk. They’re bound to answer ‘No.’ God never made the +lass that could resist the temptation. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Mirth, lyric mirth, and a vivacious contentment are of the very essence +of the better kind of art. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely +embittered for them by bad art. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘There are some pains,’ said he, ‘too acute for consolation, or I would +bring them to my kind consoler.’ + +***** + +But there are duties which come before gratitude and offences which +justly divide friends, far more acquaintances. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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.’ + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +‘You are a strange physician,’ said Will, looking steadfastly upon his +guest. + +‘I am a natural law,’ he replied, ‘and people call me Death.’ + +‘Why did you not tell me so at first?’ cried Will. + +‘I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand, and +welcome.’ + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous +stream of life. + + ‘The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star, + The plowman from the sun his season takes.’ + +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? + +***** + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +PRAYER AT MORNING + +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. + +***** + +PRAYER AT EVENING + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + + + + + +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 2537-0.txt or 2537-0.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 + +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. 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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. 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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 + +Posting Date: December 29, 2008 [EBook #2537] +Release Date: March, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POCKET R.L.S. *** + + + + +Produced by Sean Hackett + + + + + +THE POCKET R. L. S. + +Being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson. + + +By Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +SELECTED PASSAGES + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +THE VAGABOND + +(TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT) + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +A SONG OF THE ROAD + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS + + 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! + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Age asks with timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking +fortune by the beard, demands joy like a right. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +The child thinks much in images, words are very live to him, phrases +that imply a picture eloquent beyond their value. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +None more than children are concerned for beauty, and, above all, for +beauty in the old. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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? + +***** + +'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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +But struggle as you please, a man has to work in this world. He must be +an honest man or a thief, Loudon. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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! + +***** + +What is this fortunate circumstance, my friend? inquired Anastasie, not +heeding his protest, which was of daily recurrence. + +'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.' + +'Indeed!' said she; and she laughed. 'Now, that is like you--to take +credit for the thing you could not help.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'Tis a fine thing to smart for one's duty; even in the pangs of it there +is contentment. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Indeed, I believe this is the lesson; if it is for fame that men do +brave actions, they are only silly fellows after all. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the +only end of life. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept the conditions +of life with some heroic readiness. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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, + + 'By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts, + Rebuilds it to his liking.' + +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. + +***** + +He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is the same that +formed us in frailty. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +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. + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +We are not all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but the most of us +human beings with feelings and tempers of our own. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +'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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It remains to be seen whether you can prove yourselves as generous as +you have been wise and patient. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our +own composure might seem little less surprising. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +For courage respects courage; but where a faith has been trodden out, we +may look for a mean and narrow population. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures +next, if not superior, to virtue. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +EVENSONG + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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.... + +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. + +***** + +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.... + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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?' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +In one word, it must always be foul to tell what is false; and it can +never be safe to suppress what is true. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +In the best fabric of duplicity there is some weak point, if you can +strike it, which will loosen all. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +There are two things that men should never weary of--goodness and +humility. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing +that undoes men. + +***** + +Every man has a sane spot somewhere. + +***** + +That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +For truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the +enemy. + +***** + +But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged in it! + +***** + +It is not always the most faithful believer who makes the cunningest +apostle. + +***** + +Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man. + +***** + +A man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation. + +***** + +'Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial.' + +***** + +No class of man is altogether bad; but each has its own faults and +virtues. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man. + +***** + +But we have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, must all pretend to +be as dull and foolish as our neighbours. + +***** + +It always warms a man to see a woman brave. + +***** + +Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange how one-sided the +pleasure of it is! + +***** + +Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel. + +***** + +There was never an ill thing made better by meddling. + +***** + +Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers. + +***** + +Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it. + +***** + +A man dissatisfied with endeavour is a man tempted to sadness. + +***** + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +It's deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces are the great +poetic truths. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail in yellow overalls, do what +you will, young Jessamy finds young Jenny. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +What sound is so full of music as one's own name uttered for the first +time in the voice of her we love! + +***** + +We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it. It is with +the heart only that one captures a heart. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Jealousy, at any rate, is one of the consequences of love; you may like +it or not, at pleasure; but there it is. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +So strangely are we built: so much more strong is the love of woman than +the mere love of life. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +And lastly, he was dark and she fair, and he was male and she female, +the everlasting fountain of interest. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Never ask women folk. They're bound to answer 'No.' God never made the +lass that could resist the temptation. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Mirth, lyric mirth, and a vivacious contentment are of the very essence +of the better kind of art. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +Life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely +embittered for them by bad art. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'There are some pains,' said he, 'too acute for consolation, or I would +bring them to my kind consoler.' + +***** + +But there are duties which come before gratitude and offences which +justly divide friends, far more acquaintances. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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! + +***** + +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? + +***** + +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.' + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +'You are a strange physician,' said Will, looking steadfastly upon his +guest. + +'I am a natural law,' he replied, 'and people call me Death.' + +'Why did you not tell me so at first?' cried Will. + +'I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand, and +welcome.' + +***** + + 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. + +***** + +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. + +Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous +stream of life. + + 'The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, + The plowman from the sun his season takes.' + +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? + +***** + + 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! + +***** + +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. + +***** + +PRAYER AT MORNING + +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. + +***** + +PRAYER AT EVENING + +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. + +***** + +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. + +***** + +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. + + + + + +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.txt or 2537.