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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:58:49 -0700 |
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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/33072-8.txt b/33072-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..067af00 --- /dev/null +++ b/33072-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1066 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Stevenson's Perfect Virtues, by Luther Albertus Brewer + +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: Stevenson's Perfect Virtues + As Exemplified by Leigh Hunt + +Author: Luther Albertus Brewer + +Release Date: July 4, 2010 [EBook #33072] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + + + + + + + + +STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES + + + + + STEVENSON'S + PERFECT VIRTUES + + AS EXEMPLIFIED BY LEIGH HUNT + + + BY + LUTHER A. BREWER + + + PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE + FRIENDS OF LUTHER ALBERTUS + AND ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER + CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA CHRISTMAS + NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO + + + + _Copyrighted 1922 by + Luther A. Brewer_ + + + + +STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES + + _Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues._ + + --Robert Louis Stevenson + + +Stevenson was right. There is not a more admirable trait in one's +character than that of cheerfulness. Combined with that other virtue +named by Stevenson, gentleness, and what more is needed to make a +companionable and a beloved man. + +These two attributes were possessed in an emphatic way both by Stevenson +and by Leigh Hunt. That's why some of us are so fond of Hunt. That's why +he is growing in esteem as he is becoming better known to lovers and +students of the literature produced in England during the first half of +the nineteenth century. + +For it is certain that Hunt is coming into his own. First editions of +his writings year by year are advancing in price. They are becoming +scarce and in some instances exceedingly difficult to obtain. Catalogues +of rare book dealers are listing fewer of his works, and when quotations +are made they invariably are in advance of those of a year or two ago. + +The cultivation of cheerfulness frequently is enjoined throughout his +writings. He had many visitors in his home, attracted there by his +personal qualities and by his gentleness of heart. He was fond of +music, which formed a staple in the entertainment and the conversation. + +Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter), a long time intimate friend, in his +_Recollections of Men of Letters_, mentions the evenings at Hunt's +house: "Hunt never gave dinners, but his suppers of cold meat and salad +were cheerful and pleasant; sometimes the cheerfulness (after a 'wassail +bowl') soared into noisy merriment. I remember one Christmas or New +Year's evening, when we sat there till two or three o'clock in the +morning, and when the jokes and stories and imitations so overcame me +that I was nearly falling off my chair with laughter. This was mainly +owing to the comic imitations of Coulson, who was usually so grave a +man. We used to refer to him as an encyclopedia, so perpetually, indeed, +that Hunt always spoke of him as 'The Admirable Coulson!' This _vis +comica_ left him for the most part in later life, when he became a +distinguished lawyer." + +It was this same Barry Cornwall who introduced Hawthorne to Hunt, a +charming account of Hawthorne's visit being recorded in _Our Old Home_. +"I rejoiced to hear him say," he writes, "that he was favored with most +confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; and +there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an unrepining +spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly benefits that +were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to enjoy, and +piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk--all of which gave a +reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. I wish he +could have had one draught of prosperity before he died." + +There are many of us ready to give expression to the same wish. + +Speaking of Hunt's _Autobiography_, a book second only in interest to +Boswell's _Johnson_ said Carlyle, this caustic writer had the grace to +say that the reader might find in that book "the image of a gifted, +gentle, patient, and valiant human soul, as it buffets its way through +the billows of time, and will not drown though often in danger; cannot +be drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it." + +The _Spectator_, London, said this autobiography was one of the most +graceful and genial chronicles of the incidents of a human life in the +English language. "The sweetness of temper, the indomitable love and +forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and the faith in the ultimate triumph +of good revealed in its pages show the humane and noble qualities of the +writer." + +This appreciation of Hunt is in contrast with the portrait drawn by +Dickens in _Bleak House_, where the character of Harold Skimpole was so +patent a caricature of Hunt that mutual friends promptly remonstrated +with the author, and this influenced Dickens, in the later numbers of +the monthly parts in which the book was issued, to modify his picture. + +In writing of his father after his death, Thornton evidently had in mind +this ungenerous act of Dickens when he penned these sentences: "His +consideration, his sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable, his +avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness were manifest on the +surface, and could only be appreciated by those who knew him in society, +most probably even exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself +insisted with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness. In the spirit +which made him disposed to enjoy 'anything that was going forward' he +would even assume for the evening a convivial aspect, and urge a liberal +measure of the wine with the gusto of a bon vivant. Few who knew him so +could be aware, not only of the simple and uncostly sources from which +he habitually drew his enjoyments, but of his singularly plain life, +extended even to a rule of self denial. Excepting at intervals when wine +was recommended to him, or came to him as a gift of friendship, his +customary drink was water, which he would drink with the almost daily +repetition of Dr. Armstrong's line, 'Nought like the simple element +dilutes.'... His dress was always plain and studiously economical. He +would excuse the plainness of his diet, by ascribing it to a delicacy of +health, which he overrated. His food was often nothing but bread and +meat at dinner, bread and tea for two meals of the day, bread alone for +luncheon or for supper. His liberal constructions were shown to others, +his strictness to himself. If he heard that a friend was in trouble, his +house was offered as a 'home'; and it was literally so, many times in +his life." + +Apropos of this, it is of interest to note that his house was an asylum +for Keats for weeks, at a time when the young poet was sick in body and +mind. It was Leigh Hunt who gave Keats, in the _Examiner_, the first +favorable review he received. + +It is but fair to note that Dickens later disclaimed any intent to +portray in Harold Skimpole the foibles of Leigh Hunt. I have several +letters from Dickens to Hunt making delicate reference to the subject. +As late as June 28, 1855, four years prior to Hunt's death, Dickens +wrote: "I hope you will not now think it necessary to renew that painful +subject with me. There is nothing to remove from my mind--I hope, +nothing to remove from yours. I thought of the little notice which has +given you (I rejoice most heartily to find) so much pleasure--as the +best means that could possibly present themselves of enabling me to +express myself publicly about you as you would desire. In that better +and unmistakable association with you by name, let all end." + +Shortly after the death of Hunt Dickens made it a point to say in his +_All the Year Round_ that it was the graces and charms of manner of +Hunt, "which had many a time delighted him, and impressed him as being +unspeakably whimsical and attractive," that were recalled when the +character in question was drawn, and that he had no thought "that the +admired original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the +fictitious creature"--an explanation that does not clear the great +novelist. + +Dickens also bears tribute to Hunt's cheerfulness despite the reasons +he had for sadness. "His life was, in several respects, a life of +trouble, though his cheerfulness was such that he was, upon the whole, +happier than some men who have had fewer griefs to wrestle with." In +Hunt's correspondence, Dickens saw evidence that he was "sometimes +over-clouded with the shadow of affliction, but more often bright and +hopeful, and at all times sympathetic: taking a keen delight in all +beautiful things--in the exhaustless world of books and art, in the +rising genius of young authors, in the immortal language of music, in +trees and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its suburbs; in +the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor out of +heaven, glorifying humble places." + +"The very philosophy of cheerfulness," says R. H. Horne, in _A New +Spirit of the Age_, "and the good humour of genius imbue all his prose +papers from end to end." + +Says Thornton, his eldest son: "Leigh Hunt's whole teaching of himself +as well as others, inculcated the promotion of cheerfulness as a duty, +not for the selfish gain of the one man himself, but for the sake of +making the happier atmosphere for others and rendering the more perfect +homage to the Author of all good and happiness." + +Here is another picture of the cheerful situation, taken from "Our +Cottage," which appeared in _The New Monthly Magazine_ for September, +1836: + + Autumn, the princely season, purple-robed + And liberal-handed, brings no gloom to us, + But, rich in its own self, gives us rich hope + Of winter-time; and when the winter comes, + We burn old wood, and read old books that wall + Our biggest-room. + +"We burn old wood, and read old books"--there's the kindly cheerfulness +that is appealing. Isn't that a picture to drive hence any thought of +sadness? + +His son, Thornton, felicitously said that all his life he was striving +to open more widely the door of the library, and the windows that look +out upon nature. He loved the green fields of suburban London, and never +was more happy than when sauntering along the leafy lanes. With books +for companions and nature for inspiration, how can any mortal be other +than cheerful. + +All the literary men of his time delighted in his society. All were his +friends. Many a mention is made of the happy and cheerful gatherings at +his home. Hazlitt speaks of "the vinous quality of his mind" as +producing a fascination and an intoxication at once upon those who came +in contact with him. + +Professor Dowden, on the other hand, says it was not a heavy wine, but a +bright, light wine that coursed through his veins-- + + Tasting of Flora and the country green, + Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth. + +It is natural for one acquainted with the writings of Leigh Hunt to +associate him with cheerfulness, for kindness and cheerfulness are to be +found in everything he wrote. Even in his letters in which he tells of +some of his perplexities there is found the optimistic note. + +Which recalls what Hunt wrote of associations with Shakespeare. It is +quite natural to associate the idea of Shakespeare with anything which +is worth mention. "Shakespeare and Christmas" are two ideas that fall as +happily together as "wine and walnuts." "Shakespeare and May," and +"Shakespeare and June" call up many essays about spring and violets. One +may say "Shakespeare and Love," and put himself at once in the midst of +a bevy of bright damsels, as sweet as rosebuds. "Shakespeare and Life" +puts before one the whole world of youth, and spirit, and life itself. + +"Hunt and Cheerfulness" are inseparable in the mind of one who knows the +story of his life and its struggles. + +There's the cheerful note in this rondeau which appeared in _The New +Monthly Magazine_, 1838: + + Jenny kiss'd me when we met, + Jumping from the chair she sat in; + Time, you thief! who love to get + Sweets into your list, put that in: + Say I'm weary, say I'm sad; + Say that health and wealth have missed me; + Say I'm growing old, but add-- + Jennie kiss'd me! + +The Jennie here immortalized is said to have been Jane Welsh Carlyle. + +Perhaps Hunt's most quoted poem is his "Abou Ben Adhem," in which he +asks the angel to "write me as one that loves his fellow-men." This is +typical of his life's attitude to mankind. He had a kindly feeling for +all. The line was placed on his tombstone in Kensal Green Cemetery by +those who knew him best, his friends feeling that it most fittingly +indicated the kindliness of his character. + +This poem rightly is considered the most meritorious of all Hunt wrote, +and it is quoted here because we love it: + + Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) + Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, + And saw, within the moonlight in his room, + Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, + An angel writing in a book of gold:-- + Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, + And to the presence in the room he said, + "What writest thou?"