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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:53 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:53 -0700 |
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diff --git a/386-h/386-h.htm b/386-h/386-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e49137f --- /dev/null +++ b/386-h/386-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5190 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Virginibus Puerisque, by Robert Louis Stevenson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Virginibus Puerisque, by Robert Louis +Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Virginibus Puerisque + and Other Papers + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: November 6, 2012 [eBook #386] +[This book was first posted May 23, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1897 Chatto & Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE AND OTHER PAPERS</h1> +<h2>“VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE”</h2> +<h3>I.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">With</span> the single exception of +Falstaff, all Shakespeare’s characters are what we call +marrying men. Mercutio, as he was own cousin to Benedick +and Biron, would have come to the same end in the long run. +Even Iago had a wife, and, what is far stranger, he was +jealous. People like Jacques and the Fool in <i>Lear</i>, +although we can hardly imagine they would ever marry, kept single +out of a cynical humour or for a broken heart, and not, as we do +nowadays, from a spirit of incredulity and preference for the +single state. For that matter, if you turn to George +Sand’s French version of <i>As You Like It</i> (and I think +I can promise you will like it but little), you will find Jacques +marries Celia just as Orlando marries Rosalind.</p> +<p>At least there seems to have been much less hesitation over +marriage in Shakespeare’s days; and what hesitation there +was was of a laughing sort, and not much more serious, one way or +the other, than that of Panurge. In modern comedies the +heroes are mostly of Benedick’s way of thinking, but twice +as much in earnest, and not one quarter so confident. And I +take this diffidence as a proof of how sincere their terror +is. They know they are only human after all; they know what +gins and pitfalls lie about their feet; and how the shadow of +matrimony waits, resolute and awful, at the cross-roads. +They would wish to keep their liberty; but if that may not be, +why, God’s will be done! “What, are you afraid +of marriage?” asks Cécile, in <i>Maître +Guerin</i>. “Oh, mon Dieu, non!” replies +Arthur; “I should take chloroform.” They look +forward to marriage much in the same way as they prepare +themselves for death: each seems inevitable; each is a great +Perhaps, and a leap into the dark, for which, when a man is in +the blue devils, he has specially to harden his heart. That +splendid scoundrel, Maxime de Trailles, took the news of +marriages much as an old man hears the deaths of his +contemporaries. “C’est +désespérant,” he cried, throwing himself down +in the arm-chair at Madame Schontz’s; “c’est +désespérant, nous nous marions tous!” +Every marriage was like another gray hair on his head; and the +jolly church bells seemed to taunt him with his fifty years and +fair round belly.</p> +<p>The fact is, we are much more afraid of life than our +ancestors, and cannot find it in our hearts either to marry or +not to marry. Marriage is terrifying, but so is a cold and +forlorn old age. The friendships of men are vastly +agreeable, but they are insecure. You know all the time +that one friend will marry and put you to the door; a second +accept a situation in China, and become no more to you than a +name, a reminiscence, and an occasional crossed letter, very +laborious to read; a third will take up with some religious +crotchet and treat you to sour looks thence-forward. So, in +one way or another, life forces men apart and breaks up the +goodly fellowships for ever. The very flexibility and ease +which make men’s friendships so agreeable while they +endure, make them the easier to destroy and forget. And a +man who has a few friends, or one who has a dozen (if there be +any one so wealthy on this earth), cannot forget on how +precarious a base his happiness reposes; and how by a stroke or +two of fate—a death, a few light words, a piece of stamped +paper, a woman’s bright eyes—he may be left, in a +month, destitute of all. Marriage is certainly a perilous +remedy. Instead of on two or three, you stake your +happiness on one life only. But still, as the bargain is +more explicit and complete on your part, it is more so on the +other; and you have not to fear so many contingencies; it is not +every wind that can blow you from your anchorage; and so long as +Death withholds his sickle, you will always have a friend at +home. People who share a cell in the Bastile, or are thrown +together on an uninhabited isle, if they do not immediately fall +to fisticuffs, will find some possible ground of +compromise. They will learn each other’s ways and +humours, so as to know where they must go warily, and where they +may lean their whole weight. The discretion of the first +years becomes the settled habit of the last; and so, with wisdom +and patience, two lives may grow indissolubly into one.</p> +<p>But marriage, if comfortable, is not at all heroic. It +certainly narrows and damps the spirits of generous men. In +marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty +degeneration of his moral being. It is not only when +Lydgate misallies himself with Rosamond Vincy, but when Ladislaw +marries above him with Dorothea, that this may be +exemplified. The air of the fireside withers out all the +fine wildings of the husband’s heart. He is so +comfortable and happy that he begins to prefer comfort and +happiness to everything else on earth, his wife included. +Yesterday he would have shared his last shilling; to-day +“his first duty is to his family,” and is fulfilled +in large measure by laying down vintages and husbanding the +health of an invaluable parent. Twenty years ago this man +was equally capable of crime or heroism; now he is fit for +neither. His soul is asleep, and you may speak without +constraint; you will not wake him. It is not for nothing +that Don Quixote was a bachelor and Marcus Aurelius married +ill. For women, there is less of this danger. +Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out to her so much +more of life, and puts her in the way of so much more freedom and +usefulness, that, whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly +miss some benefit. It is true, however, that some of the +merriest and most genuine of women are old maids; and that those +old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most +of the true motherly touch. And this would seem to show, +even for women, some narrowing influence in comfortable married +life. But the rule is none the less certain: if you wish +the pick of men and women, take a good bachelor and a good +wife.</p> +<p>I am often filled with wonder that so many marriages are +passably successful, and so few come to open failure, the more so +as I fail to understand the principle on which people regulate +their choice. I see women marrying indiscriminately with +staring burgesses and ferret-faced, white-eyed boys, and men +dwell in contentment with noisy scullions, or taking into their +lives acidulous vestals. It is a common answer to say the +good people marry because they fall in love; and of course you +may use and misuse a word as much as you please, if you have the +world along with you. But love is at least a somewhat +hyperbolical expression for such luke-warm preference. It +is not here, anyway, that Love employs his golden shafts; he +cannot be said, with any fitness of language, to reign here and +revel. Indeed, if this be love at all, it is plain the +poets have been fooling with mankind since the foundation of the +world. And you have only to look these happy couples in the +face, to see they have never been in love, or in hate, or in any +other high passion, all their days. When you see a dish of +fruit at dessert, you sometimes set your affections upon one +particular peach or nectarine, watch it with some anxiety as it +comes round the table, and feel quite a sensible disappointment +when it is taken by some one else. I have used the phrase +“high passion.” Well, I should say this was +about as high a passion as generally leads to marriage. One +husband hears after marriage that some poor fellow is dying of +his wife’s love. “What a pity!” he +exclaims; “you know I could so easily have got +another!” And yet that is a very happy union. +Or again: A young man was telling me the sweet story of his +loves. “I like it well enough as long as her sisters +are there,” said this amorous swain; “but I +don’t know what to do when we’re alone.” +Once more: A married lady was debating the subject with another +lady. “You know, dear,” said the first, +“after ten years of marriage, if he is nothing else, your +husband is always an old friend.” “I have many +old friends,” returned the other, “but I prefer them +to be nothing more.” “Oh, perhaps I might +<i>prefer</i> that also!” There is a common note in +these three illustrations of the modern idyll; and it must be +owned the god goes among us with a limping gait and blear +eyes. You wonder whether it was so always; whether desire +was always equally dull and spiritless, and possession equally +cold. I cannot help fancying most people make, ere they +marry, some such table of recommendations as Hannah Godwin wrote +to her brother William anent her friend, Miss Gay. It is so +charmingly comical, and so pat to the occasion, that I must quote +a few phrases. “The young lady is in every sense +formed to make one of your disposition really happy. She +has a pleasing voice, with which she accompanies her musical +instrument with judgment. She has an easy politeness in her +manners, neither free nor reserved. She is a good +housekeeper and a good economist, and yet of a generous +disposition. As to her internal accomplishments, I have +reason to speak still more highly of them: good sense without +vanity, a penetrating judgment without a disposition to satire, +with about as much religion as my William likes, struck me with a +wish that she was my William’s wife.” That is +about the tune: pleasing voice, moderate good looks, +unimpeachable internal accomplishments after the style of the +copy-book, with about as much religion as my William likes; and +then, with all speed, to church.</p> +<p>To deal plainly, if they only married when they fell in love, +most people would die unwed; and among the others, there would be +not a few tumultuous households. The Lion is the King of +Beasts, but he is scarcely suitable for a domestic pet. In +the same way, I suspect love is rather too violent a passion to +make, in all cases, a good domestic sentiment. Like other +violent excitements, it throws up not only what is best, but what +is worst and smallest, in men’s characters. Just as +some people are malicious in drink, or brawling and virulent +under the influence of religious feeling, some are moody, +jealous, and exacting when they are in love, who are honest, +downright, good-hearted fellows enough in the everyday affairs +and humours of the world.</p> +<p>How then, seeing we are driven to the hypothesis that people +choose in comparatively cold blood, how is it they choose so +well? One is almost tempted to hint that it does not much +matter whom you marry; that, in fact, marriage is a subjective +affection, and if you have made up your mind to it, and once +talked yourself fairly over, you could “pull it +through” with anybody. But even if we take matrimony +at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of +friendship recognised by the police, there must be degrees in the +freedom and sympathy realised, and some principle to guide simple +folk in their selection. Now what should this principle +be? Are there no more definite rules than are to be found +in the Prayer-book? Law and religion forbid the bans on the +ground of propinquity or consanguinity; society steps in to +separate classes; and in all this most critical matter, has +common sense, has wisdom, never a word to say? In the +absence of more magisterial teaching, let us talk it over between +friends: even a few guesses may be of interest to youths and +maidens.</p> +<p>In all that concerns eating and drinking, company, climate, +and ways of life, community of taste is to be sought for. +It would be trying, for instance, to keep bed and board with an +early riser or a vegetarian. In matters of art and +intellect, I believe it is of no consequence. Certainly it +is of none in the companionships of men, who will dine more +readily with one who has a good heart, a good cellar, and a +humorous tongue, than with another who shares all their favourite +hobbies and is melancholy withal. If your wife likes +Tupper, that is no reason why you should hang your head. +She thinks with the majority, and has the courage of her +opinions. I have always suspected public taste to be a +mongrel product, out of affectation by dogmatism; and felt sure, +if you could only find an honest man of no special literary bent, +he would tell you he thought much of Shakespeare bombastic and +most absurd, and all of him written in very obscure English and +wearisome to read. And not long ago I was able to lay by my +lantern in content, for I found the honest man. He was a +fellow of parts, quick, humorous, a clever painter, and with an +eye for certain poetical effects of sea and ships. I am not +much of a judge of that kind of thing, but a sketch of his comes +before me sometimes at night. How strong, supple, and +living the ship seems upon the billows! With what a dip and +rake she shears the flying sea! I cannot fancy the man who +saw this effect, and took it on the wing with so much force and +spirit, was what you call commonplace in the last recesses of the +heart. And yet he thought, and was not ashamed to have it +known of him, that Ouida was better in every way than William +Shakespeare. If there were more people of his honesty, this +would be about the staple of lay criticism. It is not taste +that is plentiful, but courage that is rare. And what have +we in place? How many, who think no otherwise than the +young painter, have we not heard disbursing second-hand +hyperboles? Have you never turned sick at heart, O best of +critics! when some of your own sweet adjectives were returned on +you before a gaping audience? Enthusiasm about art is +become a function of the average female being, which she performs +with precision and a sort of haunting sprightliness, like an +ingenious and well-regulated machine. Sometimes, alas! the +calmest man is carried away in the torrent, bandies adjectives +with the best, and out-Herods Herod for some shameful +moments. When you remember that, you will be tempted to put +things strongly, and say you will marry no one who is not like +George the Second, and cannot state openly a distaste for poetry +and painting.</p> +<p>The word “facts” is, in some ways, crucial. +I have spoken with Jesuits and Plymouth Brethren, mathematicians +and poets, dogmatic republicans and dear old gentlemen in +bird’s-eye neckcloths; and each understood the word +“facts” in an occult sense of his own. Try as I +might, I could get no nearer the principle of their +division. What was essential to them, seemed to me trivial +or untrue. We could come to no compromise as to what was, +or what was not, important in the life of man. Turn as we +pleased, we all stood back to back in a big ring, and saw another +quarter of the heavens, with different mountain-tops along the +sky-line and different constellations overhead. We had each +of us some whimsy in the brain, which we believed more than +anything else, and which discoloured all experience to its own +shade. How would you have people agree, when one is deaf +and the other blind? Now this is where there should be +community between man and wife. They should be agreed on +their catchword in “<i>facts of religion</i>,” or +“<i>facts of science</i>,” or “<i>society</i>, +<i>my dear</i>”; for without such an agreement all +intercourse is a painful strain upon the mind. “About +as much religion as my William likes,” in short, that is +what is necessary to make a happy couple of any William and his +spouse. For there are differences which no habit nor +affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian must not intermarry +with the Pharisee. Imagine Consuelo as Mrs. Samuel Budget, +the wife of the successful merchant! The best of men and +the best of women may sometimes live together all their lives, +and, for want of some consent on fundamental questions, hold each +other lost spirits to the end.</p> +<p>A certain sort of talent is almost indispensable for people +who would spend years together and not bore themselves to +death. But the talent, like the agreement, must be for and +about life. To dwell happily together, they should be +versed in the niceties of the heart, and born with a faculty for +willing compromise. The woman must be talented as a woman, +and it will not much matter although she is talented in nothing +else. She must know her <i>métier de femme</i>, and +have a fine touch for the affections. And it is more +important that a person should be a good gossip, and talk +pleasantly and smartly of common friends and the thousand and one +nothings of the day and hour, than that she should speak with the +tongues of men and angels; for a while together by the fire, +happens more frequently in marriage than the presence of a +distinguished foreigner to dinner. That people should laugh +over the same sort of jests, and have many a story of +“grouse in the gun-room,” many an old joke between +them which time cannot wither nor custom stale, is a better +preparation for life, by your leave, than many other things +higher and better sounding in the world’s ears. You +could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a +joke with some one else. You can forgive people who do not +follow you through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your +wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when +you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards a +dissolution of the marriage.</p> +<p>I know a woman who, from some distaste or disability, could +never so much as understand the meaning of the word +<i>politics</i>, and has given up trying to distinguish Whigs +from Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about +other men or women and the chicanery of everyday +existence—the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life +turns—and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, +and humorous. Nay, to make plainer what I have in mind, +this same woman has a share of the higher and more poetical +understanding, frank interest in things for their own sake, and +enduring astonishment at the most common. She is not to be +deceived by custom, or made to think a mystery solved when it is +repeated. I have heard her say she could wonder herself +crazy over the human eyebrow. Now in a world where most of +us walk very contentedly in the little lit circle of their own +reason, and have to be reminded of what lies without by specious +and clamant exceptions—earthquakes, eruptions of Vesuvius, +banjos floating in mid-air at a <i>séance</i>, and the +like—a mind so fresh and unsophisticated is no despicable +gift. I will own I think it a better sort of mind than goes +necessarily with the clearest views on public business. It +will wash. It will find something to say at an odd +moment. It has in it the spring of pleasant and quaint +fancies. Whereas I can imagine myself yawning all night +long until my jaws ached and the tears came into my eyes, +although my companion on the other side of the hearth held the +most enlightened opinions on the franchise or the ballot.</p> +<p>The question of professions, in as far as they regard +marriage, was only interesting to women until of late days, but +it touches all of us now. Certainly, if I could help it, I +would never marry a wife who wrote. The practice of letters +is miserably harassing to the mind; and after an hour or +two’s work, all the more human portion of the author is +extinct; he will bully, backbite, and speak daggers. Music, +I hear, is not much better. But painting, on the contrary, +is often highly sedative; because so much of the labour, after +your picture is once begun, is almost entirely manual, and of +that skilled sort of manual labour which offers a continual +series of successes, and so tickles a man, through his vanity, +into good humour. Alas! in letters there is nothing of this +sort. You may write as beautiful a hand as you will, you have +always something else to think of, and cannot pause to notice +your loops and flourishes; they are beside the mark, and the +first law stationer could put you to the blush. Rousseau, +indeed, made some account of penmanship, even made it a source of +livelihood, when he copied out the <i>Héloïse</i> for +<i>dilettante</i> ladies; and therein showed that strange +eccentric prudence which guided him among so many thousand +follies and insanities. It would be well for all of the +<i>genus irritabile</i> thus to add something of skilled labour +to intangible brain-work. To find the right word is so +doubtful a success and lies so near to failure, that there is no +satisfaction in a year of it; but we all know when we have formed +a letter perfectly; and a stupid artist, right or wrong, is +almost equally certain he has found a right tone or a right +colour, or made a dexterous stroke with his brush. And, +again, painters may work out of doors; and the fresh air, the +deliberate seasons, and the “tranquillising +influence” of the green earth, counterbalance the fever of +thought, and keep them cool, placable, and prosaic.</p> +<p>A ship captain is a good man to marry if it is a marriage of +love, for absences are a good influence in love and keep it +bright and delicate; but he is just the worst man if the feeling +is more pedestrian, as habit is too frequently torn open and the +solder has never time to set. Men who fish, botanise, work +with the turning-lathe, or gather sea-weeds, will make admirable +husbands; and a little amateur painting in water-colour shows the +innocent and quiet mind. Those who have a few intimates are +to be avoided; while those who swim loose, who have their hat in +their hand all along the street, who can number an infinity of +acquaintances and are not chargeable with any one friend, promise +an easy disposition and no rival to the wife’s +influence. I will not say they are the best of men, but +they are the stuff out of which adroit and capable women +manufacture the best of husbands. It is to be noticed that +those who have loved once or twice already are so much the better +educated to a woman’s hand; the bright boy of fiction is an +odd and most uncomfortable mixture of shyness and coarseness, and +needs a deal of civilising. Lastly (and this is, perhaps, +the golden rule), no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man +who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this +“ignoble tabagie,” as Michelet calls it, spreads over +all the world. Michelet rails against it because it renders +you happy apart from thought or work; to provident women this +will seem no evil influence in married life. Whatever keeps +a man in the front garden, whatever checks wandering fancy and +all inordinate ambition, whatever makes for lounging and +contentment, makes just so surely for domestic happiness.</p> +<p>These notes, if they amuse the reader at all, will probably +amuse him more when he differs than when he agrees with them; at +least they will do no harm, for nobody will follow my +advice. But the last word is of more concern. +Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts +light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. They have +been so tried among the inconstant squalls and currents, so often +sailed for islands in the air or lain becalmed with burning +heart, that they will risk all for solid ground below their +feet. Desperate pilots, they run their sea-sick, weary bark +upon the dashing rocks. It seems as if marriage were the +royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we +have all dreamed on summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at +night when we cannot sleep for the desire of living. They +think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a +brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil +and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the +devil’s. To the end, spring winds will sow +disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the +whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For +marriage is like life in this—that it is a field of battle, +and not a bed of roses.</p> +<h3>II.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Hope</span>, they say, deserts us at no +period of our existence. From first to last, and in the +face of smarting disillusions, we continue to expect good +fortune, better health, and better conduct; and that so +confidently, that we judge it needless to deserve them. I +think it improbable that I shall ever write like Shakespeare, +conduct an army like Hannibal, or distinguish myself like Marcus +Aurelius in the paths of virtue; and yet I have my by-days, hope +prompting, when I am very ready to believe that I shall combine +all these various excellences in my own person, and go marching +down to posterity with divine honours. There is nothing so +monstrous but we can believe it of ourselves. About +ourselves, about our aspirations and delinquencies, we have dwelt +by choice in a delicious vagueness from our boyhood up. No +one will have forgotten Tom Sawyer’s aspiration: “Ah, +if he could only die <i>temporarily</i>!” Or, +perhaps, better still, the inward resolution of the two pirates, +that “so long as they remained in that business, their +piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of +stealing.” Here we recognise the thoughts of our +boyhood; and our boyhood ceased—well, when?—not, I +think, at twenty; nor, perhaps, altogether at twenty-five; nor +yet at thirty; and possibly, to be quite frank, we are still in +the thick of that arcadian period. For as the race of man, +after centuries of civilisation, still keeps some traits of their +barbarian fathers, so man the individual is not altogether quit +of youth, when he is already old and honoured, and Lord +Chancellor of England. We advance in years somewhat in the +manner of an invading army in a barren land; the age that we have +reached, as the phrase goes, we but hold with an outpost, and +still keep open our communications with the extreme rear and +first beginnings of the march. There is our true base; that +is not only the beginning, but the perennial spring of our +faculties; and grandfather William can retire upon occasion into +the green enchanted forest of his boyhood.</p> +<p>The unfading boyishness of hope and its vigorous irrationality +are nowhere better displayed than in questions of conduct. +There is a character in the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, one +Mr. <i>Linger-after-Lust</i> with whom I fancy we are all on +speaking terms; one famous among the famous for ingenuity of hope +up to and beyond the moment of defeat; one who, after eighty +years of contrary experience, will believe it possible to +continue in the business of piracy and yet avoid the guilt of +theft. Every sin is our last; every 1st of January a +remarkable turning-point in our career. Any overt act, +above all, is felt to be alchemic in its power to change. A +drunkard takes the pledge; it will be strange if that does not +help him. For how many years did Mr. Pepys continue to make +and break his little vows? And yet I have not heard that he +was discouraged in the end. By such steps we think to fix a +momentary resolution; as a timid fellow hies him to the +dentist’s while the tooth is stinging.