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 + +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. 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S. +Being favourite passages from the works of Stevenson. + + + + +SELECTED PASSAGES + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +THE VAGABOND + +(TO AN AIR OF SCHUBERT) + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +A SONG OF THE ROAD + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS + +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! + +* + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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 niminy +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Age asks with timidity to be spared intolerable pain; +youth, taking fortune by the beard, demands joy like a +right. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +The child thinks much in images, words are very live +to him, phrases that imply a picture eloquent beyond +their value. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +None more than children are concerned for beauty, and, +above all, for beauty in the old. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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? + +* + +'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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +But struggle as you please, a man has to work in this +world. He must be an honest man or a thief, Loudon. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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, hut the practice of the +one does not at all train a man for practising the other. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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 he +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! + +* + +What is this fortunate circumstance, my friend? inquired +Anastasie, not heeding his protest, which was of daily +recurrence. + +'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.' + +'Indeed!' said she; and she laughed. 'Now, that is like +you--to take credit for the thing you could not help.' + +* + + +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. + +* + + +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. + +* + +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 bad 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. + +* + +'Tis a fine thing to smart for one's duty; even in the +pangs of it there is contentment. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +Indeed, I believe this is the lesson; if it is for fame +that men do brave actions, they are only silly fellows +after all. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of +becoming, is the only end of life. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +But the race of man, like that iudomitable 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. + +* + +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. + +* + +It is a poor heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept +the conditions of life with some heroic readiness. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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, + 'By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts, + Rebuilds it to his liking.' + +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. + +* + +He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is +the same that formed us in frailty. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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 he 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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +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. + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +We are not all patient Grizzels, by good fortune, but +the most of us human beings with feelings and tempers +of our own. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green +hand in life. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +It remains to .be seen whether you can prove yourselves as +generous as you have been wise and patient. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could +read in yours, our own composure might seem little +less surprising. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +For courage respects courage; but where a faith has been +trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow population. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple +pleasures next, if not superior, to virtue. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +EVENSONG + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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.... + +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. + +* + +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.... + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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?' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +In one word, it must always be foul to tell what is false; +and it can never be safe to suppress what is true. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +In the best fabric of duplicity there is some weak point, +if you can strike it, which will loosen all. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +There are two things that men should never weary of-- +goodness and humility. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this +itch of doing that undoes men. + +* + +Every man has a sane spot somewhere. + +* + +That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +For truth that is suppressed by friends is the +readiest weapon of the enemy. + +* + +But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those +engaged in it! + +* + +It is not always the most faithful believer who +makes the cunningest apostle. + +* + +Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases +it outlives the man. + +* + +A man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared +for their realisation. + +* + +'Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial.' + +* + +No class of man is altogether bad; but each +has its own faults and virtues. + +* + +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. + +* + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality +is virtue in the man. + +* + +But we have no bravery nowadays, and, even in books, +must all pretend to be as dull and foolish +as our neighbours. + +* + +It always warms a man to see a woman brave. + +* + +Condescension is an excellent thing, but it is strange +how one-sided the pleasure of it is! + +* + +Some strand of our own misdoing is involved +in every quarrel. + +* + +There was never an ill thing made better by meddling. + +* + +Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers. + +* + +Every one lives by selling something, whatever +be his right to it. + +* + +A man dissatisfied with endeavour is a man +tempted to sadness. + +* + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the +poetry of circumstance. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +It's deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces +are the great poetic truths. + +* + +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. + +* + +Place them in a hospital, put them in a jail in +yellow overalls, do what you will, young Jessamy +finds young Jenny. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +What sound is so full of music as one's own name uttered +for the first time in the voice of her we love! + +* + +We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it. +It is with the heart only that one captures a heart. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Jealousy, at any rate, is one of the consequences of love; +you may like it or not, at pleasure; but there it is. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +So strangely are we built: so much more strong is the love +of woman than the mere love of life. + +* + +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. + +* + +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? + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +And lastly, he was dark and she fair, and he was male and +she female, the everlasting fountain of interest. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Never ask women folk. They're bound to answer 'No.' God +never made the lass that could resist the temptation. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +Mirth, lyric mirth, and a vivacious contentment are of the +very essence of the better kind of art. + +* + +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. + +* + +Life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it +indefinitely embittered for them by bad art. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +There is not anything more bitter than to lose a +fancied friend. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +'There are some pains,' said he, 'too acute for +consolation, or I would bring them to my kind consoler.' + +* + +But there are duties which come before gratitude and +offences which justly divide friends, far more +acquaintances. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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! + +* + +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? + +* + +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.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +We are apt to make so much of the tragedy of the tragedyof +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. + +* + +'You are a strange physician,' said Will, looking +steadfastly upon his guest. +'I am a natural law,' he replied, 'and people call +me Death.' +'Why did you not tell me so at first?' cried Will. +'I have been waiting for you these many years. +Give me your hand, and welcome.' + +* + +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. + +* + +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. + +Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the +impetuous stream of life. + + 'The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, + The plowman from the sun his season takes.' + +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? + +* + + 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! + +* + +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. + +* + +PRAYER AT MORNING + +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. + +* + +PRAYER AT EVENING + +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. + +* + +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. + +* + +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 he happy, if +happiness shall be our portion--and if the day be marked +for sorrow, strong to endure it. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Pocket R.L.S., by R.L. Stevenson + diff --git a/old/pkrls10.zip b/old/pkrls10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..54170f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pkrls10.zip |