--The vision rais'd its head, + And with a look made of all sweet accord, + Answer'd, "The names of those who love the Lord." + "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," + Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, + But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, + Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." + + The angel wrote, and vanish'd. The next night + It came again with a great wakening light, + And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd, + And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. + +The cheerful note is sounded in many of his poems: + + May, thou month of rosy beauty, + Month, when pleasure is a duty. + + * * * * + + May's the blooming hawthorn bough; + May's the month that's laughing now. + I no sooner write the word, + Than it seems as though it heard, + And looks up and laughs at me, + Like a sweet face rosily-- + +If the rains prolong unduly the winter, he can love May in books; for + + There is May in books for ever; + May will part from Spenser never; + May's in Milton, May's in Prior; + May's in Chaucer, Thompson, Dyer; + May's in all the Italian books; + She has old and modern nooks, + Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves + In happy places they call shelves, + And will rise, and dress your rooms + With a drapery thick with blooms. + Come, ye rains then, if ye will, + May's at home, and with me still; + But come rather, thou, good weather, + And find us in the fields together. + +This certainly is redolent of cheer. But he also longs for "manly, +joyous, gipsy June." + + O, could I walk round the earth + With a heart to share my mirth, + With a look to love me ever, + Thoughtful much, but sullen never, + I could be content to see + June and no variety; + Loitering here, and living there, + With a book, and frugal fare, + With a finer gipsy time, + And a cuckoo in the clime, + Work at morn, and mirth at noon, + And sleep beneath the sacred moon. + +In one of the items in his pleasant book, _Table-Talk_, Hunt speaks for +greater cheerfulness in English literature. He cites Suckling's famous +_A Ballad Upon a Wedding_, in which allusion is made to the once popular +belief that the sun danced on Easter-day: + + Her feet beneath her petticoat, + Like little mice, stole in and out, + As if they fear'd the light; + But, Oh! She dances such a way, + No sun upon an Easter-day + Is half so fine a sight. + +And then he remarks that it is a pity that we do not have, if not more +such beliefs, yet more such poetry, to stand us instead of them. "Our +poetry," he writes, "like ourselves, has too little animal spirits. It +has plenty of thought and imagination; plenty of night-thoughts, and +day-thoughts too; and in its dramatic circle, a world of action and +character. It is a poetry of the highest order and the greatest +abundance. But though not sombre--though manly, hearty, and even +luxuriant--it is certainly not a very joyous poetry. And the same may be +said of our literature in general. You do not conceive the writers to +have been cheerful men. They often recommend cheerfulness, but rather as +a good and sensible practice than as something which they feel +themselves." A little later he says, "I am only speaking of the rarity +of a certain kind of sunshine in our literature, and expressing a +natural rainy-day wish that we had a little more of it." He thinks there +should be a joyous set of elegant extracts in a score of volumes, "that +we could have at hand, like a cellaret of good wine, against April or +November weather!" + +Hunt believed in a "cheerful religion." "We are for making the most of +the present world," he wrote. He had not any gloomy forebodings as to +the things that may come after death. His _London Journal_, as Frank +Carr so well states, "breathed such uniform gladness and hopefulness +that every page is pervaded with an odor of homely sanctity, as of +hidden violets." + +And again: He "noticed the flowers when their timorous splendours peeped +through the snow at the first impulse of life in the dark earth, and +when, afterwards, as a mantle they spread their glory over garden and +field; greeted the birds, from the lark's early carol, and the arrival +of the swallows, until the woods became vocal with multitudinous +voices." + +As to Hunt's religion, by the way, there has been much discussion. I +have Leigh Hunt's copy of a volume bearing this long title: "_The +Mystical Initiations; or, Hymns of Orpheus, translated from the original +Greek: with a preliminary dissertation on the Life and Theology of +Orpheus_," containing this observation in Hunt's hand-writing: + + Mr. Taylor's faith sometimes makes him eloquent; but if he had + united, with his Platonical abstractions, the true Christian power + of socially working at all times, he need not have feared whatever + seemed coming. Platonism and Christianity, if either be thoroughly + understood, are formed admirably to go together. The first shapes + the human being to beauty and imagination, the latter to love and + immortality. The first perfects him individually, the latter to + endless companionship. Platonism lifts the philosopher towards + heaven: Christianity takes up the whole human race, and puts them + there. + + I should like to be a worshiper in a Christian temple, in which + whatsoever is good and beautiful should be held, for those reasons, + to be divinely true; in which Plato's unmalignant evil should be + the ground for Christ's all-benevolent good to stand upon; and in + which no more limits should be assigned to whatever was sincere, + loving, and imaginative, than to that boundless and beautiful sky, + which is surely large enough to hold it. + +In these days when so many feel forebodings of trouble it is pleasant to +recall that two such men as Robert Louis Stevenson and Leigh Hunt, each +of whom had reason for gloomy thoughts, persisted in looking upon the +bright things of life. Not anywhere in the writings of these two men +will one find them dwelling on their miseries. Per contra, both preached +cheerfulness. In darkest hours they saw the sunshine and the flowers. +Like our own Lincoln, they plucked the thistle and planted the flower +where they thought the flower would grow. The reading of these two +authors is recommended--as is also a better and more intimate +acquaintance with Charles Lamb. Here is a triumvirate that will drive +into outer darkness all fits of the blues. God will be shown to be in +his heaven, and all will be well with the world. + +"Hunt," says Shelley, "was one of those happy souls which are the salt +of the earth, and without whom this earth would smell like what it is--a +tomb; who is what others seem." + +Hunt viewed his many misfortunes in a kindly spirit, showing us often +what fine things may come to us out of human suffering. It is a +benediction, a peace-compelling exercise to spend an evening with Hunt. +His optimism is catching. One cannot get away from it. He writes of +Samuel Johnson: "How much good and entertainment did not the very +necessities of such a man help to produce us." This is a saying we may +apply to Hunt himself. + +_Leigh Hunt's London Journal_, one of his best publications, states that +its object is "Pleasure ... the pleasure recommended alike by the most +doubting experiment, and the most trusting faith--that of making the +utmost of this green and golden world, the smallest particles of whose +surface we have not yet learned to turn to account--that of profiting +alike from the toil that is incumbent on us, and from 'the lilies of the +valley that toil not, neither do they spin.'... We say nothing we do not +think, and manifest no feelings which are not those of our daily life +and our most habitual enjoyments, our talisman against trouble, and our +best reward for exertion--a leaf, a flower, a fine passage of music, or +poetry, or painting, a belief in a thousand capabilities of earth and +man, give us literally as much delight as we say they do. We should not +otherwise have been able to get through 'a sea of troubles,' not to +recommend as we do the loving light that has saved us." + +Hunt's motto for his _Indicator_, a publication praised by Charles Lamb, +is a cheerful one: "A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sour." It was +taken from Spenser, one of Hunt's favorites, and was suggested by Mrs. +Novello, mother of Mary Cowden Clarke, as we are told in _Letters to an +Enthusiast_: "By the way, did you know that my mother was the godmother +of the 'Indicator?' She suggested its name, and Leigh Hunt adopted it, +and the passage as a motto which she had pointed out as offering ground +for a good title." + +Hunt could get cheerfulness out of a pebble even. "Strike it," he says, +"and you will get something out of him: warm his heart, and out come the +genial sparks that shall gladden your hearth, and put hot dishes on your +table." The brook singeth, states Coleridge in that beautiful stanza: + + A voice of a hidden brook + In the leafy month of June, + That to the sleeping woods all night + Singeth a quiet tune. + +And Hunt observes it would not sing so well without the stone. + +Then in his light, airy way he calls our attention to that exquisite +little poem by Wordsworth on the fair maiden who died by the river Dove: + + A violet by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye; + Fair as the star, when only one + Is shining in the sky. + +And he asks if anything can express a lovelier loneliness, than the +violet half hidden by the mossy stone. + +Hunt finds other gentle qualities in a stone, citing the opening lines +of Keats's _Hyperion_, where he describes the dethroned monarch of the +gods, sitting in his exile: + + Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery noon, and Eve's one star, + Sate gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone. + +Nothing certainly can be more quiet than a stone. It utters not a +syllable nor a sigh. + +Shakespeare had the knack of seeing power in things gentle: + + Weariness + Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth + Finds the down pillow hard. + +"If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find upon a little +inquiry that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are +cheerful now," Hunt writes in the _Indicator_. "If you are melancholy +many times, recollect that you have got over all those times." + +This is good advice, and true. Exercise is recommended as a promoter of +cheerfulness. Such a high opinion of the value of exercise was held by +Plato that he maintained it was a cure even for a wounded conscience. In +the same article Hunt suggests that one should not want money for +money's sake. Certes, Hunt never craved money for the purpose of +hoarding it. Nearly all his life he needed money acutely, but when a +generous sum came into his possession he did not know how to keep it; +nay, he did not know how to use it properly. He was always "hard up," +simply because he was a child in money matters. Withal, he was +optimistic and cheerful, even to the extent of remaining at home because +he did not possess the means of purchasing presentable clothing. When +his wife wrote him that after paying for a loaf of bread she would not +have a penny in her pocket, Hunt writes her in a cheerful way. Some of +us with a less keen perception of cheerful situations, or with less +ability to surmount calamities would find it rather difficult to be as +cheerful as Hunt seemed to be. + +Hunt's correspondence, both published and unpublished, bears testimony +to his cheerfulness even when the clouds were the darkest. Speaking of +the two volumes of _Correspondence_ edited in 1862 by his son Thornton, +Edmund Ollier, the publisher, thus bears tribute to the man and his +buoyancy of spirit even under very trying circumstances. In these +volumes, he says, "we see him as those who knew him familiarly saw him +in his everyday life. Sometimes overclouded with the shadow of +affliction, but more often bright and hopeful, and at all times taking a +keen delight in beautiful things; in the exhaustless world of books and +art; in the rising genius of young authors; in the immortal language of +music; in trees, and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its +suburbs; in the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor +out of heaven, glorifying humble places; in the genial intercourse of +mind with mind ... A heart and soul so gifted could not but share +largely in the happiness with which the Divine Ruler of the Universe has +compensated our sorrows; and he had loving hearts about him to the last, +to sweeten all." + +Hunt's gentleness and cheerfulness are shown in his essays, as well as +in his poetry. Perhaps none of his essays evidences these qualities of +his heart and mind more forcibly than "A Day by the Fire," which was +written for the _Reflector_ in 1812, when he was twenty-eight years of +age. "I am one of those that delight in a fireside," he begins, at once +thereby telling us that he loves kindliness and cheerfulness. For no man +who loves a fire on the hearth, especially a fire made of old wood, can +be a sour old curmudgeon. It is as impossible as it is for one not to +love a sweet little girl. + +Hunt would have his fire left quite to itself, without a tea-kettle, +"bubbling and loud-hissing," which "throws up a steamy column," as +Cowper tells it. Such a fire "has full room to breathe and to blaze," +and he can poke it as he pleases. "Poke it as I please!" he continues. +"Think, benevolent reader, think of the pride and pleasure of having in +your hand that awful, but at the same time artless, weapon, a poker; of +putting it into the proper bar, gently levering up the coals, and seeing +the instant and bustling flame above!" + +The use of the poker with one's fire is as natural as shaking hands with +a friend. And + + Then shine the bars, the cakes in smoke aspire + A sudden glory bursts from all the fire, + The conscious wight rejoicing in the heat, + Rubs the blithe knees and toasts th' alternate feet. + +Writing in _The Companion_ in 1828, he remarks: + + A man ... may begin with being happy, on the mere strength of the + purity and vivacity of his pulse: children do so; but he must have + derived his constitution from very virtuous, temperate, and happy + parents indeed, and be a great fool to boot, and wanting in the + commonist sympathies of his nature, if he can continue happy, and + yet be a bad man: and then he could not be bad, in the worst sense + of the word, for his defect would excuse him. + +Hunt quotes approvingly this from Hannah More: + + Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, + And though but few can serve, yet all may please, + O let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence, + A small unkindness is a great offence. + +"Life," says George Moore, "is a perfect gift, and our duty is to enjoy +it; by doing so we can help others to enjoy." + +This was Hunt's philosophy. + + * * * * * * * + +These quotations from his letters, taken from originals in our +collection, are indicative of his view of life: + + Do not be alarmed about the emptiness of your purse on Monday. In + the course of the day you will receive some money at all + events--enough to go on with ... Meantime I send you two sixpence + (mighty sum!) which I have in the last corner of my pocket. You + will not despise them, coming with his heart's love, and his best + thanks for your cheerful letters.--Oct. 4, 1829, to Mrs. Hunt at + Epsom. + + Heaven seems to afford us consolatory thought, and show to us + almost certain glimpses of happiness, in proportion as we do its + work with cheerfulness:--and what work is more properly the work of + heaven than that of helping one another to bear our burdens and + strengthen our patience?--Letter, Florence, 4 Nov., 1824, to Bebs, + his wife's sister. + +He writes Mrs. Hunt, his "Dearest Molly mine," thus cheerfully: + + I have got the twenty guineas, and settled with Hyatt; but I felt + so _new_, with my waistcoat pocket full of sovereigns, and it + seemed such a _charge_, that I thought I had better bring it up to + you myself. + + I am again, with bitter heart, forced to disappoint you; but Mr. + Bell says, that "certainly, certainly" (emphatically repeating it) + I shall have the six sovereigns tomorrow morning ... Keep up your + spirits. + + I forgot to mention ... that I have still one of the sovereigns + which I brought away with me, as well as five shillings and + sixpence in silver; so that I hope I shall have enough, if not + quite enough, to pay for the fly on Sunday. If not, perhaps you can + borrow a few shillings till the Treasury pay-day. + + I shall cut short my sighs as I am wont to do. + + I shall regard the whole period as the beginning of that true + sunset of life, of which I have so often spoken; for if clouds are + still about it, they only serve to enrich what the light of love + (the only heavenly light) makes beautiful. + +My friends who know me most intimately say there are two things in my +life that may not be quite normal--my fondness for work, and my liking +for Leigh Hunt. I do not have any apologies to make for either of these +characteristics. My admiration for Hunt and my consequent desire to +acquire Hunt incunabula could not be brought to fruition if I did not +work and earn. The first characteristic noted therefore is the sequence +of the second. + +I have not seen fit to apologize for either of these traits--the one a +luxury perhaps, the other a necessity. + +Leigh Hunt as a man and as a writer is worth knowing. He not only loved +books, but he made books for others to love. His life at times was +almost a tragedy. There were occasions when he did not have the courage +to leave his house, so lacking was he in possessing enough clothes to +make a decent appearance. At another time he did not have the price of a +loaf of bread, and so went hungry. But he never lost his courage, and +ever was hopeful and sweet tempered. + +Shelley quotes a line seen by him on a sun-dial in Italy: "Colto +soltanto le ore serene"--I mark only the bright hours. Hunt and +Stevenson saw in their lives from day to day only the bright hours. + +And this is the message that The Brewers would send this Christmas time +to their friends: "Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues." +Only the bright hours are the ones we should see. + + + + + OF THIS BOOK TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY + COPIES WERE PRINTED IN DECEMBER + NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO + BY THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +The misprint "Leight" was corrected to "Leigh" (page 9). + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stevenson's Perfect Virtues, by +Luther Albertus Brewer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + +***** This file should be named 33072-8.txt or 33072-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/7/33072/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + +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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Brewer. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + p.dropcap:first-letter{float: left; padding-right: 3px; font-size: 300%; line-height: 83%; width:auto;} + .caps {text-transform:uppercase;} + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin solid gray;} + + .spacer {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Stevenson's Perfect Virtues, by Luther Albertus Brewer + +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: Stevenson's Perfect Virtues + As Exemplified by Leigh Hunt + +Author: Luther Albertus Brewer + +Release Date: July 4, 2010 [EBook #33072] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES</h1> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<h2>STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES</h2> +<h3>AS EXEMPLIFIED BY LEIGH HUNT</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>BY</h4> +<h3>LUTHER A. BREWER</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="note"> +<tr><td>PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE<br />FRIENDS OF LUTHER ALBERTUS<br /> +AND ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER<br />CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA CHRISTMAS<br />NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO</td></tr></table> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Copyrighted 1922 by</i><br /><i>Luther A. Brewer</i></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2>STEVENSON’S PERFECT VIRTUES</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues.</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">—<span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span></span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="dropcap"><span class="caps">Stevenson</span> was right. There is not a more admirable trait in one’s +character than that of cheerfulness. Combined with that other virtue +named by Stevenson, gentleness, and what more is needed to make a +companionable and a beloved man.</p> + +<p>These two attributes were possessed in an emphatic way both by Stevenson +and by Leigh Hunt. That’s why some of us are so fond of Hunt. That’s why +he is growing in esteem as he is becoming better known to lovers and +students of the literature produced in England during the first half of +the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>For it is certain that Hunt is coming into his own. First editions of +his writings year by year are advancing in price. They are becoming +scarce and in some instances exceedingly difficult to obtain. Catalogues +of rare book dealers are listing fewer of his works, and when quotations +are made they invariably are in advance of those of a year or two ago.</p> + +<p>The cultivation of cheerfulness frequently is enjoined throughout his +writings. He had many visitors in his home, attracted there by his +personal qualities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> and by his gentleness of heart. He was fond of +music, which formed a staple in the entertainment and the conversation.</p> + +<p>Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter), a long time intimate friend, in his +<i>Recollections of Men of Letters</i>, mentions the evenings at Hunt’s +house: “Hunt never gave dinners, but his suppers of cold meat and salad +were cheerful and pleasant; sometimes the cheerfulness (after a ‘wassail +bowl’) soared into noisy merriment. I remember one Christmas or New +Year’s evening, when we sat there till two or three o’clock in the +morning, and when the jokes and stories and imitations so overcame me +that I was nearly falling off my chair with laughter. This was mainly +owing to the comic imitations of Coulson, who was usually so grave a +man. We used to refer to him as an encyclopedia, so perpetually, indeed, +that Hunt always spoke of him as ‘The Admirable Coulson!’ This <i>vis +comica</i> left him for the most part in later life, when he became a +distinguished lawyer.”</p> + +<p>It was this same Barry Cornwall who introduced Hawthorne to Hunt, a +charming account of Hawthorne’s visit being recorded in <i>Our Old Home</i>. +“I rejoiced to hear him say,” he writes, “that he was favored with most +confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; and +there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an unrepining +spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly benefits that +were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to enjoy, and +piety, and hope shining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> onward into the dusk—all of which gave a +reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. I wish he +could have had one draught of prosperity before he died.”</p> + +<p>There are many of us ready to give expression to the same wish.</p> + +<p>Speaking of Hunt’s <i>Autobiography</i>, a book second only in interest to +Boswell’s <i>Johnson</i> said Carlyle, this caustic writer had the grace to +say that the reader might find in that book “the image of a gifted, +gentle, patient, and valiant human soul, as it buffets its way through +the billows of time, and will not drown though often in danger; cannot +be drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it.”