</p> +<p>But, alas, by planting a stake at the top of flood, you can +neither prevent nor delay the inevitable ebb. There is no +hocus-pocus in morality; and even the “sanctimonious +ceremony” of marriage leaves the man unchanged. This +is a hard saying, and has an air of paradox. For there is +something in marriage so natural and inviting, that the step has +an air of great simplicity and ease; it offers to bury for ever +many aching preoccupations; it is to afford us unfailing and +familiar company through life; it opens up a smiling prospect of +the blest and passive kind of love, rather than the blessing and +active; it is approached not only through the delights of +courtship, but by a public performance and repeated legal +signatures. A man naturally thinks it will go hard with him +if he cannot be good and fortunate and happy within such august +circumvallations.</p> +<p>And yet there is probably no other act in a man’s life +so hot-headed and foolhardy as this one of marriage. For +years, let us suppose, you have been making the most indifferent +business of your career. Your experience has not, we may +dare to say, been more encouraging than Paul’s or +Horace’s; like them, you have seen and desired the good +that you were not able to accomplish; like them, you have done +the evil that you loathed. You have waked at night in a hot +or a cold sweat, according to your habit of body, remembering +with dismal surprise, your own unpardonable acts and +sayings. You have been sometimes tempted to withdraw +entirely from this game of life; as a man who makes nothing but +misses withdraws from that less dangerous one of billiards. +You have fallen back upon the thought that you yourself most +sharply smarted for your misdemeanours, or, in the old, plaintive +phrase, that you were nobody’s enemy but your own. +And then you have been made aware of what was beautiful and +amiable, wise and kind, in the other part of your behaviour; and +it seemed as if nothing could reconcile the contradiction, as +indeed nothing can. If you are a man, you have shut your +mouth hard and said nothing; and if you are only a man in the +making, you have recognised that yours was quite a special case, +and you yourself not guilty of your own pestiferous career.</p> +<p>Granted, and with all my heart. Let us accept these +apologies; let us agree that you are nobody’s enemy but +your own; let us agree that you are a sort of moral cripple, +impotent for good; and let us regard you with the unmingled pity +due to such a fate. But there is one thing to which, on +these terms, we can never agree:—we can never agree to have +you marry. What! you have had one life to manage, and have +failed so strangely, and now can see nothing wiser than to +conjoin with it the management of some one else’s? +Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose +yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You strip yourself +by such a step of all remaining consolations and excuses. +You are no longer content to be your own enemy; you must be your +wife’s also. You have been hitherto in a mere +subaltern attitude; dealing cruel blows about you in life, yet +only half responsible, since you came there by no choice or +movement of your own. Now, it appears, you must take things +on your own authority: God made you, but you marry yourself; and +for all that your wife suffers, no one is responsible but +you. A man must be very certain of his knowledge ere he +undertake to guide a ticket-of-leave man through a dangerous +pass; you have eternally missed your way in life, with +consequences that you still deplore, and yet you masterfully +seize your wife’s hand, and, blindfold, drag her after you +to ruin. And it is your wife, you observe, whom you +select. She, whose happiness you most desire, you choose to +be your victim. You would earnestly warn her from a +tottering bridge or bad investment. If she were to marry +some one else, how you would tremble for her fate! If she +were only your sister, and you thought half as much of her, how +doubtfully would you entrust her future to a man no better than +yourself!</p> +<p>Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more +by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road +lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. Idleness, +which is often becoming and even wise in the bachelor, begins to +wear a different aspect when you have a wife to support. +Suppose, after you are married, one of those little slips were to +befall you. What happened last November might surely happen +February next. They may have annoyed you at the time, +because they were not what you had meant; but how will they annoy +you in the future, and how will they shake the fabric of your +wife’s confidence and peace! A thousand things +unpleasing went on in the <i>chiaroscuro</i> of a life that you +shrank from too particularly realising; you did not care, in +those days, to make a fetish of your conscience; you would +recognise your failures with a nod, and so, good day. But +the time for these reserves is over. You have wilfully +introduced a witness into your life, the scene of these defeats, +and can no longer close the mind’s eye upon uncomely +passages, but must stand up straight and put a name upon your +actions. And your witness is not only the judge, but the +victim of your sins; not only can she condemn you to the sharpest +penalties, but she must herself share feelingly in their +endurance. And observe, once more, with what temerity you +have chosen precisely <i>her</i> to be your spy, whose esteem you +value highest, and whom you have already taught to think you +better than you are. You may think you had a conscience, +and believed in God; but what is a conscience to a wife? +Wise men of yore erected statues of their deities, and +consciously performed their part in life before those marble +eyes. A god watched them at the board, and stood by their +bedside in the morning when they woke; and all about their +ancient cities, where they bought and sold, or where they piped +and wrestled, there would stand some symbol of the things that +are outside of man. These were lessons, delivered in the +quiet dialect of art, which told their story faithfully, but +gently. It is the same lesson, if you will—but how +harrowingly taught!—when the woman you respect shall weep +from your unkindness or blush with shame at your +misconduct. Poor girls in Italy turn their painted Madonnas +to the wall: you cannot set aside your wife. To marry is to +domesticate the Recording Angel. Once you are married, +there is nothing left for you, not even suicide, but to be +good.</p> +<p>And goodness in marriage is a more intricate problem than mere +single virtue; for in marriage there are two ideals to be +realised. A girl, it is true, has always lived in a glass +house among reproving relatives, whose word was law; she has been +bred up to sacrifice her judgments and take the key submissively +from dear papa; and it is wonderful how swiftly she can change +her tune into the husband’s. Her morality has been, +too often, an affair of precept and conformity. But in the +case of a bachelor who has enjoyed some measure both of privacy +and freedom, his moral judgments have been passed in some +accordance with his nature. His sins were always sins in +his own sight; he could then only sin when he did some act +against his clear conviction; the light that he walked by was +obscure, but it was single. Now, when two people of any +grit and spirit put their fortunes into one, there succeeds to +this comparative certainty a huge welter of competing +jurisdictions. It no longer matters so much how life +appears to one; one must consult another: one, who may be strong, +must not offend the other, who is weak. The only weak +brother I am willing to consider is (to make a bull for once) my +wife. For her, and for her only, I must waive my righteous +judgments, and go crookedly about my life. How, then, in +such an atmosphere of compromise, to keep honour bright and +abstain from base capitulations? How are you to put aside +love’s pleadings? How are you, the apostle of laxity, +to turn suddenly about into the rabbi of precision; and after +these years of ragged practice, pose for a hero to the lackey who +has found you out? In this temptation to mutual indulgence +lies the particular peril to morality in married life. +Daily they drop a little lower from the first ideal, and for a +while continue to accept these changelings with a gross +complacency. At last Love wakes and looks about him; finds +his hero sunk into a stout old brute, intent on brandy pawnee; +finds his heroine divested of her angel brightness; and in the +flash of that first disenchantment, flees for ever.</p> +<p>Again, the husband, in these unions, is usually a man, and the +wife commonly enough a woman; and when this is the case, although +it makes the firmer marriage, a thick additional veil of +misconception hangs above the doubtful business. Women, I +believe, are somewhat rarer than men; but then, if I were a woman +myself, I daresay I should hold the reverse; and at least we all +enter more or less wholly into one or other of these camps. +A man who delights women by his feminine perceptions will often +scatter his admirers by a chance explosion of the under side of +man; and the most masculine and direct of women will some day, to +your dire surprise, draw out like a telescope into successive +lengths of personation. Alas! for the man, knowing her to +be at heart more candid than himself, who shall flounder, +panting, through these mazes in the quest for truth. The +proper qualities of each sex are, indeed, eternally surprising to +the other. Between the Latin and the Teuton races there are +similar divergences, not to be bridged by the most liberal +sympathy. And in the good, plain, cut-and-dry explanations +of this life, which pass current among us as the wisdom of the +elders, this difficulty has been turned with the aid of pious +lies. Thus, when a young lady has angelic features, eats +nothing to speak of, plays all day long on the piano, and sings +ravishingly in church, it requires a rough infidelity, falsely +called cynicism, to believe that she may be a little devil after +all. Yet so it is: she may be a tale-bearer, a liar, and a +thief; she may have a taste for brandy, and no heart. My +compliments to George Eliot for her Rosamond Vincy; the ugly work +of satire she has transmuted to the ends of art, by the companion +figure of Lydgate; and the satire was much wanted for the +education of young men. That doctrine of the excellence of +women, however chivalrous, is cowardly as well as false. It +is better to face the fact, and know, when you marry, that you +take into your life a creature of equal, if of unlike, frailties; +whose weak human heart beats no more tunefully than yours.</p> +<p>But it is the object of a liberal education not only to +obscure the knowledge of one sex by another, but to magnify the +natural differences between the two. Man is a creature who +lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords; and +the little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by +simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to +the boys. To the first, there is shown but a very small +field of experience, and taught a very trenchant principle for +judgment and action; to the other, the world of life is more +largely displayed, and their rule of conduct is proportionally +widened. They are taught to follow different virtues, to +hate different vices, to place their ideal, even for each other, +in different achievements. What should be the result of +such a course? When a horse has run away, and the two +flustered people in the gig have each possessed themselves of a +rein, we know the end of that conveyance will be in the +ditch. So, when I see a raw youth and a green girl, fluted +and fiddled in a dancing measure into that most serious contract, +and setting out upon life’s journey with ideas so +monstrously divergent, I am not surprised that some make +shipwreck, but that any come to port. What the boy does +almost proudly, as a manly peccadillo, the girl will shudder at +as a debasing vice; what is to her the mere common sense of +tactics, he will spit out of his mouth as shameful. Through +such a sea of contrarieties must this green couple steer their +way; and contrive to love each other; and to respect, forsooth; +and be ready, when the time arrives, to educate the little men +and women who shall succeed to their places and perplexities.</p> +<p>And yet, when all has been said, the man who should hold back +from marriage is in the same case with him who runs away from +battle. To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse +degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a +fall. It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into +temptation; but not lawful to skulk from those that come to +us. The noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this +century, is where the old pope glories in the trial, nay, in the +partial fall and but imperfect triumph, of the younger hero. <a +name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a> Without some such manly note, it +were perhaps better to have no conscience at all. But there +is a vast difference between teaching flight, and showing points +of peril that a man may march the more warily. And the true +conclusion of this paper is to turn our back on apprehensions, +and embrace that shining and courageous virtue, Faith. Hope +is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase +swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet +smiling man. Hope lives on ignorance; open-eyed Faith is +built upon a knowledge of our life, of the tyranny of +circumstance and the frailty of human resolution. Hope +looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on +failure, and takes honourable defeat to be a form of +victory. Hope is a kind old pagan; but Faith grew up in +Christian days, and early learnt humility. In the one +temper, a man is indignant that he cannot spring up in a clap to +heights of elegance and virtue; in the other, out of a sense of +his infirmities, he is filled with confidence because a year has +come and gone, and he has still preserved some rags of +honour. In the first, he expects an angel for a wife; in +the last, he knows that she is like himself—erring, +thoughtless, and untrue; but like himself also, filled with a +struggling radiancy of better things, and adorned with +ineffective qualities. You may safely go to school with +hope; but ere you marry, should have learned the mingled lesson +of the world: that dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and yet are +excellent play-things; that hope and love address themselves to a +perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, become the salt +and staff of life; that you yourself are compacted of +infirmities, perfect, you might say, in imperfection, and yet you +have a something in you lovable and worth preserving; and that, +while the mass of mankind lies under this scurvy condemnation, +you will scarce find one but, by some generous reading, will +become to you a lesson, a model, and a noble spouse through +life. So thinking, you will constantly support your own +unworthiness, and easily forgive the failings of your +friend. Nay, you will be I wisely glad that you retain the +sense of blemishes; for the faults of married people continually +spur up each of them, hour by hour, to do better and to meet and +love upon a higher ground. And ever, between the failures, +there will come glimpses of kind virtues to encourage and +console.</p> +<h3>III.—ON FALLING IN LOVE</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Lord, what fools these mortals +be!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is only one event in life +which really astonishes a man and startles him out of his +prepared opinions. Everything else befalls him very much as +he expected. Event succeeds to event, with an agreeable +variety indeed, but with little that is either startling or +intense; they form together no more than a sort of background, or +running accompaniment to the man’s own reflections; and he +falls naturally into a cool, curious, and smiling habit of mind, +and builds himself up in a conception of life which expects +to-morrow to be after the pattern of to-day and yesterday. +He may be accustomed to the vagaries of his friends and +acquaintances under the influence of love. He may sometimes +look forward to it for himself with an incomprehensible +expectation. But it is a subject in which neither intuition +nor the behaviour of others will help the philosopher to the +truth. There is probably nothing rightly thought or rightly +written on this matter of love that is not a piece of the +person’s experience. I remember an anecdote of a +well-known French theorist, who was debating a point eagerly in +his <i>cénacle</i>. It was objected against him that +he had never experienced love. Whereupon he arose, left the +society, and made it a point not to return to it until he +considered that he had supplied the defect. +“Now,” he remarked, on entering, “now I am in a +position to continue the discussion.” Perhaps he had +not penetrated very deeply into the subject after all; but the +story indicates right thinking, and may serve as an apologue to +readers of this essay.</p> +<p>When at last the scales fall from his eyes, it is not without +something of the nature of dismay that the man finds himself in +such changed conditions. He has to deal with commanding +emotions instead of the easy dislikes and preferences in which he +has hitherto passed his days; and he recognises capabilities for +pain and pleasure of which he had not yet suspected the +existence. Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, +the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, +in our trite and reasonable world. The effect is out of all +proportion with the cause. Two persons, neither of them, it +may be, very amiable or very beautiful, meet, speak a little, and +look a little into each other’s eyes. That has been +done a dozen or so of times in the experience of either with no +great result. But on this occasion all is different. +They fall at once into that state in which another person becomes +to us the very gist and centrepoint of God’s creation, and +demolishes our laborious theories with a smile; in which our +ideas are so bound up with the one master-thought that even the +trivial cares of our own person become so many acts of devotion, +and the love of life itself is translated into a wish to remain +in the same world with so precious and desirable a +fellow-creature. And all the while their acquaintances look +on in stupor, and ask each other, with almost passionate +emphasis, what so-and-so can see in that woman, or such-an-one in +that man? I am sure, gentlemen, I cannot tell you. +For my part, I cannot think what the women mean. It might +be very well, if the Apollo Belvedere should suddenly glow all +over into life, and step forward from the pedestal with that +godlike air of his. But of the misbegotten changelings who +call themselves men, and prate intolerably over dinner-tables, I +never saw one who seemed worthy to inspire love—no, nor +read of any, except Leonardo da Vinci, and perhaps Goethe in his +youth. About women I entertain a somewhat different +opinion; but there, I have the misfortune to be a man.</p> +<p>There are many matters in which you may waylay Destiny, and +bid him stand and deliver. Hard work, high thinking, +adventurous excitement, and a great deal more that forms a part +of this or the other person’s spiritual bill of fare, are +within the reach of almost any one who can dare a little and be +patient. But it is by no means in the way of every one to +fall in love. You know the difficulty Shakespeare was put +into when Queen Elizabeth asked him to show Falstaff in +love. I do not believe that Henry Fielding was ever in +love. Scott, if it were not for a passage or two in <i>Rob +Roy</i>, would give me very much the same effect. These are +great names and (what is more to the purpose) strong, healthy, +high-strung, and generous natures, of whom the reverse might have +been expected. As for the innumerable army of anæmic +and tailorish persons who occupy the face of this planet with so +much propriety, it is palpably absurd to imagine them in any such +situation as a love-affair. A wet rag goes safely by the +fire; and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be much +impressed by romantic scenery. Apart from all this, many +lovable people miss each other in the world, or meet under some +unfavourable star. There is the nice and critical moment of +declaration to be got over. From timidity or lack of +opportunity a good half of possible love cases never get so far, +and at least another quarter do there cease and determine. +A very adroit person, to be sure, manages to prepare the way and +out with his declaration in the nick of time. And then +there is a fine solid sort of man, who goes on from snub to snub; +and if he has to declare forty times, will continue imperturbably +declaring, amid the astonished consideration of men and angels, +until he has a favourable answer. I daresay, if one were a +woman, one would like to marry a man who was capable of doing +this, but not quite one who had done so. It is just a +little bit abject, and somehow just a little bit gross; and +marriages in which one of the parties has been thus battered into +consent scarcely form agreeable subjects for meditation. +Love should run out to meet love with open arms. Indeed, +the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for +step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children +venturing together into a dark room. From the first moment +when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage +after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read +the expression of their own trouble in each other’s +eyes. There is here no declaration properly so called; the +feeling is so plainly shared, that as soon as the man knows what +it is in his own heart, he is sure of what it is in the +woman’s.</p> +<p>This simple accident of falling in love is as beneficial as it +is astonishing. It arrests the petrifying influence of +years, disproves cold-blooded and cynical conclusions, and +awakens dormant sensibilities. Hitherto the man had found +it a good policy to disbelieve the existence of any enjoyment +which was out of his reach; and thus he turned his back upon the +strong sunny parts of nature, and accustomed himself to look +exclusively on what was common and dull. He accepted a +prose ideal, let himself go blind of many sympathies by disuse; +and if he were young and witty, or beautiful, wilfully forewent +these advantages. He joined himself to the following of +what, in the old mythology of love, was prettily called +<i>nonchaloir</i>; and in an odd mixture of feelings, a fling of +self-respect, a preference for selfish liberty, and a great dash +of that fear with which honest people regard serious interests, +kept himself back from the straightforward course of life among +certain selected activities. And now, all of a sudden, he +is unhorsed, like St. Paul, from his infidel affectation. +His heart, which has been ticking accurate seconds for the last +year, gives a bound and begins to beat high and irregularly in +his breast. It seems as if he had never heard or felt or +seen until that moment; and by the report of his memory, he must +have lived his past life between sleep and waking, or with the +preoccupied attention of a brown study. He is practically +incommoded by the generosity of his feelings, smiles much when he +is alone, and develops a habit of looking rather blankly upon the +moon and stars. But it is not at all within the province of +a prose essayist to give a picture of this hyperbolical frame of +mind; and the thing has been done already, and that to +admiration. In <i>Adelaide</i>, in Tennyson’s +<i>Maud</i>, and in some of Heine’s songs, you get the +absolute expression of this midsummer spirit. Romeo and +Juliet were very much in love; although they tell me some German +critics are of a different opinion, probably the same who would +have us think Mercutio a dull fellow. Poor Antony was in +love, and no mistake. That lay figure Marius, in <i>Les +Misérables</i>, is also a genuine case in his own way, and +worth observation. A good many of George Sand’s +people are thoroughly in love; and so are a good many of George +Meredith’s. Altogether, there is plenty to read on +the subject. If the root of the matter be in him, and if he +has the requisite chords to set in vibration, a young man may +occasionally enter, with the key of art, into that land of Beulah +which is upon the borders of Heaven and within sight of the City +of Love. There let him sit awhile to hatch delightful hopes +and perilous illusions.</p> +<p>One thing that accompanies the passion in its first blush is +certainly difficult to explain. It comes (I do not quite +see how) that from having a very supreme sense of pleasure in all +parts of life—in lying down to sleep, in waking, in motion, +in breathing, in continuing to be—the lover begins to +regard his happiness as beneficial for the rest of the world and +highly meritorious in himself. Our race has never been able +contentedly to suppose that the noise of its wars, conducted by a +few young gentlemen in a corner of an inconsiderable star, does +not re-echo among the courts of Heaven with quite a formidable +effect. In much the same taste, when people find a great +to-do in their own breasts, they imagine it must have some +influence in their neighbourhood. The presence of the two +lovers is so enchanting to each other that it seems as if it must +be the best thing possible for everybody else. They are +half inclined to fancy it is because of them and their love that +the sky is blue and the sun shines. And certainly the +weather is usually fine while people are courting. . . In +point of fact, although the happy man feels very kindly towards +others of his own sex, there is apt to be something too much of +the magnifico in his demeanour. If people grow presuming +and self-important over such matters as a dukedom or the Holy +See, they will scarcely support the dizziest elevation in life +without some suspicion of a strut; and the dizziest elevation is +to love and be loved in return. Consequently, accepted +lovers are a trifle condescending in their address to other +men. An overweening sense of the passion and importance of +life hardly conduces to simplicity of manner. To women, +they feel very nobly, very purely, and very generously, as if +they were so many Joan-of-Arc’s; but this does not come out +in their behaviour; and they treat them to Grandisonian airs +marked with a suspicion of fatuity. I am not quite certain +that women do not like this sort of thing; but really, after +having bemused myself over <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, I have given up +trying to understand what they like.</p> +<p>If it did nothing else, this sublime and ridiculous +superstition, that the pleasure of the pair is somehow blessed to +others, and everybody is made happier in their happiness, would +serve at least to keep love generous and great-hearted. Nor +is it quite a baseless superstition after all. Other lovers +are hugely interested. They strike the nicest balance +between pity and approval, when they see people aping the +greatness of their own sentiments. It is an understood +thing in the play, that while the young gentlefolk are courting +on the terrace, a rough flirtation is being carried on, and a +light, trivial sort of love is growing up, between the footman +and the singing chambermaid. As people are generally cast +for the leading parts in their own imaginations, the reader can +apply the parallel to real life without much chance of going +wrong. In short, they are quite sure this other love-affair +is not so deep seated as their own, but they like dearly to see +it going forward. And love, considered as a spectacle, must +have attractions for many who are not of the confraternity. +The sentimental old maid is a commonplace of the novelists; and +he must be rather a poor sort of human being, to be sure, who can +look on at this pretty madness without indulgence and +sympathy. For nature commends itself to people with a most +insinuating art; the busiest is now and again arrested by a great +sunset; and you may be as pacific or as cold-blooded as you will, +but you cannot help some emotion when you read of well-disputed +battles, or meet a pair of lovers in the lane.