</p> + +<p>The <i>Spectator</i>, London, said this autobiography was one of the most +graceful and genial chronicles of the incidents of a human life in the +English language. “The sweetness of temper, the indomitable love and +forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and the faith in the ultimate triumph +of good revealed in its pages show the humane and noble qualities of the +writer.”</p> + +<p>This appreciation of Hunt is in contrast with the portrait drawn by +Dickens in <i>Bleak House</i>, where the character of Harold Skimpole was so +patent a caricature of Hunt that mutual friends promptly remonstrated +with the author, and this influenced Dickens, in the later numbers of +the monthly parts in which the book was issued, to modify his picture.</p> + +<p>In writing of his father after his death, Thornton evidently had in mind +this ungenerous act of Dickens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> when he penned these sentences: “His +consideration, his sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable, his +avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness were manifest on the +surface, and could only be appreciated by those who knew him in society, +most probably even exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself +insisted with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness. In the spirit +which made him disposed to enjoy ‘anything that was going forward’ he +would even assume for the evening a convivial aspect, and urge a liberal +measure of the wine with the gusto of a bon vivant. Few who knew him so +could be aware, not only of the simple and uncostly sources from which +he habitually drew his enjoyments, but of his singularly plain life, +extended even to a rule of self denial. Excepting at intervals when wine +was recommended to him, or came to him as a gift of friendship, his +customary drink was water, which he would drink with the almost daily +repetition of Dr. Armstrong’s line, ‘Nought like the simple element +dilutes.’... His dress was always plain and studiously economical. He +would excuse the plainness of his diet, by ascribing it to a delicacy of +health, which he overrated. His food was often nothing but bread and +meat at dinner, bread and tea for two meals of the day, bread alone for +luncheon or for supper. His liberal constructions were shown to others, +his strictness to himself. If he heard that a friend was in trouble, his +house was offered as a ‘home’; and it was literally so, many times in +his life.”</p> + +<p>Apropos of this, it is of interest to note that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> house was an asylum +for Keats for weeks, at a time when the young poet was sick in body and +mind. It was <ins class="correction" title="original: Leight">Leigh</ins> Hunt who gave Keats, in the <i>Examiner</i>, the first +favorable review he received.</p> + +<p>It is but fair to note that Dickens later disclaimed any intent to +portray in Harold Skimpole the foibles of Leigh Hunt. I have several +letters from Dickens to Hunt making delicate reference to the subject. +As late as June 28, 1855, four years prior to Hunt’s death, Dickens +wrote: “I hope you will not now think it necessary to renew that painful +subject with me. There is nothing to remove from my mind—I hope, +nothing to remove from yours. I thought of the little notice which has +given you (I rejoice most heartily to find) so much pleasure—as the +best means that could possibly present themselves of enabling me to +express myself publicly about you as you would desire. In that better +and unmistakable association with you by name, let all end.”</p> + +<p>Shortly after the death of Hunt Dickens made it a point to say in his +<i>All the Year Round</i> that it was the graces and charms of manner of +Hunt, “which had many a time delighted him, and impressed him as being +unspeakably whimsical and attractive,” that were recalled when the +character in question was drawn, and that he had no thought “that the +admired original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the +fictitious creature”—an explanation that does not clear the great +novelist.</p> + +<p>Dickens also bears tribute to Hunt’s cheerfulness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> despite the reasons +he had for sadness. “His life was, in several respects, a life of +trouble, though his cheerfulness was such that he was, upon the whole, +happier than some men who have had fewer griefs to wrestle with.” In +Hunt’s correspondence, Dickens saw evidence that he was “sometimes +over-clouded with the shadow of affliction, but more often bright and +hopeful, and at all times sympathetic: taking a keen delight in all +beautiful things—in the exhaustless world of books and art, in the +rising genius of young authors, in the immortal language of music, in +trees and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its suburbs; in +the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor out of +heaven, glorifying humble places.”</p> + +<p>“The very philosophy of cheerfulness,” says R. H. Horne, in <i>A New +Spirit of the Age</i>, “and the good humour of genius imbue all his prose +papers from end to end.”</p> + +<p>Says Thornton, his eldest son: “Leigh Hunt’s whole teaching of himself +as well as others, inculcated the promotion of cheerfulness as a duty, +not for the selfish gain of the one man himself, but for the sake of +making the happier atmosphere for others and rendering the more perfect +homage to the Author of all good and happiness.”</p> + +<p>Here is another picture of the cheerful situation, taken from “Our +Cottage,” which appeared in <i>The New Monthly Magazine</i> for September, +1836:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +Autumn, the princely season, purple-robed<br /> +And liberal-handed, brings no gloom to us,<br /> +But, rich in its own self, gives us rich hope<br /> +Of winter-time; and when the winter comes,<br /> +We burn old wood, and read old books that wall<br /> +Our biggest-room.</p> + +<p>“We burn old wood, and read old books”—there’s the kindly cheerfulness +that is appealing. Isn’t that a picture to drive hence any thought of +sadness?</p> + +<p>His son, Thornton, felicitously said that all his life he was striving +to open more widely the door of the library, and the windows that look +out upon nature. He loved the green fields of suburban London, and never +was more happy than when sauntering along the leafy lanes. With books +for companions and nature for inspiration, how can any mortal be other +than cheerful.</p> + +<p>All the literary men of his time delighted in his society. All were his +friends. Many a mention is made of the happy and cheerful gatherings at +his home. Hazlitt speaks of “the vinous quality of his mind” as +producing a fascination and an intoxication at once upon those who came +in contact with him.</p> + +<p>Professor Dowden, on the other hand, says it was not a heavy wine, but a +bright, light wine that coursed through his veins—</p> + +<p class="poem">Tasting of Flora and the country green,<br /> +Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth.</p> + +<p>It is natural for one acquainted with the writings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of Leigh Hunt to +associate him with cheerfulness, for kindness and cheerfulness are to be +found in everything he wrote. Even in his letters in which he tells of +some of his perplexities there is found the optimistic note.</p> + +<p>Which recalls what Hunt wrote of associations with Shakespeare. It is +quite natural to associate the idea of Shakespeare with anything which +is worth mention. “Shakespeare and Christmas” are two ideas that fall as +happily together as “wine and walnuts.” “Shakespeare and May,” and +“Shakespeare and June” call up many essays about spring and violets. One +may say “Shakespeare and Love,” and put himself at once in the midst of +a bevy of bright damsels, as sweet as rosebuds. “Shakespeare and Life” +puts before one the whole world of youth, and spirit, and life itself.</p> + +<p>“Hunt and Cheerfulness” are inseparable in the mind of one who knows the +story of his life and its struggles.</p> + +<p>There’s the cheerful note in this rondeau which appeared in <i>The New +Monthly Magazine</i>, 1838:</p> + +<p class="poem">Jenny kiss’d me when we met,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jumping from the chair she sat in;</span><br /> +Time, you thief! who love to get<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweets into your list, put that in:</span><br /> +Say I’m weary, say I’m sad;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Say that health and wealth have missed me;</span><br /> +Say I’m growing old, but add—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Jennie kiss’d me!</span></p> + +<p>The Jennie here immortalized is said to have been Jane Welsh Carlyle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>Perhaps Hunt’s most quoted poem is his “Abou Ben Adhem,” in which he +asks the angel to “write me as one that loves his fellow-men.” This is +typical of his life’s attitude to mankind. He had a kindly feeling for +all. The line was placed on his tombstone in Kensal Green Cemetery by +those who knew him best, his friends feeling that it most fittingly +indicated the kindliness of his character.</p> + +<p>This poem rightly is considered the most meritorious of all Hunt wrote, +and it is quoted here because we love it:</p> + +<p class="poem">Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)<br /> +Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,<br /> +And saw, within the moonlight in his room,<br /> +Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,<br /> +An angel writing in a book of gold:—<br /> +Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,<br /> +And to the presence in the room he said,<br /> +“What writest thou?”—The vision rais’d its head,<br /> +And with a look made of all sweet accord,<br /> +Answer’d, “The names of those who love the Lord.”<br /> +“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”<br /> +Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,<br /> +But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee then,<br /> +Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.”<br /> +<br /> +The angel wrote, and vanish’d. The next night<br /> +It came again with a great wakening light,<br /> +And show’d the names whom love of God had bless’d,<br /> +And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.</p> + +<p>The cheerful note is sounded in many of his poems:</p> + +<p class="poem">May, thou month of rosy beauty,<br /> +Month, when pleasure is a duty.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><br /> +May’s the blooming hawthorn bough;<br /> +May’s the month that’s laughing now.<br /> +I no sooner write the word,<br /> +Than it seems as though it heard,<br /> +And looks up and laughs at me,<br /> +Like a sweet face rosily—</p> + +<p>If the rains prolong unduly the winter, he can love May in books; for</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">There is May in books for ever;</span><br /> +May will part from Spenser never;<br /> +May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior;<br /> +May’s in Chaucer, Thompson, Dyer;<br /> +May’s in all the Italian books;<br /> +She has old and modern nooks,<br /> +Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves<br /> +In happy places they call shelves,<br /> +And will rise, and dress your rooms<br /> +With a drapery thick with blooms.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, ye rains then, if ye will,</span><br /> +May’s at home, and with me still;<br /> +But come rather, thou, good weather,<br /> +And find us in the fields together.</p> + +<p>This certainly is redolent of cheer. But he also longs for “manly, +joyous, gipsy June.”</p> + +<p class="poem">O, could I walk round the earth<br /> +With a heart to share my mirth,<br /> +With a look to love me ever,<br /> +Thoughtful much, but sullen never,<br /> +I could be content to see<br /> +June and no variety;<br /> +Loitering here, and living there,<br /> +With a book, and frugal fare,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>With a finer gipsy time,<br /> +And a cuckoo in the clime,<br /> +Work at morn, and mirth at noon,<br /> +And sleep beneath the sacred moon.</p> + +<p>In one of the items in his pleasant book, <i>Table-Talk</i>, Hunt speaks for +greater cheerfulness in English literature. He cites Suckling’s famous +<i>A Ballad Upon a Wedding</i>, in which allusion is made to the once popular +belief that the sun danced on Easter-day:</p> + +<p class="poem">Her feet beneath her petticoat,<br /> +Like little mice, stole in and out,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As if they fear’d the light;</span><br /> +But, Oh! She dances such a way,<br /> +No sun upon an Easter-day<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is half so fine a sight.