</p> +<p>Certainly, whatever it may be with regard to the world at +large, this idea of beneficent pleasure is true as between the +sweethearts. To do good and communicate is the +lover’s grand intention. It is the happiness of the +other that makes his own most intense gratification. It is +not possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, +humility, pity and passion, which are excited by a look of happy +love or an unexpected caress. To make one’s self +beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, to do anything +and all things that puff out the character and attributes and +make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to magnify +one’s self, but to offer the most delicate homage at the +same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are +done by lovers; for the essence of love is kindness; and indeed +it may be best defined as passionate kindness: kindness, so to +speak, run mad and become importunate and violent. Vanity +in a merely personal sense exists no longer. The lover +takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his weak points +and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned. +He wishes to be assured that he is not loved for this or that +good quality, but for himself, or something as like himself as he +can contrive to set forward. For, although it may have been +a very difficult thing to paint the marriage of Cana, or write +the fourth act of Antony and Cleopatra, there is a more difficult +piece of art before every one in this world who cares to set +about explaining his own character to others. Words and +acts are easily wrenched from their true significance; and they +are all the language we have to come and go upon. A pitiful +job we make of it, as a rule. For better or worse, people +mistake our meaning and take our emotions at a wrong +valuation. And generally we rest pretty content with our +failures; we are content to be misapprehended by cackling flirts; +but when once a man is moonstruck with this affection of love, he +makes it a point of honour to clear such dubieties away. He +cannot have the Best of her Sex misled upon a point of this +importance; and his pride revolts at being loved in a +mistake.</p> +<p>He discovers a great reluctance to return on former periods of +his life. To all that has not been shared with her, rights +and duties, bygone fortunes and dispositions, he can look back +only by a difficult and repugnant effort of the will. That +he should have wasted some years in ignorance of what alone was +really important, that he may have entertained the thought of +other women with any show of complacency, is a burthen almost too +heavy for his self-respect. But it is the thought of +another past that rankles in his spirit like a poisoned +wound. That he himself made a fashion of being alive in the +bald, beggarly days before a certain meeting, is deplorable +enough in all good conscience. But that She should have +permitted herself the same liberty seems inconsistent with a +Divine providence.</p> +<p>A great many people run down jealousy, on the score that it is +an artificial feeling, as well as practically inconvenient. +This is scarcely fair; for the feeling on which it merely +attends, like an ill-humoured courtier, is itself artificial in +exactly the same sense and to the same degree. I suppose +what is meant by that objection is that jealousy has not always +been a character of man; formed no part of that very modest kit +of sentiments with which he is supposed to have begun the world; +but waited to make its appearance in better days and among richer +natures. And this is equally true of love, and friendship, +and love of country, and delight in what they call the beauties +of nature, and most other things worth having. Love, in +particular, will not endure any historical scrutiny: to all who +have fallen across it, it is one of the most incontestable facts +in the world; but if you begin to ask what it was in other +periods and countries, in Greece for instance, the strangest +doubts begin to spring up, and everything seems so vague and +changing that a dream is logical in comparison. Jealousy, +at any rate, is one of the consequences of love; you may like it +or not, at pleasure; but there it is.</p> +<p>It is not exactly jealousy, however, that we feel when we +reflect on the past of those we love. A bundle of letters +found after years of happy union creates no sense of insecurity +in the present; and yet it will pain a man sharply. The two +people entertain no vulgar doubt of each other: but this +pre-existence of both occurs to the mind as something +indelicate. To be altogether right, they should have had +twin birth together, at the same moment with the feeling that +unites them. Then indeed it would be simple and perfect and +without reserve or afterthought. Then they would understand +each other with a fulness impossible otherwise. There would +be no barrier between them of associations that cannot be +imparted. They would be led into none of those comparisons +that send the blood back to the heart. And they would know +that there had been no time lost, and they had been together as +much as was possible. For besides terror for the separation +that must follow some time or other in the future, men feel +anger, and something like remorse, when they think of that other +separation which endured until they met. Some one has +written that love makes people believe in immortality, because +there seems not to be room enough in life for so great a +tenderness, and it is inconceivable that the most masterful of +our emotions should have no more than the spare moments of a few +years. Indeed, it seems strange; but if we call to mind +analogies, we can hardly regard it as impossible.</p> +<p>“The blind bow-boy,” who smiles upon us from the +end of terraces in old Dutch gardens, laughingly hails his +bird-bolts among a fleeting generation. But for as fast as +ever he shoots, the game dissolves and disappears into eternity +from under his falling arrows; this one is gone ere he is struck; +the other has but time to make one gesture and give one +passionate cry; and they are all the things of a moment. +When the generation is gone, when the play is over, when the +thirty years’ panorama has been withdrawn in tatters from +the stage of the world, we may ask what has become of these +great, weighty, and undying loves, and the sweet-hearts who +despised mortal conditions in a fine credulity; and they can only +show us a few songs in a bygone taste, a few actions worth +remembering, and a few children who have retained some happy +stamp from the disposition of their parents.</p> +<h3>IV.—TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> sayings that have a currency +in spite of being wholly false upon the face of them for the sake +of a half-truth upon another subject which is accidentally +combined with the error, one of the grossest and broadest conveys +the monstrous proposition that it is easy to tell the truth and +hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. But the +truth is one; it has first to be discovered, then justly and +exactly uttered. Even with instruments specially contrived +for such a purpose—with a foot rule, a level, or a +theodolite—it is not easy to be exact; it is easier, alas! +to be inexact. From those who mark the divisions on a scale +to those who measure the boundaries of empires or the distance of +the heavenly stars, it is by careful method and minute, +unwearying attention that men rise even to material exactness or +to sure knowledge even of external and constant things. But +it is easier to draw the outline of a mountain than the changing +appearance of a face; and truth in human relations is of this +more intangible and dubious order: hard to seize, harder to +communicate. Veracity to facts in a loose, colloquial +sense—not to say that I have been in Malabar when as a +matter of fact I was never out of England, not to say that I have +read Cervantes in the original when as a matter of fact I know +not one syllable of Spanish—this, indeed, is easy and to +the same degree unimportant in itself. Lies of this sort, +according to circumstances, may or may not be important; in a +certain sense even they may or may not be false. The +habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live truly with +his wife and friends; while another man who never told a formal +falsehood in his life may yet be himself one lie—heart and +face, from top to bottom. This is the kind of lie which +poisons intimacy. And, <i>vice versâ</i>, veracity to +sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to your own heart and your +friends, never to feign or falsify emotion—that is the +truth which makes love possible and mankind happy.</p> +<p><i>L’art de bien dire</i> is but a drawing-room +accomplishment unless it be pressed into the service of the +truth. The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to +write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him +precisely as you wish. This is commonly understood in the +case of books or set orations; even in making your will, or +writing an explicit letter, some difficulty is admitted by the +world. But one thing you can never make Philistine natures +understand; one thing, which yet lies on the surface, remains as +unseizable to their wits as a high flight of +metaphysics—namely, that the business of life is mainly +carried on by means of this difficult art of literature, and +according to a man’s proficiency in that art shall be the +freedom and the fulness of his intercourse with other men. +Anybody, it is supposed, can say what he means; and, in spite of +their notorious experience to the contrary, people so continue to +suppose. Now, I simply open the last book I have been +reading—Mr. Leland’s captivating <i>English +Gipsies</i>. “It is said,” I find on p. 7, +“that those who can converse with Irish peasants in their +own native tongue form far higher opinions of their appreciation +of the beautiful, and of <i>the elements of humour and pathos in +their hearts</i>, than do those who know their thoughts only +through the medium of English. I know from my own +observations that this is quite the case with the Indians of +North America, and it is unquestionably so with the +gipsy.” In short, where a man has not a full +possession of the language, the most important, because the most +amiable, qualities of his nature have to lie buried and fallow; +for the pleasure of comradeship, and the intellectual part of +love, rest upon these very “elements of humour and +pathos.” Here is a man opulent in both, and for lack +of a medium he can put none of it out to interest in the market +of affection! But what is thus made plain to our +apprehensions in the case of a foreign language is partially true +even with the tongue we learned in childhood. Indeed, we +all speak different dialects; one shall be copious and exact, +another loose and meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker +shall correspond and fit upon the truth of fact—not +clumsily, obscuring lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly +adhering, like an athlete’s skin. And what is the +result? That the one can open himself more clearly to his +friends, and can enjoy more of what makes life truly +valuable—intimacy with those he loves. An orator +makes a false step; he employs some trivial, some absurd, some +vulgar phrase; in the turn of a sentence he insults, by a side +wind, those whom he is labouring to charm; in speaking to one +sentiment he unconsciously ruffles another in parenthesis; and +you are not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate and +filled with perils. “O frivolous mind of man, light +ignorance!” As if yourself, when you seek to explain +some misunderstanding or excuse some apparent fault, speaking +swiftly and addressing a mind still recently incensed, were not +harnessing for a more perilous adventure; as if yourself required +less tact and eloquence; as if an angry friend or a suspicious +lover were not more easy to offend than a meeting of indifferent +politicians! Nay, and the orator treads in a beaten round; +the matters he discusses have been discussed a thousand times +before; language is ready-shaped to his purpose; he speaks out of +a cut and dry vocabulary. But you—may it not be that +your defence reposes on some subtlety of feeling, not so much as +touched upon in Shakespeare, to express which, like a pioneer, +you must venture forth into zones of thought still unsurveyed, +and become yourself a literary innovator? For even in love +there are unlovely humours; ambiguous acts, unpardonable words, +may yet have sprung from a kind sentiment. If the injured +one could read your heart, you may be sure that he would +understand and pardon; but, alas! the heart cannot be +shown—it has to be demonstrated in words. Do you +think it is a hard thing to write poetry? Why, that is to +write poetry, and of a high, if not the highest, order.</p> +<p>I should even more admire “the lifelong and heroic +literary labours” of my fellow-men, patiently clearing up +in words their loves and their contentions, and speaking their +autobiography daily to their wives, were it not for a +circumstance which lessens their difficulty and my admiration by +equal parts. For life, though largely, is not entirely +carried on by literature. We are subject to physical +passions and contortions; the voice breaks and changes, and +speaks by unconscious and winning inflections; we have legible +countenances, like an open book; things that cannot be said look +eloquently through the eyes; and the soul, not locked into the +body as a dungeon, dwells ever on the threshold with appealing +signals. Groans and tears, looks and gestures, a flush or a +paleness, are often the most clear reporters of the heart, and +speak more directly to the hearts of others. The message +flies by these interpreters in the least space of time, and the +misunderstanding is averted in the moment of its birth. To +explain in words takes time and a just and patient hearing; and +in the critical epochs of a close relation, patience and justice +are not qualities on which we can rely. But the look or the +gesture explains things in a breath; they tell their message +without ambiguity; unlike speech, they cannot stumble, by the +way, on a reproach or an allusion that should steel your friend +against the truth; and then they have a higher authority, for +they are the direct expression of the heart, not yet transmitted +through the unfaithful and sophisticating brain. Not long +ago I wrote a letter to a friend which came near involving us in +quarrel; but we met, and in personal talk I repeated the worst of +what I had written, and added worse to that; and with the +commentary of the body it seemed not unfriendly either to hear or +say. Indeed, letters are in vain for the purposes of +intimacy; an absence is a dead break in the relation; yet two who +know each other fully and are bent on perpetuity in love, may so +preserve the attitude of their affections that they may meet on +the same terms as they had parted.</p> +<p>Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the face; +pitiful that of the deaf, who cannot follow the changes of the +voice. And there are others also to be pitied; for there +are some of an inert, uneloquent nature, who have been denied all +the symbols of communication, who have neither a lively play of +facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor a responsive voice, +nor yet the gift of frank, explanatory speech: people truly made +of clay, people tied for life into a bag which no one can +undo. They are poorer than the gipsy, for their heart can +speak no language under heaven. Such people we must learn +slowly by the tenor of their acts, or through yea and nay +communications; or we take them on trust on the strength of a +general air, and now and again, when we see the spirit breaking +through in a flash, correct or change our estimate. But +these will be uphill intimacies, without charm or freedom, to the +end; and freedom is the chief ingredient in confidence. +Some minds, romantically dull, despise physical endowments. +That is a doctrine for a misanthrope; to those who like their +fellow-creatures it must always be meaningless; and, for my part, +I can see few things more desirable, after the possession of such +radical qualities as honour and humour and pathos, than to have a +lively and not a stolid countenance; to have looks to correspond +with every feeling; to be elegant and delightful in person, so +that we shall please even in the intervals of active pleasing, +and may never discredit speech with uncouth manners or become +unconsciously our own burlesques. But of all unfortunates +there is one creature (for I will not call him man) conspicuous +in misfortune. This is he who has forfeited his birthright +of expression, who has cultivated artful intonations, who has +taught his face tricks, like a pet monkey, and on every side +perverted or cut off his means of communication with his +fellow-men. The body is a house of many windows: there we +all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come +and love us. But this fellow has filled his windows with +opaque glass, elegantly coloured. His house may be admired +for its design, the crowd may pause before the stained windows, +but meanwhile the poor proprietor must lie languishing within, +uncomforted, unchangeably alone.</p> +<p>Truth of intercourse is something more difficult than to +refrain from open lies. It is possible to avoid falsehood +and yet not tell the truth. It is not enough to answer +formal questions. To reach the truth by yea and nay +communications implies a questioner with a share of inspiration, +such as is often found in mutual love. <i>Yea</i> and +<i>nay</i> mean nothing; the meaning must have been related in +the question. Many words are often necessary to convey a +very simple statement; for in this sort of exercise we never hit +the gold; the most that we can hope is by many arrows, more or +less far off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of +time, for what target we are aiming, and after an hour’s +talk, back and forward, to convey the purport of a single +principle or a single thought. And yet while the curt, +pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous +babbler will often add three new offences in the process of +excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. +The world was made before the English language, and seemingly +upon a different design. Suppose we held our converse not +in words, but in music; those who have a bad ear would find +themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no better than +foreigners in this big world. But we do not consider how +many have “a bad ear” for words, nor how often the +most eloquent find nothing to reply. I hate questioners and +questions; there are so few that can be spoken to without a +lie. “<i>Do you forgive me</i>?” Madam +and sweetheart, so far as I have gone in life I have never yet +been able to discover what forgiveness means. “<i>Is +it still the same between us</i>?” Why, how can it +be? It is eternally different; and yet you are still the +friend of my heart. “<i>Do you understand +me</i>?” God knows; I should think it highly +improbable.</p> +<p>The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man may +have sat in a room for hours and not opened his teeth, and yet +come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile +calumniator. And how many loves have perished because, from +pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which +withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the +critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held +his tongue? And, again, a lie may be told by a truth, or a +truth conveyed through a lie. Truth to facts is not always +truth to sentiment; and part of the truth, as often happens in +answer to a question, may be the foulest calumny. A fact +may be an exception; but the feeling is the law, and it is that +which you must neither garble nor belie. The whole tenor of +a conversation is a part of the meaning of each separate +statement; the beginning and the end define and travesty the +intermediate conversation. You never speak to God; you +address a fellow-man, full of his own tempers; and to tell truth, +rightly understood, is not to state the true facts, but to convey +a true impression; truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the +true veracity. To reconcile averted friends a Jesuitical +discretion is often needful, not so much to gain a kind hearing +as to communicate sober truth. Women have an ill name in +this connection; yet they live in as true relations; the lie of a +good woman is the true index of her heart.</p> +<p>“It takes,” says Thoreau, in the noblest and most +useful passage I remember to have read in any modern author, <a +name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2" +class="citation">[2]</a> “two to speak truth—one to +speak and another to hear.” He must be very little +experienced, or have no great zeal for truth, who does not +recognise the fact. A grain of anger or a grain of +suspicion produces strange acoustical effects, and makes the ear +greedy to remark offence. Hence we find those who have once +quarrelled carry themselves distantly, and are ever ready to +break the truce. To speak truth there must be moral +equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and child +intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and +misapprehensions to become ingrained. And there is another +side to this, for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of +the child’s character, formed in early years or during the +equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only the +facts which suit with his preconception; and wherever a person +fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once and finally gives up +the effort to speak truth. With our chosen friends, on the +other hand, and still more between lovers (for mutual +understanding is love’s essence), the truth is easily +indicated by the one and aptly comprehended by the other. A +hint taken, a look understood, conveys the gist of long and +delicate explanations; and where the life is known even +<i>yea</i> and <i>nay</i> become luminous. In the closest +of all relations—that of a love well founded and equally +shared—speech is half discarded, like a roundabout, +infantile process or a ceremony of formal etiquette; and the two +communicate directly by their presences, and with few looks and +fewer words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each +other’s hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical +basis; it is a familiarity of nature’s making and apart +from voluntary choice. Understanding has in some sort +outrun knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the +acquaintance; and as it was not made like other relations, so it +is not, like them, to be perturbed or clouded. Each knows +more than can be uttered; each lives by faith, and believes by a +natural compulsion; and between man and wife the language of the +body is largely developed and grown strangely eloquent. The +thought that prompted and was conveyed in a caress would only +lose to be set down in words—ay, although Shakespeare +himself should be the scribe.</p> +<p>Yet it is in these dear intimacies, beyond all others, that we +must strive and do battle for the truth. Let but a doubt +arise, and alas! all the previous intimacy and confidence is but +another charge against the person doubted. “<i>What a +monstrous dishonesty is this if I have been deceived so long and +so completely</i>!” Let but that thought gain +entrance, and you plead before a deaf tribunal. Appeal to +the past; why, that is your crime! Make all clear, convince +the reason; alas! speciousness is but a proof against you. +“<i>If you can abuse me now</i>, <i>the more likely that +you have abused me from the first</i>.”</p> +<p>For a strong affection such moments are worth supporting, and +they will end well; for your advocate is in your lover’s +heart and speaks her own language; it is not you but she herself +who can defend and clear you of the charge. But in slighter +intimacies, and for a less stringent union? Indeed, is it +worth while? We are all <i>incompris</i>, only more or less +concerned for the mischance; all trying wrongly to do right; all +fawning at each other’s feet like dumb, neglected +lap-dogs. Sometimes we catch an eye—this is our +opportunity in the ages—and we wag our tail with a poor +smile. “<i>Is that all</i>?” All? +If you only knew! But how can they know? They do not +love us; the more fools we to squander life on the +indifferent.</p> +<p>But the morality of the thing, you will be glad to hear, is +excellent; for it is only by trying to understand others that we +can get our own hearts understood; and in matters of human +feeling the clement judge is the most successful pleader.</p> +<h2>CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH</h2> +<blockquote><p>“You know my mother now and then argues very +notably; always very warmly at least. I happen often to +differ from her; and we both think so well of our own arguments, +that we very seldom are so happy as to convince one +another. A pretty common case, I believe, in all +<i>vehement</i> debatings. She says, I am <i>too witty</i>; +Anglicè, <i>too pert</i>; I, that she is <i>too wise</i>; +that is to say, being likewise put into English, <i>not so young +as she has been</i>.”—Miss Howe to Miss Harlowe, +<i>Clarissa</i>, vol. ii. Letter xiii.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a strong feeling in favour +of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a +man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is +supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person +has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he +should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket +wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage +them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their +mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk +of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does +not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than +the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps +more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful +Merchant. The one is dead, to be sure, while the other is +still in his counting-house counting out his money; and doubtless +this is a consideration. But we have, on the other hand, +some bold and magnanimous sayings common to high races and +natures, which set forth the advantage of the losing side, and +proclaim it better to be a dead lion than a living dog. It +is difficult to fancy how the mediocrities reconcile such sayings +with their proverbs. According to the latter, every lad who +goes to sea is an egregious ass; never to forget your umbrella +through a long life would seem a higher and wiser flight of +achievement than to go smiling to the stake; and so long as you +are a bit of a coward and inflexible in money matters, you fulfil +the whole duty of man.</p> +<p>It is a still more difficult consideration for our average +men, that while all their teachers, from Solomon down to Benjamin +Franklin and the ungodly Binney, have inculcated the same ideal +of manners, caution, and respectability, those characters in +history who have most notoriously flown in the face of such +precepts are spoken of in hyperbolical terms of praise, and +honoured with public monuments in the streets of our commercial +centres. This is very bewildering to the moral sense. +You have Joan of Arc, who left a humble but honest and reputable +livelihood under the eyes of her parents, to go a-colonelling, in +the company of rowdy soldiers, against the enemies of France; +surely a melancholy example for one’s daughters! And +then you have Columbus, who may have pioneered America, but, when +all is said, was a most imprudent navigator. His life is +not the kind of thing one would like to put into the hands of +young people; rather, one would do one’s utmost to keep it +from their knowledge, as a red flag of adventure and +disintegrating influence in life. The time would fail me if +I were to recite all the big names in history whose exploits are +perfectly irrational and even shocking to the business +mind. The incongruity is speaking; and I imagine it must +engender among the mediocrities a very peculiar attitude, towards +the nobler and showier sides of national life. They will +read of the Charge of Balaclava in much the same spirit as they +assist at a performance of the <i>Lyons Mail</i>. Persons +of substance take in the <i>Times</i> and sit composedly in pit +or boxes according to the degree of their prosperity in +business. As for the generals who go galloping up and down +among bomb-shells in absurd cocked hats—as for the actors +who raddle their faces and demean themselves for hire upon the +stage—they must belong, thank God! to a different order of +beings, whom we watch as we watch the clouds careering in the +windy, bottomless inane, or read about like characters in ancient +and rather fabulous annals. Our offspring would no more +think of copying their behaviour, let us hope, than of doffing +their clothes and painting themselves blue in consequence of +certain admissions in the first chapter of their school history +of England.</p> +<p>Discredited as they are in practice, the cowardly proverbs +hold their own in theory; and it is another instance of the same +spirit, that the opinions of old men about life have been +accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the +illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the +disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and +somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old +gentleman waggles his head and says: “Ah, so I thought when +I was your age.” It is not thought an answer at all, +if the young man retorts: “My venerable sir, so I shall +most probably think when I am yours.” And yet the one +is as good as the other: pass for pass, tit for tat, a Roland for +an Oliver.</p> +<p>“Opinion in good men,” says Milton, “is but +knowledge in the making.” All opinions, properly so +called, are stages on the road to truth. It does not follow +that a man will travel any further; but if he has really +considered the world and drawn a conclusion, he has travelled as +far. This does not apply to formulæ got by rote, +which are stages on the road to nowhere but second childhood and +the grave. To have a catchword in your mouth is not the +same thing as to hold an opinion; still less is it the same thing +as to have made one for yourself. There are too many of +these catchwords in the world for people to rap out upon you like +an oath and by way of an argument. They have a currency as +intellectual counters; and many respectable persons pay their way +with nothing else. They seem to stand for vague bodies of +theory in the background. The imputed virtue of folios full +of knockdown arguments is supposed to reside in them, just as +some of the majesty of the British Empire dwells in the +constable’s truncheon. They are used in pure +superstition, as old clodhoppers spoil Latin by way of an +exorcism. And yet they are vastly serviceable for checking +unprofitable discussion and stopping the mouths of babes and +sucklings. And when a young man comes to a certain stage of +intellectual growth, the examination of these counters forms a +gymnastic at once amusing and fortifying to the mind.</p> +<p>Because I have reached Paris, I am not ashamed of having +passed through Newhaven and Dieppe. They were very good +places to pass through, and I am none the less at my +destination. All my old opinions were only stages on the +way to the one I now hold, as itself is only a stage on the way +to something else. I am no more abashed at having been a +red-hot Socialist with a panacea of my own than at having been a +sucking infant. Doubtless the world is quite right in a +million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to +convince you of the fact. And in the meanwhile you must do +something, be something, believe something. It is not +possible to keep the mind in a state of accurate balance and +blank; and even if you could do so, instead of coming ultimately +to the right conclusion, you would be very apt to remain in a +state of balance and blank to perpetuity. Even in quite +intermediate stages, a dash of enthusiasm is not a thing to be +ashamed of in the retrospect: if St. Paul had not been a very +zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder Christian. +For my part, I look back to the time when I was a Socialist with +something like regret. I have convinced myself (for the +moment) that we had better leave these great changes to what we +call great blind forces: their blindness being so much more +perspicacious than the little, peering, partial eyesight of +men. I seem to see that my own scheme would not answer; and +all the other schemes I ever heard propounded would depress some +elements of goodness just as much as they encouraged +others. Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with +years, I am going through the normal cycle of change and +travelling in the common orbit of men’s opinions. I +submit to this, as I would submit to gout or gray hair, as a +concomitant of growing age or else of failing animal heat; but I +do not acknowledge that it is necessarily a change for the +better—I daresay it is deplorably for the worse. I +have no choice in the business, and can no more resist this +tendency of my mind than I could prevent my body from beginning +to totter and decay. If I am spared (as the phrase runs) I +shall doubtless outlive some troublesome desires; but I am in no +hurry about that; nor, when the time comes, shall I plume myself +on the immunity. Just in the same way, I do not greatly +pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of +Socialism. Old people have faults of their own; they tend +to become cowardly, niggardly, and suspicious. Whether from +the growth of experience or the decline of animal heat, I see +that age leads to these and certain other faults; and it follows, +of course, that while in one sense I hope I am journeying towards +the truth, in another I am indubitably posting towards these +forms and sources of error.</p> +<p>As we go catching and catching at this or that corner of +knowledge, now getting a foresight of generous possibilities, now +chilled with a glimpse of prudence, we may compare the headlong +course of our years to a swift torrent in which a man is carried +away; now he is dashed against a boulder, now he grapples for a +moment to a trailing spray; at the end, he is hurled out and +overwhelmed in a dark and bottomless ocean. We have no more +than glimpses and touches; we are torn away from our theories; we +are spun round and round and shown this or the other view of +life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their +opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say +we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an +impression. If we had breathing space, we should take the +occasion to modify and adjust; but at this breakneck hurry, we +are no sooner boys than we are adult, no sooner in love than +married or jilted, no sooner one age than we begin to be another, +and no sooner in the fulness of our manhood than we begin to +decline towards the grave. It is in vain to seek for +consistency or expect clear and stable views in a medium so +perturbed and fleeting. This is no cabinet science, in +which things are tested to a scruple; we theorise with a pistol +to our head; we are confronted with a new set of conditions on +which we have not only to pass a judgment, but to take action, +before the hour is at an end. And we cannot even regard +ourselves as a constant; in this flux of things, our identity +itself seems in a perpetual variation; and not infrequently we +find our own disguise the strangest in the masquerade. In +the course of time, we grow to love things we hated and hate +things we loved. Milton is not so dull as he once was, nor +perhaps Ainsworth so amusing. It is decidedly harder to +climb trees, and not nearly so hard to sit still. There is +no use pretending; even the thrice royal game of hide and seek +has somehow lost in zest. All our attributes are modified +or changed; and it will be a poor account of us if our views do +not modify and change in a proportion. To hold the same +views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for +a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an +unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser. It is as +if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port of London; +and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first +setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole +voyage.</p> +<p>And mark you, it would be no less foolish to begin at +Gravesend with a chart of the Red Sea. <i>Si Jeunesse +savait</i>, <i>si Vieillesse pouvait</i>, is a very pretty +sentiment, but not necessarily right. In five cases out of +ten, it is not so much that the young people do not know, as that +they do not choose. There is something irreverent in the +speculation, but perhaps the want of power has more to do with +the wise resolutions of age than we are always willing to +admit. It would be an instructive experiment to make an old +man young again and leave him all his <i>savoir</i>. I +scarcely think he would put his money in the Savings Bank after +all; I doubt if he would be such an admirable son as we are led +to expect; and as for his conduct in love, I believe firmly he +would out-Herod Herod, and put the whole of his new compeers to +the blush. Prudence is a wooden juggernaut, before whom +Benjamin Franklin walks with the portly air of a high priest, and +after whom dances many a successful merchant in the character of +Atys. But it is not a deity to cultivate in youth. If +a man lives to any considerable age, it cannot be denied that he +laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth +a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.</p> +<p>It is customary to say that age should be considered, because +it comes last. It seems just as much to the point, that +youth comes first. And the scale fairly kicks the beam, if +you go on to add that age, in a majority of cases, never comes at +all. Disease and accident make short work of even the most +prosperous persons; death costs nothing, and the expense of a +headstone is an inconsiderable trifle to the happy heir. To +be suddenly snuffed out in the middle of ambitious schemes, is +tragical enough at best; but when a man has been grudging himself +his own life in the meanwhile, and saving up everything for the +festival that was never to be, it becomes that hysterically +moving sort of tragedy which lies on the confines of farce. +The victim is dead—and he has cunningly overreached +himself: a combination of calamities none the less absurd for +being grim. To husband a favourite claret until the batch +turns sour, is not at all an artful stroke of policy; and how +much more with a whole cellar—a whole bodily +existence! People may lay down their lives with +cheerfulness in the sure expectation of a blessed immortality; +but that is a different affair from giving up youth with all its +admirable pleasures, in the hope of a better quality of gruel in +a more than problematical, nay, more than improbable, old +age. We should not compliment a hungry man, who should +refuse a whole dinner and reserve all his appetite for the +dessert, before he knew whether there was to be any dessert or +not. If there be such a thing as imprudence in the world, +we surely have it here. We sail in leaky bottoms and on +great and perilous waters; and to take a cue from the dolorous +old naval ballad, we have heard the mer-maidens singing, and know +that we shall never see dry land any more. Old and young, +we are all on our last cruise. If there is a fill of +tobacco among the crew, for God’s sake pass it round, and +let us have a pipe before we go!</p> +<p>Indeed, by the report of our elders, this nervous preparation +for old age is only trouble thrown away. We fall on guard, +and after all it is a friend who comes to meet us. After +the sun is down and the west faded, the heavens begin to fill +with shining stars. So, as we grow old, a sort of equable +jog-trot of feeling is substituted for the violent ups and downs +of passion and disgust; the same influence that restrains our +hopes, quiets our apprehensions; if the pleasures are less +intense, the troubles are milder and more tolerable; and in a +word, this period for which we are asked to hoard up everything +as for a time of famine, is, in its own right, the richest, +easiest, and happiest of life. Nay, by managing its own +work and following its own happy inspiration, youth is doing the +best it can to endow the leisure of age. A full, busy youth +is your only prelude to a self-contained and independent age; and +the muff inevitably develops into the bore. There are not +many Doctor Johnsons, to set forth upon their first romantic +voyage at sixty-four. If we wish to scale Mont Blanc or +visit a thieves’ kitchen in the East End, to go down in a +diving dress or up in a balloon, we must be about it while we are +still young. It will not do to delay until we are clogged +with prudence and limping with rheumatism, and people begin to +ask us: “What does Gravity out of bed?” Youth +is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other +both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; +to hear the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and +country; to be converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the +metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and +wait all day long in the theatre to applaud <i>Hernani</i>. +There is some meaning in the old theory about wild oats; and a +man who has not had his green-sickness and got done with it for +good, is as little to be depended on as an unvaccinated +infant. “It is extraordinary,” says Lord +Beaconsfield, one of the brightest and best preserved of youths +up to the date of his last novel, <a name="citation3"></a><a +href="#footnote3" class="citation">[3]</a> “it is +extraordinary how hourly and how violently change the feelings of +an inexperienced young man.” And this mobility is a +special talent entrusted to his care; a sort of indestructible +virginity; a magic armour, with which he can pass unhurt through +great dangers and come unbedaubed out of the miriest +passages. Let him voyage, speculate, see all that he can, +do all that he may; his soul has as many lives as a cat; he will +live in all weathers, and never be a halfpenny the worse. +Those who go to the devil in youth, with anything like a fair +chance, were probably little worth saving from the first; they +must have been feeble fellows—creatures made of putty and +pack-thread, without steel or fire, anger or true joyfulness, in +their composition; we may sympathise with their parents, but +there is not much cause to go into mourning for themselves; for +to be quite honest, the weak brother is the worst of mankind.</p> +<p>When the old man waggles his head and says, “Ah, so I +thought when I was your age,” he has proved the +youth’s case. Doubtless, whether from growth of +experience or decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but +he thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so +while they were young, since there was dew in the morning or +hawthorn in May; and here is another young man adding his vote to +those of previous generations and rivetting another link to the +chain of testimony. It is as natural and as right for a +young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and +circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly +captured, as it is for old men to turn gray, or mothers to love +their offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than +their lives.</p> +<p>By way of an apologue for the aged, when they feel more than +usually tempted to offer their advice, let me recommend the +following little tale. A child who had been remarkably fond +of toys (and in particular of lead soldiers) found himself +growing to the level of acknowledged boyhood without any +abatement of this childish taste. He was thirteen; already +he had been taunted for dallying overlong about the playbox; he +had to blush if he was found among his lead soldiers; the shades +of the prison-house were closing about him with a +vengeance. There is nothing more difficult than to put the +thoughts of children into the language of their elders; but this +is the effect of his meditations at this juncture: +“Plainly,” he said, “I must give up my +playthings, in the meanwhile, since I am not in a position to +secure myself against idle jeers. At the same time, I am +sure that playthings are the very pick of life; all people give +them up out of the same pusillanimous respect for those who are a +little older; and if they do not return to them as soon as they +can, it is only because they grow stupid and forget. I +shall be wiser; I shall conform for a little to the ways of their +foolish world; but so soon as I have made enough money, I shall +retire and shut myself up among my playthings until the day I +die.” Nay, as he was passing in the train along the +Esterel mountains between Cannes and Fréjus, he remarked a +pretty house in an orange garden at the angle of a bay, and +decided that this should be his Happy Valley. Astrea Redux; +childhood was to come again! The idea has an air of simple +nobility to me, not unworthy of Cincinnatus. And yet, as +the reader has probably anticipated, it is never likely to be +carried into effect. There was a worm i’ the bud, a +fatal error in the premises. Childhood must pass away, and +then youth, as surely as age approaches. The true wisdom is +to be always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in +changing circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, +to lead an adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when +the time arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good +artist in life and deserve well of yourself and your +neighbour.</p> +<p>You need repent none of your youthful vagaries. They may +have been over the score on one side, just as those of age are +probably over the score on the other. But they had a point; +they not only befitted your age and expressed its attitude and +passions, but they had a relation to what was outside of you, and +implied criticisms on the existing state of things, which you +need not allow to have been undeserved, because you now see that +they were partial. All error, not merely verbal, is a +strong way of stating that the current truth is incomplete. +The follies of youth have a basis in sound reason, just as much +as the embarrassing questions put by babes and sucklings. +Their most antisocial acts indicate the defects of our +society. When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, +you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if +the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the +Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in universal +atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices of +society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of everything and +Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young fool; so are +these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a +fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the +shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and +incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a +forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a +pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images +pushed from behind. For God’s sake give me the young +man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself! As for +the others, the irony of facts shall take it out of their hands, +and make fools of them in downright earnest, ere the farce be +over. There shall be such a mopping and a mowing at the +last day, and such blushing and confusion of countenance for all +those who have been wise in their own esteem, and have not learnt +the rough lessons that youth hands on to age. If we are +indeed here to perfect and complete our own natures, and grow +larger, stronger, and more sympathetic against some nobler career +in the future, we had all best bestir ourselves to the utmost +while we have the time. To equip a dull, respectable person +with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.</p> +<p>In short, if youth is not quite right in its opinions, there +is a strong probability that age is not much more so. +Undying hope is co-ruler of the human bosom with infallible +credulity. A man finds he has been wrong at every preceding +stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion +that he is at last entirely right. Mankind, after centuries +of failure, are still upon the eve of a thoroughly constitutional +millennium. Since we have explored the maze so long without +result, it follows, for poor human reason, that we cannot have to +explore much longer; close by must be the centre, with a +champagne luncheon and a piece of ornamental water. How if +there were no centre at all, but just one alley after another, +and the whole world a labyrinth without end or issue?</p> +<p>I overheard the other day a scrap of conversation, which I +take the liberty to reproduce. “What I advance is +true,” said one. “But not the whole +truth,” answered the other. “Sir,” +returned the first (and it seemed to me there was a smack of Dr. +Johnson in the speech), “Sir, there is no such thing as the +whole truth!” Indeed, there is nothing so evident in +life as that there are two sides to a question. History is +one long illustration. The forces of nature are engaged, +day by day, in cudgelling it into our backward +intelligences. We never pause for a moment’s +consideration but we admit it as an axiom. An enthusiast +sways humanity exactly by disregarding this great truth, and +dinning it into our ears that this or that question has only one +possible solution; and your enthusiast is a fine florid fellow, +dominates things for a while and shakes the world out of a doze; +but when once he is gone, an army of quiet and uninfluential +people set to work to remind us of the other side and demolish +the generous imposture. While Calvin is putting everybody +exactly right in his <i>Institutes</i>, and hot-headed Knox is +thundering in the pulpit, Montaigne is already looking at the +other side in his library in Perigord, and predicting that they +will find as much to quarrel about in the Bible as they had found +already in the Church. Age may have one side, but assuredly +Youth has the other. There is nothing more certain than +that both are right, except perhaps that both are wrong. +Let them agree to differ; for who knows but what agreeing to +differ may not be a form of agreement rather than a form of +difference?</p> +<p>I suppose it is written that any one who sets up for a bit of +a philosopher, must contradict himself to his very face. +For here have I fairly talked myself into thinking that we have +the whole thing before us at last; that there is no answer to the +mystery, except that there are as many as you please; that there +is no centre to the maze because, like the famous sphere, its +centre is everywhere; and that agreeing to differ with every +ceremony of politeness, is the only “one undisturbed song +of pure concent” to which we are ever likely to lend our +musical voices.</p> +<h2>AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS</h2> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Boswell</span>: We grow +weary when idle.”</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: That is, sir, +because others being busy, we want company; but if we were idle, +there would be no growing weary; we should all entertain one +another.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">Just</span> now, when every one is bound, +under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of +<i>lèse</i>-respectability, to enter on some lucrative +profession, and labour therein with something not far short of +enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party who are content when +they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, +savours a little of bravado and gasconade. And yet this +should not be. Idleness so called, which does not consist +in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the +dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to +state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that +the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap +race for sixpenny pieces, is at once an insult and a +disenchantment for those who do. A fine fellow (as we see +so many) takes his determination, votes for the sixpences, and in +the emphatic Americanism, it “goes for” them. +And while such an one is ploughing distressfully up the road, it +is not hard to understand his resentment, when he perceives cool +persons in the meadows by the wayside, lying with a handkerchief +over their ears and a glass at their elbow. Alexander is +touched in a very delicate place by the disregard of +Diogenes. Where was the glory of having taken Rome for +these tumultuous barbarians, who poured into the Senate house, +and found the Fathers sitting silent and unmoved by their +success? It is a sore thing to have laboured along and +scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity +indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn +the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for +those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the +unlettered; and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those +who have none.</p> +<p>But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not +the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking +against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking +like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is +to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an +apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued +in favour of diligence; only there is something to be said +against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to +say. To state one argument is not necessarily to be deaf to +all others, and that a man has written a book of travels in +Montenegro, is no reason why he should never have been to +Richmond.</p> +<p>It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal +idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay +may escape from school honours with all his wits about him, most +boys pay so dear for their medals that they never afterwards have +a shot in their locker, and begin the world bankrupt. And +the same holds true during all the time a lad is educating +himself, or suffering others to educate him. It must have +been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford +in these words: “Young man, ply your book diligently now, +and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, +you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome +task.” The old gentleman seems to have been unaware +that many other things besides reading grow irksome, and not a +few become impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles +and cannot walk without a stick. Books are good enough in +their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for +life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, +peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle +and glamour of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as +the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for +thought.</p> +<p>If you look back on your own education, I am sure it will not +be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry that you +regret; you would rather cancel some lack-lustre periods between +sleep and waking in the class. For my own part, I have +attended a good many lectures in my time. I still remember +that the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability. +I still remember that Emphyteusis is not a disease, nor +Stillicide a crime. But though I would not willingly part +with such scraps of science, I do not set the same store by them +as by certain other odds and ends that I came by in the open +street while I was playing truant. This is not the moment +to dilate on that mighty place of education, which was the +favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac, and turns out yearly +many inglorious masters in the Science of the Aspects of +Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad does not learn in +the streets, it is because he has no faculty of learning. +Nor is the truant always in the streets, for if he prefers, he +may go out by the gardened suburbs into the country. He may +pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable +pipes to the tune of the water on the stones. A bird will +sing in the thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of +kindly thought, and see things in a new perspective. Why, +if this be not education, what is? We may conceive Mr. +Worldly Wiseman accosting such an one, and the conversation that +should thereupon ensue:—</p> +<p>“How now, young fellow, what dost thou here?”</p> +<p>“Truly, sir, I take mine ease.”