</span></p> + +<p>And then he remarks that it is a pity that we do not have, if not more +such beliefs, yet more such poetry, to stand us instead of them. “Our +poetry,” he writes, “like ourselves, has too little animal spirits. It +has plenty of thought and imagination; plenty of night-thoughts, and +day-thoughts too; and in its dramatic circle, a world of action and +character. It is a poetry of the highest order and the greatest +abundance. But though not sombre—though manly, hearty, and even +luxuriant—it is certainly not a very joyous poetry. And the same may be +said of our literature in general. You do not conceive the writers to +have been cheerful men. They often recommend cheerfulness, but rather as +a good and sensible practice than as something which they feel +themselves.” A little later he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> “I am only speaking of the rarity +of a certain kind of sunshine in our literature, and expressing a +natural rainy-day wish that we had a little more of it.” He thinks there +should be a joyous set of elegant extracts in a score of volumes, “that +we could have at hand, like a cellaret of good wine, against April or +November weather!”</p> + +<p>Hunt believed in a “cheerful religion.” “We are for making the most of +the present world,” he wrote. He had not any gloomy forebodings as to +the things that may come after death. His <i>London Journal</i>, as Frank +Carr so well states, “breathed such uniform gladness and hopefulness +that every page is pervaded with an odor of homely sanctity, as of +hidden violets.”</p> + +<p>And again: He “noticed the flowers when their timorous splendours peeped +through the snow at the first impulse of life in the dark earth, and +when, afterwards, as a mantle they spread their glory over garden and +field; greeted the birds, from the lark’s early carol, and the arrival +of the swallows, until the woods became vocal with multitudinous +voices.”</p> + +<p>As to Hunt’s religion, by the way, there has been much discussion. I +have Leigh Hunt’s copy of a volume bearing this long title: “<i>The +Mystical Initiations; or, Hymns of Orpheus, translated from the original +Greek: with a preliminary dissertation on the Life and Theology of +Orpheus</i>,” containing this observation in Hunt’s hand-writing:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Taylor’s faith sometimes makes him eloquent; but if he had +united, with his Platonical abstractions, the true Christian <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>power +of socially working at all times, he need not have feared whatever +seemed coming. Platonism and Christianity, if either be thoroughly +understood, are formed admirably to go together. The first shapes +the human being to beauty and imagination, the latter to love and +immortality. The first perfects him individually, the latter to +endless companionship. Platonism lifts the philosopher towards +heaven: Christianity takes up the whole human race, and puts them +there.</p> + +<p>I should like to be a worshiper in a Christian temple, in which +whatsoever is good and beautiful should be held, for those reasons, +to be divinely true; in which Plato’s unmalignant evil should be +the ground for Christ’s all-benevolent good to stand upon; and in +which no more limits should be assigned to whatever was sincere, +loving, and imaginative, than to that boundless and beautiful sky, +which is surely large enough to hold it.</p></div> + +<p>In these days when so many feel forebodings of trouble it is pleasant to +recall that two such men as Robert Louis Stevenson and Leigh Hunt, each +of whom had reason for gloomy thoughts, persisted in looking upon the +bright things of life. Not anywhere in the writings of these two men +will one find them dwelling on their miseries. Per contra, both preached +cheerfulness. In darkest hours they saw the sunshine and the flowers. +Like our own Lincoln, they plucked the thistle and planted the flower +where they thought the flower would grow. The reading of these two +authors is recommended—as is also a better and more intimate +acquaintance with Charles Lamb. Here is a triumvirate that will drive +into outer darkness all fits of the blues. God will be shown to be in +his heaven, and all will be well with the world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>“Hunt,” says Shelley, “was one of those happy souls which are the salt +of the earth, and without whom this earth would smell like what it is—a +tomb; who is what others seem.”</p> + +<p>Hunt viewed his many misfortunes in a kindly spirit, showing us often +what fine things may come to us out of human suffering. It is a +benediction, a peace-compelling exercise to spend an evening with Hunt. +His optimism is catching. One cannot get away from it. He writes of +Samuel Johnson: “How much good and entertainment did not the very +necessities of such a man help to produce us.” This is a saying we may +apply to Hunt himself.</p> + +<p><i>Leigh Hunt’s London Journal</i>, one of his best publications, states that +its object is “Pleasure ... the pleasure recommended alike by the most +doubting experiment, and the most trusting faith—that of making the +utmost of this green and golden world, the smallest particles of whose +surface we have not yet learned to turn to account—that of profiting +alike from the toil that is incumbent on us, and from ‘the lilies of the +valley that toil not, neither do they spin.’... We say nothing we do not +think, and manifest no feelings which are not those of our daily life +and our most habitual enjoyments, our talisman against trouble, and our +best reward for exertion—a leaf, a flower, a fine passage of music, or +poetry, or painting, a belief in a thousand capabilities of earth and +man, give us literally as much delight as we say they do. We should not +otherwise have been able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> get through ‘a sea of troubles,’ not to +recommend as we do the loving light that has saved us.”</p> + +<p>Hunt’s motto for his <i>Indicator</i>, a publication praised by Charles Lamb, +is a cheerful one: “A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sour.” It was +taken from Spenser, one of Hunt’s favorites, and was suggested by Mrs. +Novello, mother of Mary Cowden Clarke, as we are told in <i>Letters to an +Enthusiast</i>: “By the way, did you know that my mother was the godmother +of the ‘Indicator?’ She suggested its name, and Leigh Hunt adopted it, +and the passage as a motto which she had pointed out as offering ground +for a good title.”</p> + +<p>Hunt could get cheerfulness out of a pebble even. “Strike it,” he says, +“and you will get something out of him: warm his heart, and out come the +genial sparks that shall gladden your hearth, and put hot dishes on your +table.” The brook singeth, states Coleridge in that beautiful stanza:</p> + +<p class="poem">A voice of a hidden brook<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the leafy month of June,</span><br /> +That to the sleeping woods all night<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Singeth a quiet tune.</span></p> + +<p>And Hunt observes it would not sing so well without the stone.</p> + +<p>Then in his light, airy way he calls our attention to that exquisite +little poem by Wordsworth on the fair maiden who died by the river Dove:</p> + +<p class="poem">A violet by a mossy stone<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Half hidden from the eye;</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Fair as the star, when only one<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is shining in the sky.</span></p> + +<p>And he asks if anything can express a lovelier loneliness, than the +violet half hidden by the mossy stone.</p> + +<p>Hunt finds other gentle qualities in a stone, citing the opening lines +of Keats’s <i>Hyperion</i>, where he describes the dethroned monarch of the +gods, sitting in his exile:</p> + +<p class="poem">Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,<br /> +Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,<br /> +Far from the fiery noon, and Eve’s one star,<br /> +Sate gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone.</p> + +<p>Nothing certainly can be more quiet than a stone. It utters not a +syllable nor a sigh.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare had the knack of seeing power in things gentle:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Weariness</span><br /> +Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth<br /> +Finds the down pillow hard.</p> + +<p>“If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find upon a little +inquiry that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are +cheerful now,” Hunt writes in the <i>Indicator</i>. “If you are melancholy +many times, recollect that you have got over all those times.”</p> + +<p>This is good advice, and true. Exercise is recommended as a promoter of +cheerfulness. Such a high opinion of the value of exercise was held by +Plato that he maintained it was a cure even for a wounded conscience. In +the same article Hunt suggests that one should not want money for +money’s sake. Certes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> Hunt never craved money for the purpose of +hoarding it. Nearly all his life he needed money acutely, but when a +generous sum came into his possession he did not know how to keep it; +nay, he did not know how to use it properly. He was always “hard up,” +simply because he was a child in money matters. Withal, he was +optimistic and cheerful, even to the extent of remaining at home because +he did not possess the means of purchasing presentable clothing. When +his wife wrote him that after paying for a loaf of bread she would not +have a penny in her pocket, Hunt writes her in a cheerful way. Some of +us with a less keen perception of cheerful situations, or with less +ability to surmount calamities would find it rather difficult to be as +cheerful as Hunt seemed to be.</p> + +<p>Hunt’s correspondence, both published and unpublished, bears testimony +to his cheerfulness even when the clouds were the darkest. Speaking of +the two volumes of <i>Correspondence</i> edited in 1862 by his son Thornton, +Edmund Ollier, the publisher, thus bears tribute to the man and his +buoyancy of spirit even under very trying circumstances. In these +volumes, he says, “we see him as those who knew him familiarly saw him +in his everyday life. Sometimes overclouded with the shadow of +affliction, but more often bright and hopeful, and at all times taking a +keen delight in beautiful things; in the exhaustless world of books and +art; in the rising genius of young authors; in the immortal language of +music; in trees, and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its +suburbs; in the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +out of heaven, glorifying humble places; in the genial intercourse of +mind with mind ... A heart and soul so gifted could not but share +largely in the happiness with which the Divine Ruler of the Universe has +compensated our sorrows; and he had loving hearts about him to the last, +to sweeten all.”</p> + +<p>Hunt’s gentleness and cheerfulness are shown in his essays, as well as +in his poetry. Perhaps none of his essays evidences these qualities of +his heart and mind more forcibly than “A Day by the Fire,” which was +written for the <i>Reflector</i> in 1812, when he was twenty-eight years of +age. “I am one of those that delight in a fireside,” he begins, at once +thereby telling us that he loves kindliness and cheerfulness. For no man +who loves a fire on the hearth, especially a fire made of old wood, can +be a sour old curmudgeon. It is as impossible as it is for one not to +love a sweet little girl.</p> + +<p>Hunt would have his fire left quite to itself, without a tea-kettle, +“bubbling and loud-hissing,” which “throws up a steamy column,” as +Cowper tells it. Such a fire “has full room to breathe and to blaze,” +and he can poke it as he pleases. “Poke it as I please!” he continues. +“Think, benevolent reader, think of the pride and pleasure of having in +your hand that awful, but at the same time artless, weapon, a poker; of +putting it into the proper bar, gently levering up the coals, and seeing +the instant and bustling flame above!”