</p> +<p>“Is not this the hour of the class? and should’st +thou not be plying thy Book with diligence, to the end thou +mayest obtain knowledge?”</p> +<p>“Nay, but thus also I follow after Learning, by your +leave.”</p> +<p>“Learning, quotha! After what fashion, I pray +thee? Is it mathematics?”</p> +<p>“No, to be sure.”</p> +<p>“Is it metaphysics?”</p> +<p>“Nor that.”</p> +<p>“Is it some language?”</p> +<p>“Nay, it is no language.”</p> +<p>“Is it a trade?”</p> +<p>“Nor a trade neither.”</p> +<p>“Why, then, what is’t?”</p> +<p>“Indeed, sir, as a time may soon come for me to go upon +Pilgrimage, I am desirous to note what is commonly done by +persons in my case, and where are the ugliest Sloughs and +Thickets on the Road; as also, what manner of Staff is of the +best service. Moreover, I lie here, by this water, to learn +by root-of-heart a lesson which my master teaches me to call +Peace, or Contentment.”</p> +<p>Hereupon Mr. Worldly Wiseman was much commoved with passion, +and shaking his cane with a very threatful countenance, broke +forth upon this wise: “Learning, quotha!” said he; +“I would have all such rogues scourged by the +Hangman!”</p> +<p>And so he would go his way, ruffling out his cravat with a +crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spread its feathers.</p> +<p>Now this, of Mr. Wiseman’s, is the common opinion. +A fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does +not fall into one of your scholastic categories. An inquiry +must be in some acknowledged direction, with a name to go by; or +else you are not inquiring at all, only lounging; and the +work-house is too good for you. It is supposed that all +knowledge is at the bottom of a well, or the far end of a +telescope. Sainte-Beuve, as he grew older, came to regard +all experience as a single great book, in which to study for a +few years ere we go hence; and it seemed all one to him whether +you should read in Chapter xx., which is the differential +calculus, or in Chapter xxxix., which is hearing the band play in +the gardens. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, +looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile +on his face all the time, will get more true education than many +another in a life of heroic vigils. There is certainly some +chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal +and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the +trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and +palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their +memory with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget +before the week be out, your truant may learn some really useful +art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or to speak with +ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have +“plied their book diligently,” and know all about +some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the +study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, +stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of +life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and +pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes +the idler, who began life along with them—by your leave, a +different picture. He has had time to take care of his +health and his spirits; he has been a great deal in the open air, +which is the most salutary of all things for both body and mind; +and if he has never read the great Book in very recondite places, +he has dipped into it and skimmed it over to excellent +purpose. Might not the student afford some Hebrew roots, +and the business man some of his half-crowns, for a share of the +idler’s knowledge of life at large, and Art of +Living? Nay, and the idler has another and more important +quality than these. I mean his wisdom. He who has +much looked on at the childish satisfaction of other people in +their hobbies, will regard his own with only a very ironical +indulgence. He will not be heard among the +dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all +sorts of people and opinions. If he finds no out-of-the-way +truths, he will identify himself with no very burning +falsehood. His way takes him along a by-road, not much +frequented, but very even and pleasant, which is called +Commonplace Lane, and leads to the Belvedere of +Commonsense. Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no +very noble prospect; and while others behold the East and West, +the Devil and the Sunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort +of morning hour upon all sublunary things, with an army of +shadows running speedily and in many different directions into +the great daylight of Eternity. The shadows and the +generations, the shrill doctors and the plangent wars, go by into +ultimate silence and emptiness; but underneath all this, a man +may see, out of the Belvedere windows, much green and peaceful +landscape; many firelit parlours; good people laughing, drinking, +and making love as they did before the Flood or the French +Revolution; and the old shepherd telling his tale under the +hawthorn.</p> +<p>Extreme <i>busyness</i>, whether at school or college, kirk or +market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for +idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of +personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed +people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the +exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these +fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will +see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have +no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random +provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their +faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them +with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good +speaking to such folk: they <i>cannot</i> be idle, their nature +is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of +coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the +gold-mill. When they do not require to go to the office, +when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole +breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an +hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance with their +eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing +to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were +paralysed or alienated; and yet very possibly they are hard +workers in their own way, and have good eyesight for a flaw in a +deed or a turn of the market. They have been to school and +college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; they +have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but +all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if +a man’s soul were not too small to begin with, they have +dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; +until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind +vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub +against another, while they wait for the train. Before he +was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when he was +twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the pipe is +smoked out, the snuff-box empty, and my gentleman sits bolt +upright upon a bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not +appeal to me as being Success in Life.</p> +<p>But it is not only the person himself who suffers from his +busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends and +relations, and down to the very people he sits with in a railway +carriage or an omnibus. Perpetual devotion to what a man +calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect +of many other things. And it is not by any means certain +that a man’s business is the most important thing he has to +do. To an impartial estimate it will seem clear that many +of the wisest, most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are +to be played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous +performers, and pass, among the world at large, as phases of +idleness. For in that Theatre, not only the walking +gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and diligent fiddlers in the +orchestra, but those who look on and clap their hands from the +benches, do really play a part and fulfil important offices +towards the general result. You are no doubt very dependent +on the care of your lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and +signalmen who convey you rapidly from place to place, and the +policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but is there +not a thought of gratitude in your heart for certain other +benefactors who set you smiling when they fall in your way, or +season your dinner with good company? Colonel Newcome +helped to lose his friend’s money; Fred Bayham had an ugly +trick of borrowing shirts; and yet they were better people to +fall among than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither +sober nor very honest, I think I could name one or two long-faced +Barabbases whom the world could better have done without. +Hazlitt mentions that he was more sensible of obligation to +Northcote, who had never done him anything he could call a +service, than to his whole circle of ostentatious friends; for he +thought a good companion emphatically the greatest +benefactor. I know there are people in the world who cannot +feel grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of +pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish +disposition. A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper +covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half +an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; +do you think the service would be greater, if he had made the +manuscript in his heart’s blood, like a compact with the +devil? Do you really fancy you should be more beholden to +your correspondent, if he had been damning you all the while for +your importunity? Pleasures are more beneficial than duties +because, like the quality of mercy, they are not strained, and +they are twice blest. There must always be two to a kiss, +and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there is an +element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, +among generous people, received with confusion. There is no +duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By +being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which +remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, +surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. The other day, a +ragged, barefoot boy ran down the street after a marble, with so +jolly an air that he set every one he passed into a good humour; +one of these persons, who had been delivered from more than +usually black thoughts, stopped the little fellow and gave him +some money with this remark: “You see what sometimes comes +of looking pleased.” If he had looked pleased before, +he had now to look both pleased and mystified. For my part, +I justify this encouragement of smiling rather than tearful +children; I do not wish to pay for tears anywhere but upon the +stage; but I am prepared to deal largely in the opposite +commodity. A happy man or woman is a better thing to find +than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of +goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another +candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they +could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing +than that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the +Liveableness of Life. Consequently, if a person cannot be +happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is +a revolutionary precept; but thanks to hunger and the workhouse, +one not easily to be abused; and within practical limits, it is +one of the most incontestable truths in the whole Body of +Morality. Look at one of your industrious fellows for a +moment, I beseech you. He sows hurry and reaps indigestion; +he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a +large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he +absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse +in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he +comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his +whole nervous system, to discharge some temper before he returns +to work. I do not care how much or how well he works, this +fellow is an evil feature in other people’s lives. +They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do +without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can +tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the +well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a +scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle.</p> +<p>And what, in God’s name, is all this pother about? +For what cause do they embitter their own and other +people’s lives? That a man should publish three or +thirty articles a year, that he should finish or not finish his +great allegorical picture, are questions of little interest to +the world. The ranks of life are full; and although a +thousand fall, there are always some to go into the breach. +When they told Joan of Arc she should be at home minding +women’s work, she answered there were plenty to spin and +wash. And so, even with your own rare gifts! When +nature is “so careless of the single life,” why +should we coddle ourselves into the fancy that our own is of +exceptional importance? Suppose Shakespeare had been +knocked on the head some dark night in Sir Thomas Lucy’s +preserves, the world would have wagged on better or worse, the +pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to the corn, and the student +to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. +There are not many works extant, if you look the alternative all +over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of +limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the +proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, +upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in +the phrase; for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, the +qualities necessary for retailing it are neither rare nor +precious in themselves. Alas and alas! you may take it how +you will, but the services of no single individual are +indispensable. Atlas was just a gentleman with a protracted +nightmare! And yet you see merchants who go and labour +themselves into a great fortune and thence into the bankruptcy +court; scribblers who keep scribbling at little articles until +their temper is a cross to all who come about them, as though +Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a +pyramid: and fine young men who work themselves into a decline, +and are driven off in a hearse with white plumes upon it. +Would you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the +Master of the Ceremonies, the promise of some momentous destiny? +and that this lukewarm bullet on which they play their farces was +the bull’s-eye and centrepoint of all the universe? +And yet it is not so. The ends for which they give away +their priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical or +hurtful; the glory and riches they expect may never come, or may +find them indifferent; and they and the world they inhabit are so +inconsiderable that the mind freezes at the thought.</p> +<h2>ORDERED SOUTH</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">By</span> a curious irony of fate, the +places to which we are sent when health deserts us are often +singularly beautiful. Often, too, they are places we have +visited in former years, or seen briefly in passing by, and kept +ever afterwards in pious memory; and we please ourselves with the +fancy that we shall repeat many vivid and pleasurable sensations, +and take up again the thread of our enjoyment in the same spirit +as we let it fall. We shall now have an opportunity of +finishing many pleasant excursions, interrupted of yore before +our curiosity was fully satisfied. It may be that we have +kept in mind, during all these years, the recollection of some +valley into which we have just looked down for a moment before we +lost sight of it in the disorder of the hills; it may be that we +have lain awake at night, and agreeably tantalised ourselves with +the thought of corners we had never turned, or summits we had all +but climbed: we shall now be able, as we tell ourselves, to +complete all these unfinished pleasures, and pass beyond the +barriers that confined our recollections.</p> +<p>The promise is so great, and we are all so easily led away +when hope and memory are both in one story, that I daresay the +sick man is not very inconsolable when he receives sentence of +banishment, and is inclined to regard his ill-health as not the +least fortunate accident of his life. Nor is he immediately +undeceived. The stir and speed of the journey, and the +restlessness that goes to bed with him as he tries to sleep +between two days of noisy progress, fever him, and stimulate his +dull nerves into something of their old quickness and +sensibility. And so he can enjoy the faint autumnal +splendour of the landscape, as he sees hill and plain, vineyard +and forest, clad in one wonderful glory of fairy gold, which the +first great winds of winter will transmute, as in the fable, into +withered leaves. And so too he can enjoy the admirable +brevity and simplicity of such little glimpses of country and +country ways as flash upon him through the windows of the train; +little glimpses that have a character all their own; sights seen +as a travelling swallow might see them from the wing, or Iris as +she went abroad over the land on some Olympian errand. Here +and there, indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to +the express; but for the most part it is an interruption too +brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease +from browsing; a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a +canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the +splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty +equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood +and iron have been precipitated roaring past her very ear, and +there is not a start, not a tremor, not a turn of the averted +head, to indicate that she has been even conscious of its +passage. Herein, I think, lies the chief attraction of +railway travel. The speed is so easy, and the train +disturbs so little the scenes through which it takes us, that our +heart becomes full of the placidity and stillness of the country; +and while the body is borne forward in the flying chain of +carriages, the thoughts alight, as the humour moves them, at +unfrequented stations; they make haste up the poplar alley that +leads towards the town; they are left behind with the signalman +as, shading his eyes with his hand, he watches the long train +sweep away into the golden distance.</p> +<p>Moreover, there is still before the invalid the shock of +wonder and delight with which he will learn that he has passed +the indefinable line that separates South from North. And +this is an uncertain moment; for sometimes the consciousness is +forced upon him early, on the occasion of some slight +association, a colour, a flower, or a scent; and sometimes not +until, one fine morning, he wakes up with the southern sunshine +peeping through the <i>persiennes</i>, and the southern patois +confusedly audible below the windows. Whether it come early +or late, however, this pleasure will not end with the +anticipation, as do so many others of the same family. It +will leave him wider awake than it found him, and give a new +significance to all he may see for many days to come. There +is something in the mere name of the South that carries +enthusiasm along with it. At the sound of the word, he +pricks up his ears; he becomes as anxious to seek out beauties +and to get by heart the permanent lines and character of the +landscape, as if he had been told that it was all his +own—an estate out of which he had been kept unjustly, and +which he was now to receive in free and full possession. +Even those who have never been there before feel as if they had +been; and everybody goes comparing, and seeking for the familiar, +and finding it with such ecstasies of recognition, that one would +think they were coming home after a weary absence, instead of +travelling hourly farther abroad.</p> +<p>It is only after he is fairly arrived and settled down in his +chosen corner, that the invalid begins to understand the change +that has befallen him. Everything about him is as he had +remembered, or as he had anticipated. Here, at his feet, +under his eyes, are the olive gardens and the blue sea. +Nothing can change the eternal magnificence of form of the naked +Alps behind Mentone; nothing, not even the crude curves of the +railway, can utterly deform the suavity of contour of one bay +after another along the whole reach of the Riviera. And of +all this, he has only a cold head knowledge that is divorced from +enjoyment. He recognises with his intelligence that this +thing and that thing is beautiful, while in his heart of hearts +he has to confess that it is not beautiful for him. It is +in vain that he spurs his discouraged spirit; in vain that he +chooses out points of view, and stands there, looking with all +his eyes, and waiting for some return of the pleasure that he +remembers in other days, as the sick folk may have awaited the +coming of the angel at the pool of Bethesda. He is like an +enthusiast leading about with him a stolid, indifferent +tourist. There is some one by who is out of sympathy with +the scene, and is not moved up to the measure of the occasion; +and that some one is himself. The world is disenchanted for +him. He seems to himself to touch things with muffled +hands, and to see them through a veil. His life becomes a +palsied fumbling after notes that are silent when he has found +and struck them. He cannot recognise that this phlegmatic +and unimpressionable body with which he now goes burthened, is +the same that he knew heretofore so quick and delicate and +alive.</p> +<p>He is tempted to lay the blame on the very softness and +amenity of the climate, and to fancy that in the rigours of the +winter at home, these dead emotions would revive and +flourish. A longing for the brightness and silence of +fallen snow seizes him at such times. He is homesick for +the hale rough weather; for the tracery of the frost upon his +window-panes at morning, the reluctant descent of the first +flakes, and the white roofs relieved against the sombre +sky. And yet the stuff of which these yearnings are made, +is of the flimsiest: if but the thermometer fall a little below +its ordinary Mediterranean level, or a wind come down from the +snow-clad Alps behind, the spirit of his fancies changes upon the +instant, and many a doleful vignette of the grim wintry streets +at home returns to him, and begins to haunt his memory. The +hopeless, huddled attitude of tramps in doorways; the flinching +gait of barefoot children on the icy pavement; the sheen of the +rainy streets towards afternoon; the meagre anatomy of the poor +defined by the clinging of wet garments; the high canorous note +of the North-easter on days when the very houses seem to stiffen +with cold: these, and such as these, crowd back upon him, and +mockingly substitute themselves for the fanciful winter scenes +with which he had pleased himself a while before. He cannot +be glad enough that he is where he is. If only the others +could be there also; if only those tramps could lie down for a +little in the sunshine, and those children warm their feet, this +once, upon a kindlier earth; if only there were no cold anywhere, +and no nakedness, and no hunger; if only it were as well with all +men as it is with him!</p> +<p>For it is not altogether ill with the invalid, after +all. If it is only rarely that anything penetrates vividly +into his numbed spirit, yet, when anything does, it brings with +it a joy that is all the more poignant for its very rarity. +There is something pathetic in these occasional returns of a glad +activity of heart. In his lowest hours he will be stirred +and awakened by many such; and they will spring perhaps from very +trivial sources; as a friend once said to me, the “spirit +of delight” comes often on small wings. For the +pleasure that we take in beautiful nature is essentially +capricious. It comes sometimes when we least look for it; +and sometimes, when we expect it most certainly, it leaves us to +gape joylessly for days together, in the very home-land of the +beautiful. We may have passed a place a thousand times and +one; and on the thousand and second it will be transfigured, and +stand forth in a certain splendour of reality from the dull +circle of surroundings; so that we see it “with a +child’s first pleasure,” as Wordsworth saw the +daffodils by the lake side. And if this falls out +capriciously with the healthy, how much more so with the +invalid. Some day he will find his first violet, and be +lost in pleasant wonder, by what alchemy the cold earth of the +clods, and the vapid air and rain, can be transmuted into colour +so rich and odour so touchingly sweet. Or perhaps he may +see a group of washerwomen relieved, on a spit of shingle, +against the blue sea, or a meeting of flower-gatherers in the +tempered daylight of an olive-garden; and something significant +or monumental in the grouping, something in the harmony of faint +colour that is always characteristic of the dress of these +southern women, will come home to him unexpectedly, and awake in +him that satisfaction with which we tell ourselves that we are +the richer by one more beautiful experience. Or it may be +something even slighter: as when the opulence of the sunshine, +which somehow gets lost and fails to produce its effect on the +large scale, is suddenly revealed to him by the chance +isolation—as he changes the position of his +sunshade—of a yard or two of roadway with its stones and +weeds. And then, there is no end to the infinite variety of +the olive-yards themselves. Even the colour is +indeterminate and continually shifting: now you would say it was +green, now gray, now blue; now tree stands above tree, like +“cloud on cloud,” massed into filmy indistinctness; +and now, at the wind’s will, the whole sea of foliage is +shaken and broken up with little momentary silverings and +shadows. But every one sees the world in his own way. +To some the glad moment may have arrived on other provocations; +and their recollection may be most vivid of the stately gait of +women carrying burthens on their heads; of tropical effects, with +canes and naked rock and sunlight; of the relief of cypresses; of +the troubled, busy-looking groups of sea-pines, that seem always +as if they were being wielded and swept together by a whirlwind; +of the air coming, laden with virginal perfumes, over the myrtles +and the scented underwood; of the empurpled hills standing up, +solemn and sharp, out of the green-gold air of the east at +evening.</p> +<p>There go many elements, without doubt, to the making of one +such moment of intense perception; and it is on the happy +agreement of these many elements, on the harmonious vibration of +many nerves, that the whole delight of the moment must +depend. Who can forget how, when he has chanced upon some +attitude of complete restfulness, after long uneasy rolling to +and fro on grass or heather, the whole fashion of the landscape +has been changed for him, as though the sun had just broken +forth, or a great artist had only then completed, by some cunning +touch, the composition of the picture? And not only a +change of posture—a snatch of perfume, the sudden singing +of a bird, the freshness of some pulse of air from an invisible +sea, the light shadow of a travelling cloud, the merest nothing +that sends a little shiver along the most infinitesimal nerve of +a man’s body—not one of the least of these but has a +hand somehow in the general effect, and brings some refinement of +its own into the character of the pleasure we feel.</p> +<p>And if the external conditions are thus varied and subtle, +even more so are those within our own bodies. No man can +find out the world, says Solomon, from beginning to end, because +the world is in his heart; and so it is impossible for any of us +to understand, from beginning to end, that agreement of +harmonious circumstances that creates in us the highest pleasure +of admiration, precisely because some of these circumstances are +hidden from us for ever in the constitution of our own +bodies. After we have reckoned up all that we can see or +hear or feel, there still remains to be taken into account some +sensibility more delicate than usual in the nerves affected, or +some exquisite refinement in the architecture of the brain, which +is indeed to the sense of the beautiful as the eye or the ear to +the sense of hearing or sight. We admire splendid views and +great pictures; and yet what is truly admirable is rather the +mind within us, that gathers together these scattered details for +its delight, and makes out of certain colours, certain +distributions of graduated light and darkness, that intelligible +whole which alone we call a picture or a view. Hazlitt, +relating in one of his essays how he went on foot from one great +man’s house to another’s in search of works of art, +begins suddenly to triumph over these noble and wealthy owners, +because he was more capable of enjoying their costly possessions +than they were; because they had paid the money and he had +received the pleasure. And the occasion is a fair one for +self-complacency. While the one man was working to be able +to buy the picture, the other was working to be able to enjoy the +picture. An inherited aptitude will have been diligently +improved in either case; only the one man has made for himself a +fortune, and the other has made for himself a living +spirit. It is a fair occasion for self-complacency, I +repeat, when the event shows a man to have chosen the better +part, and laid out his life more wisely, in the long run, than +those who have credit for most wisdom. And yet even this is +not a good unmixed; and like all other possessions, although in a +less degree, the possession of a brain that has been thus +improved and cultivated, and made into the prime organ of a +man’s enjoyment, brings with it certain inevitable cares +and disappointments. The happiness of such an one comes to +depend greatly upon those fine shades of sensation that heighten +and harmonise the coarser elements of beauty. And thus a +degree of nervous prostration, that to other men would be hardly +disagreeable, is enough to overthrow for him the whole fabric of +his life, to take, except at rare moments, the edge off his +pleasures, and to meet him wherever he goes with failure, and the +sense of want, and disenchantment of the world and life.</p> +<p>It is not in such numbness of spirit only that the life of the +invalid resembles a premature old age. Those excursions +that he had promised himself to finish, prove too long or too +arduous for his feeble body; and the barrier-hills are as +impassable as ever. Many a white town that sits far out on +the promontory, many a comely fold of wood on the mountain side, +beckons and allures his imagination day after day, and is yet as +inaccessible to his feet as the clefts and gorges of the +clouds. The sense of distance grows upon him wonderfully; +and after some feverish efforts and the fretful uneasiness of the +first few days, he falls contentedly in with the restrictions of +his weakness. His narrow round becomes pleasant and +familiar to him as the cell to a contented prisoner. Just +as he has fallen already out of the mid race of active life, he +now falls out of the little eddy that circulates in the shallow +waters of the sanatorium. He sees the country people come +and go about their everyday affairs, the foreigners stream out in +goodly pleasure parties; the stir of man’s activity is all +about him, as he suns himself inertly in some sheltered corner; +and he looks on with a patriarchal impersonality of interest, +such as a man may feel when he pictures to himself the fortunes +of his remote descendants, or the robust old age of the oak he +has planted over-night.</p> +<p>In this falling aside, in this quietude and desertion of other +men, there is no inharmonious prelude to the last quietude and +desertion of the grave; in this dulness of the senses there is a +gentle preparation for the final insensibility of death. +And to him the idea of mortality comes in a shape less violent +and harsh than is its wont, less as an abrupt catastrophe than as +a thing of infinitesimal gradation, and the last step on a long +decline of way. As we turn to and fro in bed, and every +moment the movements grow feebler and smaller and the attitude +more restful and easy, until sleep overtakes us at a stride and +we move no more, so desire after desire leaves him; day by day +his strength decreases, and the circle of his activity grows ever +narrower; and he feels, if he is to be thus tenderly weaned from +the passion of life, thus gradually inducted into the slumber of +death, that when at last the end comes, it will come quietly and +fitly. If anything is to reconcile poor spirits to the +coming of the last enemy, surely it should be such a mild +approach as this; not to hale us forth with violence, but to +persuade us from a place we have no further pleasure in. It +is not so much, indeed, death that approaches as life that +withdraws and withers up from round about him. He has +outlived his own usefulness, and almost his own enjoyment; and if +there is to be no recovery; if never again will he be young and +strong and passionate, if the actual present shall be to him +always like a thing read in a book or remembered out of the +far-away past; if, in fact, this be veritably nightfall, he will +not wish greatly for the continuance of a twilight that only +strains and disappoints the eyes, but steadfastly await the +perfect darkness. He will pray for Medea: when she comes, +let her either rejuvenate or slay.</p> +<p>And yet the ties that still attach him to the world are many +and kindly. The sight of children has a significance for +him such as it may have for the aged also, but not for +others. If he has been used to feel humanely, and to look +upon life somewhat more widely than from the narrow loophole of +personal pleasure and advancement, it is strange how small a +portion of his thoughts will be changed or embittered by this +proximity of death. He knows that already, in English +counties, the sower follows the ploughman up the face of the +field, and the rooks follow the sower; and he knows also that he +may not live to go home again and see the corn spring and ripen, +and be cut down at last, and brought home with gladness. +And yet the future of this harvest, the continuance of drought or +the coming of rain unseasonably, touch him as sensibly as +ever. For he has long been used to wait with interest the +issue of events in which his own concern was nothing; and to be +joyful in a plenty, and sorrowful for a famine, that did not +increase or diminish, by one half loaf, the equable sufficiency +of his own supply. Thus there remain unaltered all the +disinterested hopes for mankind and a better future which have +been the solace and inspiration of his life. These he has +set beyond the reach of any fate that only menaces himself; and +it makes small difference whether he die five thousand years, or +five thousand and fifty years, before the good epoch for which he +faithfully labours. He has not deceived himself; he has +known from the beginning that he followed the pillar of fire and +cloud, only to perish himself in the wilderness, and that it was +reserved for others to enter joyfully into possession of the +land. And so, as everything grows grayer and quieter about +him, and slopes towards extinction, these unfaded visions +accompany his sad decline, and follow him, with friendly voices +and hopeful words, into the very vestibule of death. The +desire of love or of fame scarcely moved him, in his days of +health, more strongly than these generous aspirations move him +now; and so life is carried forward beyond life, and a vista kept +open for the eyes of hope, even when his hands grope already on +the face of the impassable.</p> +<p>Lastly, he is bound tenderly to life by the thought of his +friends; or shall we not say rather, that by their thought for +him, by their unchangeable solicitude and love, he remains woven +into the very stuff of life, beyond the power of bodily +dissolution to undo? In a thousand ways will he survive and +be perpetuated. Much of Etienne de la Boetie survived +during all the years in which Montaigne continued to converse +with him on the pages of the ever-delightful essays. Much +of what was truly Goethe was dead already when he revisited +places that knew him no more, and found no better consolation +than the promise of his own verses, that soon he too would be at +rest. Indeed, when we think of what it is that we most seek +and cherish, and find most pride and pleasure in calling ours, it +will sometimes seem to us as if our friends, at our decease, +would suffer loss more truly than ourselves. As a monarch +who should care more for the outlying colonies he knows on the +map or through the report of his vicegerents, than for the trunk +of his empire under his eyes at home, are we not more concerned +about the shadowy life that we have in the hearts of others, and +that portion in their thoughts and fancies which, in a certain +far-away sense, belongs to us, than about the real knot of our +identity—that central metropolis of self, of which alone we +are immediately aware—or the diligent service of arteries +and veins and infinitesimal activity of ganglia, which we know +(as we know a proposition in Euclid) to be the source and +substance of the whole? At the death of every one whom we +love, some fair and honourable portion of our existence falls +away, and we are dislodged from one of these dear provinces; and +they are not, perhaps, the most fortunate who survive a long +series of such impoverishments, till their life and influence +narrow gradually into the meagre limit of their own spirits, and +death, when he comes at last, can destroy them at one blow.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—To this essay I must in +honesty append a word or two of qualification; for this is one of +the points on which a slightly greater age teaches us a slightly +different wisdom:</p> +<p>A youth delights in generalities, and keeps loose from +particular obligations; he jogs on the footpath way, himself +pursuing butterflies, but courteously lending his applause to the +advance of the human species and the coming of the kingdom of +justice and love. As he grows older, he begins to think +more narrowly of man’s action in the general, and perhaps +more arrogantly of his own in the particular. He has not +that same unspeakable trust in what he would have done had he +been spared, seeing finally that that would have been little; but +he has a far higher notion of the blank that he will make by +dying. A young man feels himself one too many in the world; +his is a painful situation: he has no calling; no obvious +utility; no ties, but to his parents. and these he is sure to +disregard. I do not think that a proper allowance has been +made for this true cause of suffering in youth; but by the mere +fact of a prolonged existence, we outgrow either the fact or else +the feeling. Either we become so callously accustomed to +our own useless figure in the world, or else—and this, +thank God, in the majority of cases—we so collect about us +the interest or the love of our fellows, so multiply our +effective part in the affairs of life, that we need to entertain +no longer the question of our right to be.</p> +<p>And so in the majority of cases, a man who fancies himself +dying, will get cold comfort from the very youthful view +expressed in this essay. He, as a living man, has some to +help, some to love, some to correct; it may be, some to +punish. These duties cling, not upon humanity, but upon the +man himself. It is he, not another, who is one +woman’s son and a second woman’s husband and a third +woman’s father. That life which began so small, has +now grown, with a myriad filaments, into the lives of +others. It is not indispensable; another will take the +place and shoulder the discharged responsibility; but the better +the man and the nobler his purposes, the more will he be tempted +to regret the extinction of his powers and the deletion of his +personality. To have lived a generation, is not only to +have grown at home in that perplexing medium, but to have assumed +innumerable duties. To die at such an age, has, for all but +the entirely base, something of the air of a betrayal. A +man does not only reflect upon what he might have done in a +future that is never to be his; but beholding himself so early a +deserter from the fight, he eats his heart for the good he might +have done already. To have been so useless and now to lose +all hope of being useful any more—there it is that death +and memory assail him. And even if mankind shall go on, +founding heroic cities, practising heroic virtues, rising +steadily from strength to strength; even if his work shall be +fulfilled, his friends consoled, his wife remarried by a better +than he; how shall this alter, in one jot, his estimation of a +career which was his only business in this world, which was so +fitfully pursued, and which is now so ineffectively to end?</p> +<h2>ÆS TRIPLEX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> changes wrought by death are in +themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in +their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man’s +experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all +other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes +it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it +lays a regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score +of years. And when the business is done, there is sore +havoc made in other people’s lives, and a pin knocked out +by which many subsidiary friendships hung together. There +are empty chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. +Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away +utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon +intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. +Hence a whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind, +from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule trees of +mediæval Europe. The poorest persons have a bit of +pageant going towards the tomb; memorial stones are set up over +the least memorable; and, in order to preserve some show of +respect for what remains of our old loves and friendships, we +must accompany it with much grimly ludicrous ceremonial, and the +hired undertaker parades before the door. All this, and +much more of the same sort, accompanied by the eloquence of +poets, has gone a great way to put humanity in error; nay, in +many philosophies the error has been embodied and laid down with +every circumstance of logic; although in real life the bustle and +swiftness, in leaving people little time to think, have not left +them time enough to go dangerously wrong in practice.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, although few things are spoken of with +more fearful whisperings than this prospect of death, few have +less influence on conduct under healthy circumstances. We +have all heard of cities in South America built upon the side of +fiery mountains, and how, even in this tremendous neighbourhood, +the inhabitants are not a jot more impressed by the solemnity of +mortal conditions than if they were delving gardens in the +greenest corner of England. There are serenades and suppers +and much gallantry among the myrtles overhead; and meanwhile the +foundation shudders underfoot, the bowels of the mountain growl, +and at any moment living ruin may leap sky-high into the +moonlight, and tumble man and his merry-making in the dust. +In the eyes of very young people, and very dull old ones, there +is something indescribably reckless and desperate in such a +picture. It seems not credible that respectable married +people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of supper +within quite a long distance of a fiery mountain; ordinary life +begins to smell of high-handed debauch when it is carried on so +close to a catastrophe; and even cheese and salad, it seems, +could hardly be relished in such circumstances without something +like a defiance of the Creator. It should be a place for +nobody but hermits dwelling in prayer and maceration, or mere +born-devils drowning care in a perpetual carouse.</p> +<p>And yet, when one comes to think upon it calmly, the situation +of these South American citizens forms only a very pale figure +for the state of ordinary mankind. This world itself, +travelling blindly and swiftly in over-crowded space, among a +million other worlds travelling blindly and swiftly in contrary +directions, may very well come by a knock that would set it into +explosion like a penny squib. And what, pathologically +looked at, is the human body with all its organs, but a mere +bagful of petards? The least of these is as dangerous to +the whole economy as the ship’s powder-magazine to the +ship; and with every breath we breathe, and every meal we eat, we +are putting one or more of them in peril. If we clung as +devotedly as some philosophers pretend we do to the abstract idea +of life, or were half as frightened as they make out we are, for +the subversive accident that ends it all, the trumpets might +sound by the hour and no one would follow them into +battle—the blue-peter might fly at the truck, but who would +climb into a sea-going ship? Think (if these philosophers +were right) with what a preparation of spirit we should affront +the daily peril of the dinner-table: a deadlier spot than any +battle-field in history, where the far greater proportion of our +ancestors have miserably left their bones! What woman would +ever be lured into marriage, so much more dangerous than the +wildest sea? And what would it be to grow old? For, +after a certain distance, every step we take in life we find the +ice growing thinner below our feet, and all around us and behind +us we see our contemporaries going through. By the time a +man gets well into the seventies, his continued existence is a +mere miracle; and when he lays his old bones in bed for the +night, there is an overwhelming probability that he will never +see the day. Do the old men mind it, as a matter of +fact? Why, no. They were never merrier; they have +their grog at night, and tell the raciest stories; they hear of +the death of people about their own age, or even younger, not as +if it was a grisly warning, but with a simple childlike pleasure +at having outlived some one else; and when a draught might puff +them out like a guttering candle, or a bit of a stumble shatter +them like so much glass, their old hearts keep sound and +unaffrighted, and they go on, bubbling with laughter, through +years of man’s age compared to which the valley at +Balaklava was as safe and peaceful as a village cricket-green on +Sunday. It may fairly be questioned (if we look to the +peril only) whether it was a much more daring feat for Curtius to +plunge into the gulf, than for any old gentleman of ninety to +doff his clothes and clamber into bed.</p> +<p>Indeed, it is a memorable subject for consideration, with what +unconcern and gaiety mankind pricks on along the Valley of the +Shadow of Death. The whole way is one wilderness of snares, +and the end of it, for those who fear the last pinch, is +irrevocable ruin. And yet we go spinning through it all, +like a party for the Derby. Perhaps the reader remembers +one of the humorous devices of the deified Caligula: how he +encouraged a vast concourse of holiday-makers on to his bridge +over Baiæ bay; and when they were in the height of their +enjoyment, turned loose the Prætorian guards among the +company, and had them tossed into the sea. This is no bad +miniature of the dealings of nature with the transitory race of +man. Only, what a chequered picnic we have of it, even +while it lasts! and into what great waters, not to be crossed by +any swimmer, God’s pale Prætorian throws us over in +the end!</p> +<p>We live the time that a match flickers; we pop the cork of a +ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the +instant. Is it not odd, is it not incongruous, is it not, +in the highest sense of human speech, incredible, that we should +think so highly of the ginger-beer, and regard so little the +devouring earthquake? The love of Life and the fear of +Death are two famous phrases that grow harder to understand the +more we think about them. It is a well-known fact that an +immense proportion of boat accidents would never happen if people +held the sheet in their hands instead of making it fast; and yet, +unless it be some martinet of a professional mariner or some +landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God’s +creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man’s +unconcern and brazen boldness in the face of death!</p> +<p>We confound ourselves with metaphysical phrases, which we +import into daily talk with noble inappropriateness. We +have no idea of what death is, apart from its circumstances and +some of its consequences to others; and although we have some +experience of living, there is not a man on earth who has flown +so high into abstraction as to have any practical guess at the +meaning of the word <i>life</i>. All literature, from Job +and Omar Khayam to Thomas Carlyle or Walt Whitman, is but an +attempt to look upon the human state with such largeness of view +as shall enable us to rise from the consideration of living to +the Definition of Life. And our sages give us about the +best satisfaction in their power when they say that it is a +vapour, or a show, or made out of the same stuff with +dreams. Philosophy, in its more rigid sense, has been at +the same work for ages; and after a myriad bald heads have wagged +over the problem, and piles of words have been heaped one upon +another into dry and cloudy volumes without end, philosophy has +the honour of laying before us, with modest pride, her +contribution towards the subject: that life is a Permanent +Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine result! A man +may very well love beef, or hunting, or a woman; but surely, +surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sensation! He may be +afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or a large enemy with a +club, or even an undertaker’s man; but not certainly of +abstract death. We may trick with the word life in its +dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; we may argue in +terms of all the philosophies on earth, but one fact remains true +throughout—that we do not love life, in the sense that we +are greatly preoccupied about its conservation; that we do not, +properly speaking, love life at all, but living. Into the +views of the least careful there will enter some degree of +providence; no man’s eyes are fixed entirely on the passing +hour; but although we have some anticipation of good health, good +weather, wine, active employment, love, and self-approval, the +sum of these anticipations does not amount to anything like a +general view of life’s possibilities and issues; nor are +those who cherish them most vividly, at all the most scrupulous +of their personal safety. To be deeply interested in the +accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly the mixed texture of +human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, +and risk his neck against a straw. For surely the love of +living is stronger in an Alpine climber roping over a peril, or a +hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature who +lives upon a diet and walks a measured distance in the interest +of his constitution.</p> +<p>There is a great deal of very vile nonsense talked upon both +sides of the matter: tearing divines reducing life to the +dimensions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly +decent; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it +were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little +ashamed of their performances now and again when they draw in +their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and a bottle of +wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question. +When a man’s heart warms to his viands, he forgets a great +deal of sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of +contemplation. Death may be knocking at the door, like the +Commander’s statue; we have something else in hand, thank +God, and let him knock. Passing bells are ringing all the +world over. All the world over, and every hour, some one is +parting company with all his aches and ecstasies. For us +also the trap is laid. But we are so fond of life that we +have no leisure to entertain the terror of death. It is a +honeymoon with us all through, and none of the longest. +Small blame to us if we give our whole hearts to this glowing +bride of ours, to the appetites, to honour, to the hungry +curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyes in nature, and +the pride of our own nimble bodies.</p> +<p>We all of us appreciate the sensations; but as for caring +about the Permanence of the Possibility, a man’s head is +generally very bald, and his senses very dull, before he comes to +that. Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead +wall—a mere bag’s end, as the French say—or +whether we think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait +our turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny; +whether we thunder in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic +poetry-books, about its vanity and brevity; whether we look +justly for years of health and vigour, or are about to mount into +a bath-chair, as a step towards the hearse; in each and all of +these views and situations there is but one conclusion possible: +that a man should stop his ears against paralysing terror, and +run the race that is set before him with a single mind. No +one surely could have recoiled with more heartache and terror +from the thought of death than our respected lexicographer; and +yet we know how little it affected his conduct, how wisely and +boldly he walked, and in what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of +life. Already an old man, he ventured on his Highland tour; +and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil before +twenty-seven individual cups of tea. As courage and +intelligence are the two qualities best worth a good man’s +cultivation, so it is the first part of intelligence to recognise +our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to +be not at all abashed before the fact. A frank and somewhat +headlong carriage, not looking too anxiously before, not dallying +in maudlin regret over the past, stamps the man who is well +armoured for this world.</p> +<p>And not only well armoured for himself, but a good friend and +a good citizen to boot. We do not go to cowards for tender +dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has +least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider +others. That eminent chemist who took his walks abroad in +tin shoes, and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk, had all his work +cut out for him in considerate dealings with his own +digestion. So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the +brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a +paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink +spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated +temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes +and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul +becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer world +begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the regulated +temperature; and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood and +rain. To be overwise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger +ends by standing stockstill. Now the man who has his heart +on his sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of a brain, who +reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully +hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance of the world, keeps +all his pulses going true and fast, and gathers impetus as he +runs, until, if he be running towards anything better than +wildfire, he may shoot up and become a constellation in the +end. Lord look after his health, Lord have a care of his +soul, says he; and he has at the key of the position, and swashes +through incongruity and peril towards his aim. Death is on +all sides of him with pointed batteries, as he is on all sides of +all of us; unfortunate surprises gird him round; mim-mouthed +friends and relations hold up their hands in quite a little +elegiacal synod about his path: and what cares he for all +this? Being a true lover of living, a fellow with something +pushing and spontaneous in his inside, he must, like any other +soldier, in any other stirring, deadly warfare, push on at his +best pace until he touch the goal. “A peerage or +Westminster Abbey!” cried Nelson in his bright, boyish, +heroic manner. These are great incentives; not for any of +these, but for the plain satisfaction of living, of being about +their business in some sort or other, do the brave, serviceable +men of every nation tread down the nettle danger, and pass +flyingly over all the stumbling-blocks of prudence. Think +of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to +mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried +him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were +wisely considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any +work much more considerable than a halfpenny post card? Who +would project a serial novel, after Thackeray and Dickens had +each fallen in mid-course? Who would find heart enough to +begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death?