</p> + +<p>The use of the poker with one’s fire is as natural as shaking hands with +a friend. And</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +Then shine the bars, the cakes in smoke aspire<br /> +A sudden glory bursts from all the fire,<br /> +The conscious wight rejoicing in the heat,<br /> +Rubs the blithe knees and toasts th’ alternate feet.</p> + +<p>Writing in <i>The Companion</i> in 1828, he remarks:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A man ... may begin with being happy, on the mere strength of the +purity and vivacity of his pulse: children do so; but he must have +derived his constitution from very virtuous, temperate, and happy +parents indeed, and be a great fool to boot, and wanting in the +commonist sympathies of his nature, if he can continue happy, and +yet be a bad man: and then he could not be bad, in the worst sense +of the word, for his defect would excuse him.</p></div> + +<p>Hunt quotes approvingly this from Hannah More:</p> + +<p class="poem">Since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease,<br /> +And though but few can serve, yet all may please,<br /> +O let th’ ungentle spirit learn from hence,<br /> +A small unkindness is a great offence.</p> + +<p>“Life,” says George Moore, “is a perfect gift, and our duty is to enjoy +it; by doing so we can help others to enjoy.”</p> + +<p>This was Hunt’s philosophy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>These quotations from his letters, taken from originals in our +collection, are indicative of his view of life:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Do not be alarmed about the emptiness of your purse on Monday. In +the course of the day you will receive some money at all +events—enough to go on with ... Meantime I send you two sixpence +(mighty sum!) which I have in the last corner of my pocket. You +will not despise them, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>coming with his heart’s love, and his best +thanks for your cheerful letters.—Oct. 4, 1829, to Mrs. Hunt at +Epsom.</p> + +<p>Heaven seems to afford us consolatory thought, and show to us +almost certain glimpses of happiness, in proportion as we do its +work with cheerfulness:—and what work is more properly the work of +heaven than that of helping one another to bear our burdens and +strengthen our patience?—Letter, Florence, 4 Nov., 1824, to Bebs, +his wife’s sister.</p></div> + +<p>He writes Mrs. Hunt, his “Dearest Molly mine,” thus cheerfully:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have got the twenty guineas, and settled with Hyatt; but I felt +so <i>new</i>, with my waistcoat pocket full of sovereigns, and it +seemed such a <i>charge</i>, that I thought I had better bring it up to +you myself.</p> + +<p>I am again, with bitter heart, forced to disappoint you; but Mr. +Bell says, that “certainly, certainly” (emphatically repeating it) +I shall have the six sovereigns tomorrow morning ... Keep up your +spirits.</p> + +<p>I forgot to mention ... that I have still one of the sovereigns +which I brought away with me, as well as five shillings and +sixpence in silver; so that I hope I shall have enough, if not +quite enough, to pay for the fly on Sunday. If not, perhaps you can +borrow a few shillings till the Treasury pay-day.</p> + +<p>I shall cut short my sighs as I am wont to do.</p> + +<p>I shall regard the whole period as the beginning of that true +sunset of life, of which I have so often spoken; for if clouds are +still about it, they only serve to enrich what the light of love +(the only heavenly light) makes beautiful.</p></div> + +<p>My friends who know me most intimately say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> there are two things in my +life that may not be quite normal—my fondness for work, and my liking +for Leigh Hunt. I do not have any apologies to make for either of these +characteristics. My admiration for Hunt and my consequent desire to +acquire Hunt incunabula could not be brought to fruition if I did not +work and earn. The first characteristic noted therefore is the sequence +of the second.</p> + +<p>I have not seen fit to apologize for either of these traits—the one a +luxury perhaps, the other a necessity.</p> + +<p>Leigh Hunt as a man and as a writer is worth knowing. He not only loved +books, but he made books for others to love. His life at times was +almost a tragedy. There were occasions when he did not have the courage +to leave his house, so lacking was he in possessing enough clothes to +make a decent appearance. At another time he did not have the price of a +loaf of bread, and so went hungry. But he never lost his courage, and +ever was hopeful and sweet tempered.</p> + +<p>Shelley quotes a line seen by him on a sun-dial in Italy: “Colto +soltanto le ore serene”—I mark only the bright hours. Hunt and +Stevenson saw in their lives from day to day only the bright hours.</p> + +<p>And this is the message that The Brewers would send this Christmas time +to their friends: “Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues.” +Only the bright hours are the ones we should see.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="note"> +<tr><td>OF THIS BOOK TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY<br />COPIES WERE PRINTED IN DECEMBER<br /> +NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO<br />BY THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA</td></tr></table> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stevenson's Perfect Virtues, by +Luther Albertus Brewer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + +***** This file should be named 33072-h.htm or 33072-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/7/33072/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + +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: Stevenson's Perfect Virtues + As Exemplified by Leigh Hunt + +Author: Luther Albertus Brewer + +Release Date: July 4, 2010 [EBook #33072] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + + + + + + + + +STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES + + + + + STEVENSON'S + PERFECT VIRTUES + + AS EXEMPLIFIED BY LEIGH HUNT + + + BY + LUTHER A. BREWER + + + PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE + FRIENDS OF LUTHER ALBERTUS + AND ELINORE TAYLOR BREWER + CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA CHRISTMAS + NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO + + + + _Copyrighted 1922 by + Luther A. Brewer_ + + + + +STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES + + _Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues._ + + --Robert Louis Stevenson + + +Stevenson was right. There is not a more admirable trait in one's +character than that of cheerfulness. Combined with that other virtue +named by Stevenson, gentleness, and what more is needed to make a +companionable and a beloved man. + +These two attributes were possessed in an emphatic way both by Stevenson +and by Leigh Hunt. That's why some of us are so fond of Hunt. That's why +he is growing in esteem as he is becoming better known to lovers and +students of the literature produced in England during the first half of +the nineteenth century. + +For it is certain that Hunt is coming into his own. First editions of +his writings year by year are advancing in price. They are becoming +scarce and in some instances exceedingly difficult to obtain. Catalogues +of rare book dealers are listing fewer of his works, and when quotations +are made they invariably are in advance of those of a year or two ago. + +The cultivation of cheerfulness frequently is enjoined throughout his +writings. He had many visitors in his home, attracted there by his +personal qualities and by his gentleness of heart. He was fond of +music, which formed a staple in the entertainment and the conversation. + +Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter), a long time intimate friend, in his +_Recollections of Men of Letters_, mentions the evenings at Hunt's +house: "Hunt never gave dinners, but his suppers of cold meat and salad +were cheerful and pleasant; sometimes the cheerfulness (after a 'wassail +bowl') soared into noisy merriment. I remember one Christmas or New +Year's evening, when we sat there till two or three o'clock in the +morning, and when the jokes and stories and imitations so overcame me +that I was nearly falling off my chair with laughter. This was mainly +owing to the comic imitations of Coulson, who was usually so grave a +man. We used to refer to him as an encyclopedia, so perpetually, indeed, +that Hunt always spoke of him as 'The Admirable Coulson!' This _vis +comica_ left him for the most part in later life, when he became a +distinguished lawyer." + +It was this same Barry Cornwall who introduced Hawthorne to Hunt, a +charming account of Hawthorne's visit being recorded in _Our Old Home_. +"I rejoiced to hear him say," he writes, "that he was favored with most +confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; and +there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an unrepining +spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly benefits that +were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to enjoy, and +piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk--all of which gave a +reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. I wish he +could have had one draught of prosperity before he died." + +There are many of us ready to give expression to the same wish. + +Speaking of Hunt's _Autobiography_, a book second only in interest to +Boswell's _Johnson_ said Carlyle, this caustic writer had the grace to +say that the reader might find in that book "the image of a gifted, +gentle, patient, and valiant human soul, as it buffets its way through +the billows of time, and will not drown though often in danger; cannot +be drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind it." + +The _Spectator_, London, said this autobiography was one of the most +graceful and genial chronicles of the incidents of a human life in the +English language. "The sweetness of temper, the indomitable love and +forgiveness, the pious hilarity, and the faith in the ultimate triumph +of good revealed in its pages show the humane and noble qualities of the +writer." + +This appreciation of Hunt is in contrast with the portrait drawn by +Dickens in _Bleak House_, where the character of Harold Skimpole was so +patent a caricature of Hunt that mutual friends promptly remonstrated +with the author, and this influenced Dickens, in the later numbers of +the monthly parts in which the book was issued, to modify his picture. + +In writing of his father after his death, Thornton evidently had in mind +this ungenerous act of Dickens when he penned these sentences: "His +consideration, his sympathy with what was gay and pleasurable, his +avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness were manifest on the +surface, and could only be appreciated by those who knew him in society, +most probably even exaggerated as salient traits, on which he himself +insisted with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness. In the spirit +which made him disposed to enjoy 'anything that was going forward' he +would even assume for the evening a convivial aspect, and urge a liberal +measure of the wine with the gusto of a bon vivant. Few who knew him so +could be aware, not only of the simple and uncostly sources from which +he habitually drew his enjoyments, but of his singularly plain life, +extended even to a rule of self denial. Excepting at intervals when wine +was recommended to him, or came to him as a gift of friendship, his +customary drink was water, which he would drink with the almost daily +repetition of Dr. Armstrong's line, 'Nought like the simple element +dilutes.'