</p> +<p>And, after all, what sorry and pitiful quibbling all this +is! To forego all the issues of living in a parlour with a +regulated temperature—as if that were not to die a hundred +times over, and for ten years at a stretch! As if it were +not to die in one’s own lifetime, and without even the sad +immunities of death! As if it were not to die, and yet be +the patient spectators of our own pitiable change! The +Permanent Possibility is preserved, but the sensations carefully +held at arm’s length, as if one kept a photographic plate +in a dark chamber. It is better to lose health like a +spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to +live and be done with it, than to die daily in the +sickroom. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor +does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, +make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a +week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought +to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who +means execution, which out-lives the most untimely ending. +All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done +good work, although they may die before they have the time to +sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully +has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered +the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, +like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast +projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, +and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at +once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and +spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a +better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than +miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the +Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die +young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also +in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the +man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to +take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit +of life, a-tip-toe on the highest point of being, he passes at a +bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and +chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done +blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this +happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual +land.</p> +<h2>EL DORADO</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> seems as if a great deal were +attainable in a world where there are so many marriages and +decisive battles, and where we all, at certain hours of the day, +and with great gusto and despatch, stow a portion of victuals +finally and irretrievably into the bag which contains us. +And it would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of +as much as possible was the one goal of man’s contentious +life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but a +semblance. We live in an ascending scale when we live +happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. +There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, and +although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in petty business +and not enduring beyond a brief period of years, we are so +constituted that our hopes are inaccessible, like stars, and the +term of hoping is prolonged until the term of life. To be +truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, +of what we want and not of what we have. An aspiration is a +joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune +which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a +revenue of pleasurable activity. To have many of these is +to be spiritually rich. Life is only a very dull and +ill-directed theatre unless we have some interests in the piece; +and to those who have neither art nor science, the world is a +mere arrangement of colours, or a rough footway where they may +very well break their shins. It is in virtue of his own +desires and curiosities that any man continues to exist with even +patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people, +and that he wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work +and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through +which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours: it is they +that make women beautiful or fossils interesting: and the man may +squander his estate and come to beggary, but if he keeps these +two amulets he is still rich in the possibilities of +pleasure. Suppose he could take one meal so compact and +comprehensive that he should never hunger any more; suppose him, +at a glance, to take in all the features of the world and allay +the desire for knowledge; suppose him to do the like in any +province of experience—would not that man be in a poor way +for amusement ever after?</p> +<p>One who goes touring on foot with a single volume in his +knapsack reads with circumspection, pausing often to reflect, and +often laying the book down to contemplate the landscape or the +prints in the inn parlour; for he fears to come to an end of his +entertainment, and be left companionless on the last stages of +his journey. A young fellow recently finished the works of +Thomas Carlyle, winding up, if we remember aright, with the ten +note-books upon Frederick the Great. “What!” +cried the young fellow, in consternation, “is there no more +Carlyle? Am I left to the daily papers?” A more +celebrated instance is that of Alexander, who wept bitterly +because he had no more worlds to subdue. And when Gibbon +had finished the <i>Decline and Fall</i>, he had only a few +moments of joy; and it was with a “sober melancholy” +that he parted from his labours.</p> +<p>Happily we all shoot at the moon with ineffectual arrows; our +hopes are set on inaccessible El Dorado; we come to an end of +nothing here below. Interests are only plucked up to sow +themselves again, like mustard. You would think, when the +child was born, there would be an end to trouble; and yet it is +only the beginning of fresh anxieties; and when you have seen it +through its teething and its education, and at last its marriage, +alas! it is only to have new fears, new quivering sensibilities, +with every day; and the health of your children’s children +grows as touching a concern as that of your own. Again, +when you have married your wife, you would think you were got +upon a hilltop, and might begin to go downward by an easy +slope. But you have only ended courting to begin +marriage. Falling in love and winning love are often +difficult tasks to overbearing and rebellious spirits; but to +keep in love is also a business of some importance, to which both +man and wife must bring kindness and goodwill. The true +love story commences at the altar, when there lies before the +married pair a most beautiful contest of wisdom and generosity, +and a life-long struggle towards an unattainable ideal. +Unattainable? Ay, surely unattainable, from the very fact +that they are two instead of one.</p> +<p>“Of making books there is no end,” complained the +Preacher; and did not perceive how highly he was praising letters +as an occupation. There is no end, indeed, to making books +or experiments, or to travel, or to gathering wealth. +Problem gives rise to problem. We may study for ever, and +we are never as learned as we would. We have never made a +statue worthy of our dreams. And when we have discovered a +continent, or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find +another ocean or another plain upon the further side. In +the infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence +and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which +can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private +park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet, the weather and +the seasons keep so deftly changing that although we walk there +for a lifetime there will be always something new to startle and +delight us.</p> +<p>There is only one wish realisable on the earth; only one thing +that can be perfectly attained: Death. And from a variety +of circumstances we have no one to tell us whether it be worth +attaining.</p> +<p>A strange picture we make on our way to our chimæras, +ceaselessly marching, grudging ourselves the time for rest; +indefatigable, adventurous pioneers. It is true that we +shall never reach the goal; it is even more than probable that +there is no such place; and if we lived for centuries and were +endowed with the powers of a god, we should find ourselves not +much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of +mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not +whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth +on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, +against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. +Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully +is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to +labour.</p> +<h2>THE ENGLISH ADMIRALS</h2> +<blockquote><p>“Whether it be wise in men to do such +actions or no, I am sure it is so in States to honour +them.”—<span class="smcap">Sir William +Temple</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is one story of the wars of +Rome which I have always very much envied for England. +Germanicus was going down at the head of the legions into a +dangerous river—on the opposite bank the woods were full of +Germans—when there flew out seven great eagles which seemed +to marshal the Romans on their way; they did not pause or waver, +but disappeared into the forest where the enemy lay +concealed. “Forward!” cried Germanicus, with a +fine rhetorical inspiration, “Forward! and follow the Roman +birds.” It would be a very heavy spirit that did not +give a leap at such a signal, and a very timorous one that +continued to have any doubt of success. To appropriate the +eagles as fellow-countrymen was to make imaginary allies of the +forces of nature; the Roman Empire and its military fortunes, and +along with these the prospects of those individual Roman +legionaries now fording a river in Germany, looked altogether +greater and more hopeful. It is a kind of illusion easy to +produce. A particular shape of cloud, the appearance of a +particular star, the holiday of some particular saint, anything +in short to remind the combatants of patriotic legends or old +successes, may be enough to change the issue of a pitched battle; +for it gives to the one party a feeling that Right and the larger +interests are with them.</p> +<p>If an Englishman wishes to have such a feeling, it must be +about the sea. The lion is nothing to us; he has not been +taken to the hearts of the people, and naturalised as an English +emblem. We know right well that a lion would fall foul of +us as grimly as he would of a Frenchman or a Moldavian Jew, and +we do not carry him before us in the smoke of battle. But +the sea is our approach and bulwark; it has been the scene of our +greatest triumphs and dangers; and we are accustomed in lyrical +strains to claim it as our own. The prostrating experiences +of foreigners between Calais and Dover have always an agreeable +side to English prepossessions. A man from Bedfordshire, +who does not know one end of the ship from the other until she +begins to move, swaggers among such persons with a sense of +hereditary nautical experience. To suppose yourself endowed +with natural parts for the sea because you are the countryman of +Blake and mighty Nelson, is perhaps just as unwarrantable as to +imagine Scotch extraction a sufficient guarantee that you will +look well in a kilt. But the feeling is there, and seated +beyond the reach of argument. We should consider ourselves +unworthy of our descent if we did not share the arrogance of our +progenitors, and please ourselves with the pretension that the +sea is English. Even where it is looked upon by the guns +and battlements of another nation we regard it as a kind of +English cemetery, where the bones of our seafaring fathers take +their rest until the last trumpet; for I suppose no other nation +has lost as many ships, or sent as many brave fellows to the +bottom.</p> +<p>There is nowhere such a background for heroism as the noble, +terrifying, and picturesque conditions of some of our sea +fights. Hawke’s battle in the tempest, and Aboukir at +the moment when the French Admiral blew up, reach the limit of +what is imposing to the imagination. And our naval annals +owe some of their interest to the fantastic and beautiful +appearance of old warships and the romance that invests the sea +and everything sea-going in the eyes of English lads on a +half-holiday at the coast. Nay, and what we know of the +misery between decks enhances the bravery of what was done by +giving it something for contrast. We like to know that +these bold and honest fellows contrived to live, and to keep bold +and honest, among absurd and vile surroundings. No reader +can forget the description of the <i>Thunder</i> in <i>Roderick +Random</i>: the disorderly tyranny; the cruelty and dirt of +officers and men; deck after deck, each with some new object of +offence; the hospital, where the hammocks were huddled together +with but fourteen inches space for each; the cockpit, far under +water, where, “in an intolerable stench,” the +spectacled steward kept the accounts of the different messes; and +the canvas enclosure, six feet square, in which Morgan made flip +and salmagundi, smoked his pipe, sang his Welsh songs, and swore +his queer Welsh imprecations. There are portions of this +business on board the <i>Thunder</i> over which the reader passes +lightly and hurriedly, like a traveller in a malarious +country. It is easy enough to understand the opinion of Dr. +Johnson: “Why, sir,” he said, “no man will be a +sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a +jail.” You would fancy any one’s spirit would +die out under such an accumulation of darkness, noisomeness, and +injustice, above all when he had not come there of his own free +will, but under the cutlasses and bludgeons of the +press-gang. But perhaps a watch on deck in the sharp sea +air put a man on his mettle again; a battle must have been a +capital relief; and prize-money, bloodily earned and grossly +squandered, opened the doors of the prison for a twinkling. +Somehow or other, at least, this worst of possible lives could +not overlie the spirit and gaiety of our sailors; they did their +duty as though they had some interest in the fortune of that +country which so cruelly oppressed them, they served their guns +merrily when it came to fighting, and they had the readiest ear +for a bold, honourable sentiment, of any class of men the world +ever produced.</p> +<p>Most men of high destinies have high-sounding names. Pym +and Habakkuk may do pretty well, but they must not think to cope +with the Cromwells and Isaiahs. And you could not find a +better case in point than that of the English Admirals. +Drake and Rooke and Hawke are picked names for men of +execution. Frobisher, Rodney, Boscawen, Foul-Weather, Jack +Byron, are all good to catch the eye in a page of a naval +history. Cloudesley Shovel is a mouthful of quaint and +sounding syllables. Benbow has a bulldog quality that suits +the man’s character, and it takes us back to those English +archers who were his true comrades for plainness, tenacity, and +pluck. Raleigh is spirited and martial, and signifies an +act of bold conduct in the field. It is impossible to judge +of Blake or Nelson, no names current among men being worthy of +such heroes. But still it is odd enough, and very +appropriate in this connection, that the latter was greatly taken +with his Sicilian title. “The signification, perhaps, +pleased him,” says Southey; “Duke of Thunder was what +in Dahomey would have been called a <i>strong name</i>; it was to +a sailor’s taste, and certainly to no man could it be more +applicable.” Admiral in itself is one of the most +satisfactory of distinctions; it has a noble sound and a very +proud history; and Columbus thought so highly of it, that he +enjoined his heirs to sign themselves by that title as long as +the house should last.</p> +<p>But it is the spirit of the men, and not their names, that I +wish to speak about in this paper. That spirit is truly +English; they, and not Tennyson’s cotton-spinners or Mr. +D’Arcy Thompson’s Abstract Bagman, are the true and +typical Englishmen. There may be more <i>head</i> of bagmen +in the country, but human beings are reckoned by number only in +political constitutions. And the Admirals are typical in +the full force of the word. They are splendid examples of +virtue, indeed, but of a virtue in which most Englishmen can +claim a moderate share; and what we admire in their lives is a +sort of apotheosis of ourselves. Almost everybody in our +land, except humanitarians and a few persons whose youth has been +depressed by exceptionally æsthetic surroundings, can +understand and sympathise with an Admiral or a +prize-fighter. I do not wish to bracket Benbow and Tom +Cribb; but, depend upon it, they are practically bracketed for +admiration in the minds of many frequenters of ale-houses. +If you told them about Germanicus and the eagles, or Regulus +going back to Carthage, they would very likely fall asleep; but +tell them about Harry Pearce and Jem Belcher, or about Nelson and +the Nile, and they put down their pipes to listen. I have +by me a copy of <i>Boxiana</i>, on the fly-leaves of which a +youthful member of the fancy kept a chronicle of remarkable +events and an obituary of great men. Here we find piously +chronicled the demise of jockeys, watermen, and +pugilists—Johnny Moore, of the Liverpool Prize Ring; Tom +Spring, aged fifty-six; “Pierce Egan, senior, writer of +<i>Boxiana</i> and other sporting works”—and among +all these, the Duke of Wellington! If Benbow had lived in +the time of this annalist, do you suppose his name would not have +been added to the glorious roll? In short, we do not all +feel warmly towards Wesley or Laud, we cannot all take pleasure +in <i>Paradise Lost</i>; but there are certain common sentiments +and touches of nature by which the whole nation is made to feel +kinship. A little while ago everybody, from Hazlitt and +John Wilson down to the imbecile creature who scribbled his +register on the fly-leaves of <i>Boxiana</i>, felt a more or less +shamefaced satisfaction in the exploits of prize-fighters. +And the exploits of the Admirals are popular to the same degree, +and tell in all ranks of society. Their sayings and doings +stir English blood like the sound of a trumpet; and if the Indian +Empire, the trade of London, and all the outward and visible +ensigns of our greatness should pass away, we should still leave +behind us a durable monument of what we were in these sayings and +doings of the English Admirals.</p> +<p>Duncan, lying off the Texel with his own flagship, the +<i>Venerable</i>, and only one other vessel, heard that the whole +Dutch fleet was putting to sea. He told Captain Hotham to +anchor alongside of him in the narrowest part of the channel, and +fight his vessel till she sank. “I have taken the +depth of the water,” added he, “and when the +<i>Venerable</i> goes down, my flag will still fly.” +And you observe this is no naked Viking in a prehistoric period; +but a Scotch member of Parliament, with a smattering of the +classics, a telescope, a cocked hat of great size, and flannel +underclothing. In the same spirit, Nelson went into Aboukir +with six colours flying; so that even if five were shot away, it +should not be imagined he had struck. He too must needs +wear his four stars outside his Admiral’s frock, to be a +butt for sharp-shooters. “In honour I gained +them,” he said to objectors, adding with sublime +illogicality, “in honour I will die with them.” +Captain Douglas of the <i>Royal Oak</i>, when the Dutch fired his +vessel in the Thames, sent his men ashore, but was burned along +with her himself rather than desert his post without +orders. Just then, perhaps the Merry Monarch was chasing a +moth round the supper-table with the ladies of his court. +When Raleigh sailed into Cadiz, and all the forts and ships +opened fire on him at once, he scorned to shoot a gun, and made +answer with a flourish of insulting trumpets. I like this +bravado better than the wisest dispositions to insure victory; it +comes from the heart and goes to it. God has made nobler +heroes, but he never made a finer gentleman than Walter +Raleigh. And as our Admirals were full of heroic +superstitions, and had a strutting and vainglorious style of +fight, so they discovered a startling eagerness for battle, and +courted war like a mistress. When the news came to Essex +before Cadiz that the attack had been decided, he threw his hat +into the sea. It is in this way that a schoolboy hears of a +half-holiday; but this was a bearded man of great possessions who +had just been allowed to risk his life. Benbow could not +lie still in his bunk after he had lost his leg; he must be on +deck in a basket to direct and animate the fight. I said +they loved war like a mistress; yet I think there are not many +mistresses we should continue to woo under similar +circumstances. Trowbridge went ashore with the +<i>Culloden</i>, and was able to take no part in the battle of +the Nile. “The merits of that ship and her gallant +captain,” wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, “are too +well known to benefit by anything I could say. Her +misfortune was great in getting aground, <i>while her more +fortunate companions were in the full tide of +happiness</i>.” This is a notable expression, and +depicts the whole great-hearted, big-spoken stock of the English +Admirals to a hair. It was to be “in the full tide of +happiness” for Nelson to destroy five thousand five hundred +and twenty-five of his fellow-creatures, and have his own scalp +torn open by a piece of langridge shot. Hear him again at +Copenhagen: “A shot through the mainmast knocked the +splinters about; and he observed to one of his officers with a +smile, ‘It is warm work, and this may be the last to any of +us at any moment;’ and then, stopping short at the gangway, +added, with emotion, ‘<i>But</i>, <i>mark you—I would +not be elsewhere for thousands</i>.’”</p> +<p>I must tell one more story, which has lately been made +familiar to us all, and that in one of the noblest ballads in the +English language. I had written my tame prose abstract, I +shall beg the reader to believe, when I had no notion that the +sacred bard designed an immortality for Greenville. Sir +Richard Greenville was Vice-Admiral to Lord Thomas Howard, and +lay off the Azores with the English squadron in 1591. He +was a noted tyrant to his crew: a dark, bullying fellow +apparently; and it is related of him that he would chew and +swallow wineglasses, by way of convivial levity, till the blood +ran out of his mouth. When the Spanish fleet of fifty sail +came within sight of the English, his ship, the <i>Revenge</i>, +was the last to weigh anchor, and was so far circumvented by the +Spaniards, that there were but two courses open—either to +turn her back upon the enemy or sail through one of his +squadrons. The first alternative Greenville dismissed as +dishonourable to himself, his country, and her Majesty’s +ship. Accordingly, he chose the latter, and steered into +the Spanish armament. Several vessels he forced to luff and +fall under his lee; until, about three o’clock of the +afternoon, a great ship of three decks of ordnance took the wind +out of his sails, and immediately boarded. Thence-forward, +and all night long, the <i>Revenge</i>, held her own +single-handed against the Spaniards. As one ship was beaten +off, another took its place. She endured, according to +Raleigh’s computation, “eight hundred shot of great +artillery, besides many assaults and entries.” By +morning the powder was spent, the pikes all broken, not a stick +was standing, “nothing left overhead either for flight or +defence;” six feet of water in the hold; almost all the men +hurt; and Greenville himself in a dying condition. To bring +them to this pass, a fleet of fifty sail had been mauling them +for fifteen hours, the <i>Admiral of the Hulks</i> and the +<i>Ascension</i> of Seville had both gone down alongside, and two +other vessels had taken refuge on shore in a sinking state. +In Hawke’s words, they had “taken a great deal of +drubbing.” The captain and crew thought they had done +about enough; but Greenville was not of this opinion; he gave +orders to the master gunner, whom he knew to be a fellow after +his own stamp, to scuttle the <i>Revenge</i> where she lay. +The others, who were not mortally wounded like the Admiral, +interfered with some decision, locked the master gunner in his +cabin, after having deprived him of his sword, for he manifested +an intention to kill himself if he were not to sink the ship; and +sent to the Spaniards to demand terms. These were +granted. The second or third day after, Greenville died of +his wounds aboard the Spanish flagship, leaving his contempt upon +the “traitors and dogs” who had not chosen to do as +he did, and engage fifty vessels, well found and fully manned, +with six inferior craft ravaged by sickness and short of +stores. He at least, he said, had done his duty as he was +bound to do, and looked for everlasting fame.</p> +<p>Some one said to me the other day that they considered this +story to be of a pestilent example. I am not inclined to +imagine we shall ever be put into any practical difficulty from a +superfluity of Greenvilles. And besides, I demur to the +opinion. The worth of such actions is not a thing to be +decided in a quaver of sensibility or a flush of righteous +commonsense. The man who wished to make the ballads of his +country, coveted a small matter compared to what Richard +Greenville accomplished. I wonder how many people have been +inspired by this mad story, and how many battles have been +actually won for England in the spirit thus engendered. It +is only with a measure of habitual foolhardiness that you can be +sure, in the common run of men, of courage on a reasonable +occasion. An army or a fleet, if it is not led by quixotic +fancies, will not be led far by terror of the Provost +Marshal. Even German warfare, in addition to maps and +telegraphs, is not above employing the <i>Wacht am +Rhein</i>. Nor is it only in the profession of arms that +such stories may do good to a man. In this desperate and +gleeful fighting, whether it is Greenville or Benbow, Hawke or +Nelson, who flies his colours in the ship, we see men brought to +the test and giving proof of what we call heroic feeling. +Prosperous humanitarians tell me, in my club smoking-room, that +they are a prey to prodigious heroic feelings, and that it costs +them more nobility of soul to do nothing in particular, than +would carry on all the wars, by sea or land, of bellicose +humanity. It may very well be so, and yet not touch the +point in question. For what I desire is to see some of this +nobility brought face to face with me in an inspiriting +achievement. A man may talk smoothly over a cigar in my +club smoking-room from now to the Day of Judgment, without adding +anything to mankind’s treasury of illustrious and +encouraging examples. It is not over the virtues of a +curate-and-tea-party novel, that people are abashed into high +resolutions. It may be because their hearts are crass, but +to stir them properly they must have men entering into glory with +some pomp and circumstance. And that is why these stories +of our sea-captains, printed, so to speak, in capitals, and full +of bracing moral influence, are more valuable to England than any +material benefit in all the books of political economy between +Westminster and Birmingham. Greenville chewing wineglasses +at table makes no very pleasant figure, any more than a thousand +other artists when they are viewed in the body, or met in private +life; but his work of art, his finished tragedy, is an eloquent +performance; and I contend it ought not only to enliven men of +the sword as they go into battle, but send back merchant clerks +with more heart and spirit to their book-keeping by double +entry.