... His dress was always plain and studiously economical. He +would excuse the plainness of his diet, by ascribing it to a delicacy of +health, which he overrated. His food was often nothing but bread and +meat at dinner, bread and tea for two meals of the day, bread alone for +luncheon or for supper. His liberal constructions were shown to others, +his strictness to himself. If he heard that a friend was in trouble, his +house was offered as a 'home'; and it was literally so, many times in +his life." + +Apropos of this, it is of interest to note that his house was an asylum +for Keats for weeks, at a time when the young poet was sick in body and +mind. It was Leigh Hunt who gave Keats, in the _Examiner_, the first +favorable review he received. + +It is but fair to note that Dickens later disclaimed any intent to +portray in Harold Skimpole the foibles of Leigh Hunt. I have several +letters from Dickens to Hunt making delicate reference to the subject. +As late as June 28, 1855, four years prior to Hunt's death, Dickens +wrote: "I hope you will not now think it necessary to renew that painful +subject with me. There is nothing to remove from my mind--I hope, +nothing to remove from yours. I thought of the little notice which has +given you (I rejoice most heartily to find) so much pleasure--as the +best means that could possibly present themselves of enabling me to +express myself publicly about you as you would desire. In that better +and unmistakable association with you by name, let all end." + +Shortly after the death of Hunt Dickens made it a point to say in his +_All the Year Round_ that it was the graces and charms of manner of +Hunt, "which had many a time delighted him, and impressed him as being +unspeakably whimsical and attractive," that were recalled when the +character in question was drawn, and that he had no thought "that the +admired original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the +fictitious creature"--an explanation that does not clear the great +novelist. + +Dickens also bears tribute to Hunt's cheerfulness despite the reasons +he had for sadness. "His life was, in several respects, a life of +trouble, though his cheerfulness was such that he was, upon the whole, +happier than some men who have had fewer griefs to wrestle with." In +Hunt's correspondence, Dickens saw evidence that he was "sometimes +over-clouded with the shadow of affliction, but more often bright and +hopeful, and at all times sympathetic: taking a keen delight in all +beautiful things--in the exhaustless world of books and art, in the +rising genius of young authors, in the immortal language of music, in +trees and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its suburbs; in +the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor out of +heaven, glorifying humble places." + +"The very philosophy of cheerfulness," says R. H. Horne, in _A New +Spirit of the Age_, "and the good humour of genius imbue all his prose +papers from end to end." + +Says Thornton, his eldest son: "Leigh Hunt's whole teaching of himself +as well as others, inculcated the promotion of cheerfulness as a duty, +not for the selfish gain of the one man himself, but for the sake of +making the happier atmosphere for others and rendering the more perfect +homage to the Author of all good and happiness." + +Here is another picture of the cheerful situation, taken from "Our +Cottage," which appeared in _The New Monthly Magazine_ for September, +1836: + + Autumn, the princely season, purple-robed + And liberal-handed, brings no gloom to us, + But, rich in its own self, gives us rich hope + Of winter-time; and when the winter comes, + We burn old wood, and read old books that wall + Our biggest-room. + +"We burn old wood, and read old books"--there's the kindly cheerfulness +that is appealing. Isn't that a picture to drive hence any thought of +sadness? + +His son, Thornton, felicitously said that all his life he was striving +to open more widely the door of the library, and the windows that look +out upon nature. He loved the green fields of suburban London, and never +was more happy than when sauntering along the leafy lanes. With books +for companions and nature for inspiration, how can any mortal be other +than cheerful. + +All the literary men of his time delighted in his society. All were his +friends. Many a mention is made of the happy and cheerful gatherings at +his home. Hazlitt speaks of "the vinous quality of his mind" as +producing a fascination and an intoxication at once upon those who came +in contact with him. + +Professor Dowden, on the other hand, says it was not a heavy wine, but a +bright, light wine that coursed through his veins-- + + Tasting of Flora and the country green, + Dance and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth. + +It is natural for one acquainted with the writings of Leigh Hunt to +associate him with cheerfulness, for kindness and cheerfulness are to be +found in everything he wrote. Even in his letters in which he tells of +some of his perplexities there is found the optimistic note. + +Which recalls what Hunt wrote of associations with Shakespeare. It is +quite natural to associate the idea of Shakespeare with anything which +is worth mention. "Shakespeare and Christmas" are two ideas that fall as +happily together as "wine and walnuts." "Shakespeare and May," and +"Shakespeare and June" call up many essays about spring and violets. One +may say "Shakespeare and Love," and put himself at once in the midst of +a bevy of bright damsels, as sweet as rosebuds. "Shakespeare and Life" +puts before one the whole world of youth, and spirit, and life itself. + +"Hunt and Cheerfulness" are inseparable in the mind of one who knows the +story of his life and its struggles. + +There's the cheerful note in this rondeau which appeared in _The New +Monthly Magazine_, 1838: + + Jenny kiss'd me when we met, + Jumping from the chair she sat in; + Time, you thief! who love to get + Sweets into your list, put that in: + Say I'm weary, say I'm sad; + Say that health and wealth have missed me; + Say I'm growing old, but add-- + Jennie kiss'd me! + +The Jennie here immortalized is said to have been Jane Welsh Carlyle. + +Perhaps Hunt's most quoted poem is his "Abou Ben Adhem," in which he +asks the angel to "write me as one that loves his fellow-men." This is +typical of his life's attitude to mankind. He had a kindly feeling for +all. The line was placed on his tombstone in Kensal Green Cemetery by +those who knew him best, his friends feeling that it most fittingly +indicated the kindliness of his character. + +This poem rightly is considered the most meritorious of all Hunt wrote, +and it is quoted here because we love it: + + Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) + Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, + And saw, within the moonlight in his room, + Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, + An angel writing in a book of gold:-- + Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, + And to the presence in the room he said, + "What writest thou?"--The vision rais'd its head, + And with a look made of all sweet accord, + Answer'd, "The names of those who love the Lord." + "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," + Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, + But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, + Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." + + The angel wrote, and vanish'd. The next night + It came again with a great wakening light, + And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd, + And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. + +The cheerful note is sounded in many of his poems: + + May, thou month of rosy beauty, + Month, when pleasure is a duty. + + * * * * + + May's the blooming hawthorn bough; + May's the month that's laughing now. + I no sooner write the word, + Than it seems as though it heard, + And looks up and laughs at me, + Like a sweet face rosily-- + +If the rains prolong unduly the winter, he can love May in books; for + + There is May in books for ever; + May will part from Spenser never; + May's in Milton, May's in Prior; + May's in Chaucer, Thompson, Dyer; + May's in all the Italian books; + She has old and modern nooks, + Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves + In happy places they call shelves, + And will rise, and dress your rooms + With a drapery thick with blooms. + Come, ye rains then, if ye will, + May's at home, and with me still; + But come rather, thou, good weather, + And find us in the fields together. + +This certainly is redolent of cheer. But he also longs for "manly, +joyous, gipsy June." + + O, could I walk round the earth + With a heart to share my mirth, + With a look to love me ever, + Thoughtful much, but sullen never, + I could be content to see + June and no variety; + Loitering here, and living there, + With a book, and frugal fare, + With a finer gipsy time, + And a cuckoo in the clime, + Work at morn, and mirth at noon, + And sleep beneath the sacred moon. + +In one of the items in his pleasant book, _Table-Talk_, Hunt speaks for +greater cheerfulness in English literature. He cites Suckling's famous +_A Ballad Upon a Wedding_, in which allusion is made to the once popular +belief that the sun danced on Easter-day: + + Her feet beneath her petticoat, + Like little mice, stole in and out, + As if they fear'd the light; + But, Oh! She dances such a way, + No sun upon an Easter-day + Is half so fine a sight. + +And then he remarks that it is a pity that we do not have, if not more +such beliefs, yet more such poetry, to stand us instead of them. "Our +poetry," he writes, "like ourselves, has too little animal spirits. It +has plenty of thought and imagination; plenty of night-thoughts, and +day-thoughts too; and in its dramatic circle, a world of action and +character. It is a poetry of the highest order and the greatest +abundance. But though not sombre--though manly, hearty, and even +luxuriant--it is certainly not a very joyous poetry. And the same may be +said of our literature in general. You do not conceive the writers to +have been cheerful men. They often recommend cheerfulness, but rather as +a good and sensible practice than as something which they feel +themselves." A little later he says, "I am only speaking of the rarity +of a certain kind of sunshine in our literature, and expressing a +natural rainy-day wish that we had a little more of it." He thinks there +should be a joyous set of elegant extracts in a score of volumes, "that +we could have at hand, like a cellaret of good wine, against April or +November weather!" + +Hunt believed in a "cheerful religion." "We are for making the most of +the present world," he wrote. He had not any gloomy forebodings as to +the things that may come after death. His _London Journal_, as Frank +Carr so well states, "breathed such uniform gladness and hopefulness +that every page is pervaded with an odor of homely sanctity, as of +hidden violets." + +And again: He "noticed the flowers when their timorous splendours peeped +through the snow at the first impulse of life in the dark earth, and +when, afterwards, as a mantle they spread their glory over garden and +field; greeted the birds, from the lark's early carol, and the arrival +of the swallows, until the woods became vocal with multitudinous +voices." + +As to Hunt's religion, by the way, there has been much discussion. I +have Leigh Hunt's copy of a volume bearing this long title: "_The +Mystical Initiations; or, Hymns of Orpheus, translated from the original +Greek: with a preliminary dissertation on the Life and Theology of +Orpheus_," containing this observation in Hunt's hand-writing: + + Mr. Taylor's faith sometimes makes him eloquent; but if he had + united, with his Platonical abstractions, the true Christian power + of socially working at all times, he need not have feared whatever + seemed coming. Platonism and Christianity, if either be thoroughly + understood, are formed admirably to go together. The first shapes + the human being to beauty and imagination, the latter to love and + immortality. The first perfects him individually, the latter to + endless companionship. Platonism lifts the philosopher towards + heaven: Christianity takes up the whole human race, and puts them + there. + + I should like to be a worshiper in a Christian temple, in which + whatsoever is good and beautiful should be held, for those reasons, + to be divinely true; in which Plato's unmalignant evil should be + the ground for Christ's all-benevolent good to stand upon; and in + which no more limits should be assigned to whatever was sincere, + loving, and imaginative, than to that boundless and beautiful sky, + which is surely large enough to hold it. + +In these days when so many feel forebodings of trouble it is pleasant to +recall that two such men as Robert Louis Stevenson and Leigh Hunt, each +of whom had reason for gloomy thoughts, persisted in looking upon the +bright things of life. Not anywhere in the writings of these two men +will one find them dwelling on their miseries. Per contra, both preached +cheerfulness. In darkest hours they saw the sunshine and the flowers. +Like our own Lincoln, they plucked the thistle and planted the flower +where they thought the flower would grow. The reading of these two +authors is recommended--as is also a better and more intimate +acquaintance with Charles Lamb. Here is a triumvirate that will drive +into outer darkness all fits of the blues. God will be shown to be in +his heaven, and all will be well with the world. + +"Hunt," says Shelley, "was one of those happy souls which are the salt +of the earth, and without whom this earth would smell like what it is--a +tomb; who is what others seem." + +Hunt viewed his many misfortunes in a kindly spirit, showing us often +what fine things may come to us out of human suffering. It is a +benediction, a peace-compelling exercise to spend an evening with Hunt. +His optimism is catching. One cannot get away from it. He writes of +Samuel Johnson: "How much good and entertainment did not the very +necessities of such a man help to produce us." This is a saying we may +apply to Hunt himself. + +_Leigh Hunt's London Journal_, one of his best publications, states that +its object is "Pleasure ... the pleasure recommended alike by the most +doubting experiment, and the most trusting faith--that of making the +utmost of this green and golden world, the smallest particles of whose +surface we have not yet learned to turn to account--that of profiting +alike from the toil that is incumbent on us, and from 'the lilies of the +valley that toil not, neither do they spin.'... We say nothing we do not +think, and manifest no feelings which are not those of our daily life +and our most habitual enjoyments, our talisman against trouble, and our +best reward for exertion--a leaf, a flower, a fine passage of music, or +poetry, or painting, a belief in a thousand capabilities of earth and +man, give us literally as much delight as we say they do. We should not +otherwise have been able to get through 'a sea of troubles,' not to +recommend as we do the loving light that has saved us." + +Hunt's motto for his _Indicator_, a publication praised by Charles Lamb, +is a cheerful one: "A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sour." It was +taken from Spenser, one of Hunt's favorites, and was suggested by Mrs. +Novello, mother of Mary Cowden Clarke, as we are told in _Letters to an +Enthusiast_: "By the way, did you know that my mother was the godmother +of the 'Indicator?' She suggested its name, and Leigh Hunt adopted it, +and the passage as a motto which she had pointed out as offering ground +for a good title." + +Hunt could get cheerfulness out of a pebble even. "Strike it," he says, +"and you will get something out of him: warm his heart, and out come the +genial sparks that shall gladden your hearth, and put hot dishes on your +table." The brook singeth, states Coleridge in that beautiful stanza: + + A voice of a hidden brook + In the leafy month of June, + That to the sleeping woods all night + Singeth a quiet tune. + +And Hunt observes it would not sing so well without the stone. + +Then in his light, airy way he calls our attention to that exquisite +little poem by Wordsworth on the fair maiden who died by the river Dove: + + A violet by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye; + Fair as the star, when only one + Is shining in the sky. + +And he asks if anything can express a lovelier loneliness, than the +violet half hidden by the mossy stone. + +Hunt finds other gentle qualities in a stone, citing the opening lines +of Keats's _Hyperion_, where he describes the dethroned monarch of the +gods, sitting in his exile: + + Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery noon, and Eve's one star, + Sate gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone. + +Nothing certainly can be more quiet than a stone. It utters not a +syllable nor a sigh. + +Shakespeare had the knack of seeing power in things gentle: + + Weariness + Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth + Finds the down pillow hard. + +"If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find upon a little +inquiry that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are +cheerful now," Hunt writes in the _Indicator_. "If you are melancholy +many times, recollect that you have got over all those times." + +This is good advice, and true. Exercise is recommended as a promoter of +cheerfulness. Such a high opinion of the value of exercise was held by +Plato that he maintained it was a cure even for a wounded conscience. In +the same article Hunt suggests that one should not want money for +money's sake. Certes, Hunt never craved money for the purpose of +hoarding it. Nearly all his life he needed money acutely, but when a +generous sum came into his possession he did not know how to keep it; +nay, he did not know how to use it properly. He was always "hard up," +simply because he was a child in money matters. Withal, he was +optimistic and cheerful, even to the extent of remaining at home because +he did not possess the means of purchasing presentable clothing. When +his wife wrote him that after paying for a loaf of bread she would not +have a penny in her pocket, Hunt writes her in a cheerful way. Some of +us with a less keen perception of cheerful situations, or with less +ability to surmount calamities would find it rather difficult to be as +cheerful as Hunt seemed to be. + +Hunt's correspondence, both published and unpublished, bears testimony +to his cheerfulness even when the clouds were the darkest. Speaking of +the two volumes of _Correspondence_ edited in 1862 by his son Thornton, +Edmund Ollier, the publisher, thus bears tribute to the man and his +buoyancy of spirit even under very trying circumstances. In these +volumes, he says, "we see him as those who knew him familiarly saw him +in his everyday life. Sometimes overclouded with the shadow of +affliction, but more often bright and hopeful, and at all times taking a +keen delight in beautiful things; in the exhaustless world of books and +art; in the rising genius of young authors; in the immortal language of +music; in trees, and flowers, and old memorial nooks of London and its +suburbs; in the sunlight which came, as he used to say, like a visitor +out of heaven, glorifying humble places; in the genial intercourse of +mind with mind ... A heart and soul so gifted could not but share +largely in the happiness with which the Divine Ruler of the Universe has +compensated our sorrows; and he had loving hearts about him to the last, +to sweeten all." + +Hunt's gentleness and cheerfulness are shown in his essays, as well as +in his poetry. Perhaps none of his essays evidences these qualities of +his heart and mind more forcibly than "A Day by the Fire," which was +written for the _Reflector_ in 1812, when he was twenty-eight years of +age. "I am one of those that delight in a fireside," he begins, at once +thereby telling us that he loves kindliness and cheerfulness. For no man +who loves a fire on the hearth, especially a fire made of old wood, can +be a sour old curmudgeon. It is as impossible as it is for one not to +love a sweet little girl. + +Hunt would have his fire left quite to itself, without a tea-kettle, +"bubbling and loud-hissing," which "throws up a steamy column," as +Cowper tells it. Such a fire "has full room to breathe and to blaze," +and he can poke it as he pleases. "Poke it as I please!" he continues. +"Think, benevolent reader, think of the pride and pleasure of having in +your hand that awful, but at the same time artless, weapon, a poker; of +putting it into the proper bar, gently levering up the coals, and seeing +the instant and bustling flame above!" + +The use of the poker with one's fire is as natural as shaking hands with +a friend. And + + Then shine the bars, the cakes in smoke aspire + A sudden glory bursts from all the fire, + The conscious wight rejoicing in the heat, + Rubs the blithe knees and toasts th' alternate feet. + +Writing in _The Companion_ in 1828, he remarks: + + A man ... may begin with being happy, on the mere strength of the + purity and vivacity of his pulse: children do so; but he must have + derived his constitution from very virtuous, temperate, and happy + parents indeed, and be a great fool to boot, and wanting in the + commonist sympathies of his nature, if he can continue happy, and + yet be a bad man: and then he could not be bad, in the worst sense + of the word, for his defect would excuse him. + +Hunt quotes approvingly this from Hannah More: + + Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, + And though but few can serve, yet all may please, + O let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence, + A small unkindness is a great offence. + +"Life," says George Moore, "is a perfect gift, and our duty is to enjoy +it; by doing so we can help others to enjoy." + +This was Hunt's philosophy. + + * * * * * * * + +These quotations from his letters, taken from originals in our +collection, are indicative of his view of life: + + Do not be alarmed about the emptiness of your purse on Monday. In + the course of the day you will receive some money at all + events--enough to go on with ... Meantime I send you two sixpence + (mighty sum!) which I have in the last corner of my pocket. You + will not despise them, coming with his heart's love, and his best + thanks for your cheerful letters.--Oct. 4, 1829, to Mrs. Hunt at + Epsom. + + Heaven seems to afford us consolatory thought, and show to us + almost certain glimpses of happiness, in proportion as we do its + work with cheerfulness:--and what work is more properly the work of + heaven than that of helping one another to bear our burdens and + strengthen our patience?--Letter, Florence, 4 Nov., 1824, to Bebs, + his wife's sister. + +He writes Mrs. Hunt, his "Dearest Molly mine," thus cheerfully: + + I have got the twenty guineas, and settled with Hyatt; but I felt + so _new_, with my waistcoat pocket full of sovereigns, and it + seemed such a _charge_, that I thought I had better bring it up to + you myself. + + I am again, with bitter heart, forced to disappoint you; but Mr. + Bell says, that "certainly, certainly" (emphatically repeating it) + I shall have the six sovereigns tomorrow morning ... Keep up your + spirits. + + I forgot to mention ... that I have still one of the sovereigns + which I brought away with me, as well as five shillings and + sixpence in silver; so that I hope I shall have enough, if not + quite enough, to pay for the fly on Sunday. If not, perhaps you can + borrow a few shillings till the Treasury pay-day. + + I shall cut short my sighs as I am wont to do. + + I shall regard the whole period as the beginning of that true + sunset of life, of which I have so often spoken; for if clouds are + still about it, they only serve to enrich what the light of love + (the only heavenly light) makes beautiful. + +My friends who know me most intimately say there are two things in my +life that may not be quite normal--my fondness for work, and my liking +for Leigh Hunt. I do not have any apologies to make for either of these +characteristics. My admiration for Hunt and my consequent desire to +acquire Hunt incunabula could not be brought to fruition if I did not +work and earn. The first characteristic noted therefore is the sequence +of the second. + +I have not seen fit to apologize for either of these traits--the one a +luxury perhaps, the other a necessity. + +Leigh Hunt as a man and as a writer is worth knowing. He not only loved +books, but he made books for others to love. His life at times was +almost a tragedy. There were occasions when he did not have the courage +to leave his house, so lacking was he in possessing enough clothes to +make a decent appearance. At another time he did not have the price of a +loaf of bread, and so went hungry. But he never lost his courage, and +ever was hopeful and sweet tempered. + +Shelley quotes a line seen by him on a sun-dial in Italy: "Colto +soltanto le ore serene"--I mark only the bright hours. Hunt and +Stevenson saw in their lives from day to day only the bright hours. + +And this is the message that The Brewers would send this Christmas time +to their friends: "Gentleness and cheerfulness are the perfect virtues." +Only the bright hours are the ones we should see. + + + + + OF THIS BOOK TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY + COPIES WERE PRINTED IN DECEMBER + NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO + BY THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +The misprint "Leight" was corrected to "Leigh" (page 9). + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stevenson's Perfect Virtues, by +Luther Albertus Brewer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEVENSON'S PERFECT VIRTUES *** + +***** This file should be named 33072.txt or 33072.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/7/33072/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Library of Congress.) + + +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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