</p> +<p>There is another question which seems bound up in this; and +that is Temple’s problem: whether it was wise of Douglas to +burn with the <i>Royal Oak</i>? and by implication, what it was +that made him do so? Many will tell you it was the desire +of fame.</p> +<p>“To what do Cæsar and Alexander owe the infinite +grandeur of their renown, but to fortune? How many men has +she extinguished in the beginning of their progress, of whom we +have no knowledge; who brought as much courage to the work as +they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the first +sally of their arms? Amongst so many and so great dangers, +I do not remember to have anywhere read that Cæsar was ever +wounded; a thousand have fallen in less dangers than the least of +these he went through. A great many brave actions must be +expected to be performed without witness, for one that comes to +some notice. A man is not always at the top of a breach, or +at the head of an army in the sight of his general, as upon a +platform. He is often surprised between the hedge and the +ditch; he must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he +must dislodge four rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must +prick out single from his party, as necessity arises, and meet +adventures alone.”</p> +<p>Thus far Montaigne, in a characteristic essay on +<i>Glory</i>. Where death is certain, as in the cases of +Douglas or Greenville, it seems all one from a personal point of +view. The man who lost his life against a henroost, is in +the same pickle with him who lost his life against a fortified +place of the first order. Whether he has missed a peerage +or only the corporal’s stripes, it is all one if he has +missed them and is quietly in the grave. It was by a hazard +that we learned the conduct of the four marines of the +<i>Wager</i>. There was no room for these brave fellows in +the boat, and they were left behind upon the island to a certain +death. They were soldiers, they said, and knew well enough +it was their business to die; and as their comrades pulled away, +they stood upon the beach, gave three cheers, and cried +“God bless the king!” Now, one or two of those +who were in the boat escaped, against all likelihood, to tell the +story. That was a great thing for us; but surely it cannot, +by any possible twisting of human speech, be construed into +anything great for the marines. You may suppose, if you +like, that they died hoping their behaviour would not be +forgotten; or you may suppose they thought nothing on the +subject, which is much more likely. What can be the +signification of the word “fame” to a private of +marines, who cannot read and knows nothing of past history beyond +the reminiscences of his grandmother? But whichever +supposition you make, the fact is unchanged. They died +while the question still hung in the balance; and I suppose their +bones were already white, before the winds and the waves and the +humour of Indian chiefs and Spanish governors had decided whether +they were to be unknown and useless martyrs or honoured +heroes. Indeed, I believe this is the lesson: if it is for +fame that men do brave actions, they are only silly fellows after +all.</p> +<p>It is at best but a pettifogging, pickthank business to +decompose actions into little personal motives, and explain +heroism away. The Abstract Bagman will grow like an Admiral +at heart, not by ungrateful carping, but in a heat of +admiration. But there is another theory of the personal +motive in these fine sayings and doings, which I believe to be +true and wholesome. People usually do things, and suffer +martyrdoms, because they have an inclination that way. The +best artist is not the man who fixes his eye on posterity, but +the one who loves the practice of his art. And instead of +having a taste for being successful merchants and retiring at +thirty, some people have a taste for high and what we call heroic +forms of excitement. If the Admirals courted war like a +mistress; if, as the drum beat to quarters, the sailors came +gaily out of the forecastle,—it is because a fight is a +period of multiplied and intense experiences, and, by +Nelson’s computation, worth “thousands” to any +one who has a heart under his jacket. If the marines of the +<i>Wager</i> gave three cheers and cried “God bless the +king,” it was because they liked to do things nobly for +their own satisfaction. They were giving their lives, there +was no help for that; and they made it a point of self-respect to +give them handsomely. And there were never four happier +marines in God’s world than these four at that +moment. If it was worth thousands to be at the Baltic, I +wish a Benthamite arithmetician would calculate how much it was +worth to be one of these four marines; or how much their story is +worth to each of us who read it. And mark you, +undemonstrative men would have spoiled the situation. The +finest action is the better for a piece of purple. If the +soldiers of the <i>Birkenhead</i> had not gone down in line, or +these marines of the <i>Wager</i> had walked away simply into the +island, like plenty of other brave fellows in the like +circumstances, my Benthamite arithmetician would assign a far +lower value to the two stories. We have to desire a grand +air in our heroes; and such a knowledge of the human stage as +shall make them put the dots on their own i’s, and leave us +in no suspense as to when they mean to be heroic. And +hence, we should congratulate ourselves upon the fact that our +Admirals were not only great-hearted but big-spoken.</p> +<p>The heroes themselves say, as often as not, that fame is their +object; but I do not think that is much to the purpose. +People generally say what they have been taught to say; that was +the catchword they were given in youth to express the aims of +their way of life; and men who are gaining great battles are not +likely to take much trouble in reviewing their sentiments and the +words in which they were told to express them. Almost every +person, if you will believe himself, holds a quite different +theory of life from the one on which he is patently acting. +And the fact is, fame may be a forethought and an afterthought, +but it is too abstract an idea to move people greatly in moments +of swift and momentous decision. It is from something more +immediate, some determination of blood to the head, some trick of +the fancy, that the breach is stormed or the bold word +spoken. I am sure a fellow shooting an ugly weir in a canoe +has exactly as much thought about fame as most commanders going +into battle; and yet the action, fall out how it will, is not one +of those the muse delights to celebrate. Indeed it is +difficult to see why the fellow does a thing so nameless and yet +so formidable to look at, unless on the theory that he likes +it. I suspect that is why; and I suspect it is at least ten +per cent. of why Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone have debated +so much in the House of Commons, and why Burnaby rode to Khiva +the other day, and why the Admirals courted war like a +mistress.</p> +<h2>SOME PORTRAITS BY RAEBURN</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Through</span> the initiative of a +prominent citizen, Edinburgh has been in possession, for some +autumn weeks, of a gallery of paintings of singular merit and +interest. They were exposed in the apartments of the Scotch +Academy; and filled those who are accustomed to visit the annual +spring exhibition, with astonishment and a sense of +incongruity. Instead of the too common purple sunsets, and +pea-green fields, and distances executed in putty and hog’s +lard, he beheld, looking down upon him from the walls of room +after room, a whole army of wise, grave, humorous, capable, or +beautiful countenances, painted simply and strongly by a man of +genuine instinct. It was a complete act of the Human +Drawing-Room Comedy. Lords and ladies, soldiers and +doctors, hanging judges, and heretical divines, a whole +generation of good society was resuscitated; and the Scotchman of +to-day walked about among the Scotchmen of two generations +ago. The moment was well chosen, neither too late nor too +early. The people who sat for these pictures are not yet +ancestors, they are still relations. They are not yet +altogether a part of the dusty past, but occupy a middle distance +within cry of our affections. The little child who looks +wonderingly on his grandfather’s watch in the picture, is +now the veteran Sheriff <i>emeritus</i> of Perth. And I +hear a story of a lady who returned the other day to Edinburgh, +after an absence of sixty years: “I could see none of my +old friends,” she said, “until I went into the +Raeburn Gallery, and found them all there.”</p> +<p>It would be difficult to say whether the collection was more +interesting on the score of unity or diversity. Where the +portraits were all of the same period, almost all of the same +race, and all from the same brush, there could not fail to be +many points of similarity. And yet the similarity of the +handling seems to throw into more vigorous relief those personal +distinctions which Raeburn was so quick to seize. He was a +born painter of portraits. He looked people shrewdly +between the eyes, surprised their manners in their face, and had +possessed himself of what was essential in their character before +they had been many minutes in his studio. What he was so +swift to perceive, he conveyed to the canvas almost in the moment +of conception. He had never any difficulty, he said, about +either hands or faces. About draperies or light or +composition, he might see room for hesitation or +afterthought. But a face or a hand was something plain and +legible. There were no two ways about it, any more than +about the person’s name. And so each of his portraits +are not only (in Doctor Johnson’s phrase, aptly quoted on +the catalogue) “a piece of history,” but a piece of +biography into the bargain. It is devoutly to be wished +that all biography were equally amusing, and carried its own +credentials equally upon its face. These portraits are +racier than many anecdotes, and more complete than many a volume +of sententious memoirs. You can see whether you get a +stronger and clearer idea of Robertson the historian from +Raeburn’s palette or Dugald Stewart’s woolly and +evasive periods. And then the portraits are both signed and +countersigned. For you have, first, the authority of the +artist, whom you recognise as no mean critic of the looks and +manners of men; and next you have the tacit acquiescence of the +subject, who sits looking out upon you with inimitable innocence, +and apparently under the impression that he is in a room by +himself. For Raeburn could plunge at once through all the +constraint and embarrassment of the sitter, and present the face, +clear, open, and intelligent as at the most disengaged +moments. This is best seen in portraits where the sitter is +represented in some appropriate action: Neil Gow with his fiddle, +Doctor Spens shooting an arrow, or Lord Bannatyne hearing a +cause. Above all, from this point of view, the portrait of +Lieutenant-Colonel Lyon is notable. A strange enough young +man, pink, fat about the lower part of the face, with a lean +forehead, a narrow nose and a fine nostril, sits with a +drawing-board upon his knees. He has just paused to render +himself account of some difficulty, to disentangle some +complication of line or compare neighbouring values. And +there, without any perceptible wrinkling, you have rendered for +you exactly the fixed look in the eyes, and the unconscious +compression of the mouth, that befit and signify an effort of the +kind. The whole pose, the whole expression, is absolutely +direct and simple. You are ready to take your oath to it +that Colonel Lyon had no idea he was sitting for his picture, and +thought of nothing in the world besides his own occupation of the +moment.</p> +<p>Although the collection did not embrace, I understand, nearly +the whole of Raeburn’s works, it was too large not to +contain some that were indifferent, whether as works of art or as +portraits. Certainly the standard was remarkably high, and +was wonderfully maintained, but there were one or two pictures +that might have been almost as well away—one or two that +seemed wanting in salt, and some that you can only hope were not +successful likenesses. Neither of the portraits of Sir +Walter Scott, for instance, were very agreeable to look +upon. You do not care to think that Scott looked quite so +rustic and puffy. And where is that peaked forehead which, +according to all written accounts and many portraits, was the +distinguishing characteristic of his face? Again, in spite +of his own satisfaction and in spite of Dr. John Brown, I cannot +consider that Raeburn was very happy in hands. Without +doubt, he could paint one if he had taken the trouble to study +it; but it was by no means always that he gave himself the +trouble. Looking round one of these rooms hung about with +his portraits, you were struck with the array of expressive +faces, as compared with what you may have seen in looking round a +room full of living people. But it was not so with the +hands. The portraits differed from each other in face +perhaps ten times as much as they differed by the hand; whereas +with living people the two go pretty much together; and where one +is remarkable, the other will almost certainly not be +commonplace.</p> +<p>One interesting portrait was that of Duncan of +Camperdown. He stands in uniform beside a table, his feet +slightly straddled with the balance of an old sailor, his hand +poised upon a chart by the finger tips. The mouth is +pursed, the nostril spread and drawn up, the eyebrows very highly +arched. The cheeks lie along the jaw in folds of iron, and +have the redness that comes from much exposure to salt sea +winds. From the whole figure, attitude and countenance, +there breathes something precise and decisive, something alert, +wiry, and strong. You can understand, from the look of him, +that sense, not so much of humour, as of what is grimmest and +driest in pleasantry, which inspired his address before the fight +at Camperdown. He had just overtaken the Dutch fleet under +Admiral de Winter. “Gentlemen,” says he, +“you see a severe winter approaching; I have only to advise +you to keep up a good fire.” Somewhat of this same +spirit of adamantine drollery must have supported him in the days +of the mutiny at the Nore, when he lay off the Texel with his own +flagship, the <i>Venerable</i>, and only one other vessel, and +kept up active signals, as though he had a powerful fleet in the +offing, to intimidate the Dutch.</p> +<p>Another portrait which irresistibly attracted the eye, was the +half-length of Robert M‘Queen, of Braxfield, Lord +Justice-Clerk. If I know gusto in painting when I see it, +this canvas was painted with rare enjoyment. The tart, +rosy, humorous look of the man, his nose like a cudgel, his face +resting squarely on the jowl, has been caught and perpetuated +with something that looks like brotherly love. A peculiarly +subtle expression haunts the lower part, sensual and incredulous, +like that of a man tasting good Bordeaux with half a fancy it has +been somewhat too long uncorked. From under the pendulous +eyelids of old age the eyes look out with a half-youthful, +half-frosty twinkle. Hands, with no pretence to +distinction, are folded on the judge’s stomach. So +sympathetically is the character conceived by the portrait +painter, that it is hardly possible to avoid some movement of +sympathy on the part of the spectator. And sympathy is a +thing to be encouraged, apart from humane considerations, because +it supplies us with the materials for wisdom. It is +probably more instructive to entertain a sneaking kindness for +any unpopular person, and, among the rest, for Lord Braxfield, +than to give way to perfect raptures of moral indignation against +his abstract vices. He was the last judge on the Scotch +bench to employ the pure Scotch idiom. His opinions, thus +given in Doric, and conceived in a lively, rugged, conversational +style, were full of point and authority. Out of the bar, or +off the bench, he was a convivial man, a lover of wine, and one +who “shone peculiarly” at tavern meetings. He +has left behind him an unrivalled reputation for rough and cruel +speech; and to this day his name smacks of the gallows. It +was he who presided at the trials of Muir and Skirving in 1793 +and 1794; and his appearance on these occasions was scarcely cut +to the pattern of to-day. His summing up on Muir began +thus—the reader must supply for himself “the +growling, blacksmith’s voice” and the broad Scotch +accent: “Now this is the question for +consideration—Is the panel guilty of sedition, or is he +not? Now, before this can be answered, two things must be +attended to that require no proof: <i>First</i>, that the British +constitution is the best that ever was since the creation of the +world, and it is not possible to make it better.” +It’s a pretty fair start, is it not, for a political +trial? A little later, he has occasion to refer to the +relations of Muir with “those wretches,” the +French. “I never liked the French all my days,” +said his lordship, “but now I hate them.” And +yet a little further on: “A government in any country +should be like a corporation; and in this country it is made up +of the landed interest, which alone has a right to be +represented. As for the rabble who have nothing but +personal property, what hold has the nation of them? They +may pack up their property on their backs, and leave the country +in the twinkling of an eye.” After having made +profession of sentiments so cynically anti-popular as these, when +the trials were at an end, which was generally about midnight, +Braxfield would walk home to his house in George Square with no +better escort than an easy conscience. I think I see him +getting his cloak about his shoulders, and, with perhaps a +lantern in one hand, steering his way along the streets in the +mirk January night. It might have been that very day that +Skirving had defied him in these words: “It is altogether +unavailing for your lordship to menace me; for I have long +learned to fear not the face of man;” and I can fancy, as +Braxfield reflected on the number of what he called +<i>Grumbletonians</i> in Edinburgh, and of how many of them must +bear special malice against so upright and inflexible a judge, +nay, and might at that very moment be lurking in the mouth of a +dark close with hostile intent—I can fancy that he indulged +in a sour smile, as he reflected that he also was not especially +afraid of men’s faces or men’s fists, and had +hitherto found no occasion to embody this insensibility in heroic +words. For if he was an inhumane old gentleman (and I am +afraid it is a fact that he was inhumane), he was also perfectly +intrepid. You may look into the queer face of that portrait +for as long as you will, but you will not see any hole or corner +for timidity to enter in.</p> +<p>Indeed, there would be no end to this paper if I were even to +name half of the portraits that were remarkable for their +execution, or interesting by association. There was one +picture of Mr. Wardrop, of Torbane Hill, which you might palm off +upon most laymen as a Rembrandt; and close by, you saw the white +head of John Clerk, of Eldin, that country gentleman who, playing +with pieces of cork on his own dining-table, invented modern +naval warfare. There was that portrait of Neil Gow, to sit +for which the old fiddler walked daily through the streets of +Edinburgh arm in arm with the Duke of Athole. There was +good Harry Erskine, with his satirical nose and upper lip, and +his mouth just open for a witticism to pop out; Hutton the +geologist, in quakerish raiment, and looking altogether trim and +narrow, and as if he cared more about fossils than young ladies; +full-blown John Robieson, in hyperbolical red dressing-gown, and, +every inch of him, a fine old man of the world; Constable the +publisher, upright beside a table, and bearing a corporation with +commercial dignity; Lord Bannatyne hearing a cause, if ever +anybody heard a cause since the world began; Lord Newton just +awakened from clandestine slumber on the bench; and the second +President Dundas, with every feature so fat that he reminds you, +in his wig, of some droll old court officer in an illustrated +nursery story-book, and yet all these fat features instinct with +meaning, the fat lips curved and compressed, the nose combining +somehow the dignity of a beak with the good nature of a bottle, +and the very double chin with an air of intelligence and +insight. And all these portraits are so pat and telling, +and look at you so spiritedly from the walls, that, compared with +the sort of living people one sees about the streets, they are as +bright new sovereigns to fishy and obliterated sixpences. +Some disparaging thoughts upon our own generation could hardly +fail to present themselves; but it is perhaps only the <i>sacer +vates</i> who is wanting; and we also, painted by such a man as +Carolus Duran, may look in holiday immortality upon our children +and grandchildren.</p> +<p>Raeburn’s young women, to be frank, are by no means of +the same order of merit. No one, of course, could be +insensible to the presence of Miss Janet Suttie or Mrs. Campbell +of Possil. When things are as pretty as that, criticism is +out of season. But, on the whole, it is only with women of +a certain age that he can be said to have succeeded, in at all +the same sense as we say he succeeded with men. The younger +women do not seem to be made of good flesh and blood. They +are not painted in rich and unctuous touches. They are dry +and diaphanous. And although young ladies in Great Britain +are all that can be desired of them, I would fain hope they are +not quite so much of that as Raeburn would have us believe. +In all these pretty faces, you miss character, you miss fire, you +miss that spice of the devil which is worth all the prettiness in +the world; and what is worst of all, you miss sex. His +young ladies are not womanly to nearly the same degree as his men +are masculine; they are so in a negative sense; in short, they +are the typical young ladies of the male novelist.</p> +<p>To say truth, either Raeburn was timid with young and pretty +sitters; or he had stupefied himself with sentimentalities; or +else (and here is about the truth of it) Raeburn and the rest of +us labour under an obstinate blindness in one direction, and know +very little more about women after all these centuries than Adam +when he first saw Eve. This is all the more likely, because +we are by no means so unintelligent in the matter of old +women. There are some capital old women, it seems to me, in +books written by men. And Raeburn has some, such as Mrs. +Colin Campbell, of Park, or the anonymous “Old lady with a +large cap,” which are done in the same frank, perspicacious +spirit as the very best of his men. He could look into +their eyes without trouble; and he was not withheld, by any +bashful sentimentalism, from recognising what he saw there and +unsparingly putting it down upon the canvas. But where +people cannot meet without some confusion and a good deal of +involuntary humbug, and are occupied, for as long as they are +together, with a very different vein of thought, there cannot be +much room for intelligent study nor much result in the shape of +genuine comprehension. Even women, who understand men so +well for practical purposes, do not know them well enough for the +purposes of art. Take even the very best of their male +creations, take Tito Melema, for instance, and you will find he +has an equivocal air, and every now and again remembers he has a +comb at the back of his head. Of course, no woman will +believe this, and many men will be so very polite as to humour +their incredulity.</p> +<h2>CHILD’S PLAY</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> regret we have for our +childhood is not wholly justifiable: so much a man may lay down +without fear of public ribaldry; for although we shake our heads +over the change, we are not unconscious of the manifold +advantages of our new state. What we lose in generous +impulse, we more than gain in the habit of generously watching +others; and the capacity to enjoy Shakespeare may balance a lost +aptitude for playing at soldiers. Terror is gone out of our +lives, moreover; we no longer see the devil in the bed-curtains +nor lie awake to listen to the wind. We go to school no +more; and if we have only exchanged one drudgery for another +(which is by no means sure), we are set free for ever from the +daily fear of chastisement. And yet a great change has +overtaken us; and although we do not enjoy ourselves less, at +least we take our pleasure differently. We need pickles +nowadays to make Wednesday’s cold mutton please our +Friday’s appetite; and I can remember the time when to call +it red venison, and tell myself a hunter’s story, would +have made it more palatable than the best of sauces. To the +grown person, cold mutton is cold mutton all the world over; not +all the mythology ever invented by man will make it better or +worse to him; the broad fact, the clamant reality, of the mutton +carries away before it such seductive figments. But for the +child it is still possible to weave an enchantment over eatables; +and if he has but read of a dish in a story-book, it will be +heavenly manna to him for a week.</p> +<p>If a grown man does not like eating and drinking and exercise, +if he is not something positive in his tastes, it means he has a +feeble body and should have some medicine; but children may be +pure spirits, if they will, and take their enjoyment in a world +of moon-shine. Sensation does not count for so much in our +first years as afterwards; something of the swaddling numbness of +infancy clings about us; we see and touch and hear through a sort +of golden mist. Children, for instance, are able enough to +see, but they have no great faculty for looking; they do not use +their eyes for the pleasure of using them, but for by-ends of +their own; and the things I call to mind seeing most vividly, +were not beautiful in themselves, but merely interesting or +enviable to me as I thought they might be turned to practical +account in play. Nor is the sense of touch so clean and +poignant in children as it is in a man. If you will turn +over your old memories, I think the sensations of this sort you +remember will be somewhat vague, and come to not much more than a +blunt, general sense of heat on summer days, or a blunt, general +sense of wellbeing in bed. And here, of course, you will +understand pleasurable sensations; for overmastering +pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life, and the +true commander of man’s soul and body—alas! pain has +its own way with all of us; it breaks in, a rude visitant, upon +the fairy garden where the child wanders in a dream, no less +surely than it rules upon the field of battle, or sends the +immortal war-god whimpering to his father; and innocence, no more +than philosophy, can protect us from this sting. As for +taste, when we bear in mind the excesses of unmitigated sugar +which delight a youthful palate, “it is surely no very +cynical asperity” to think taste a character of the maturer +growth. Smell and hearing are perhaps more developed; I +remember many scents, many voices, and a great deal of spring +singing in the woods. But hearing is capable of vast +improvement as a means of pleasure; and there is all the world +between gaping wonderment at the jargon of birds, and the emotion +with which a man listens to articulate music.</p> +<p>At the same time, and step by step with this increase in the +definition and intensity of what we feel which accompanies our +growing age, another change takes place in the sphere of +intellect, by which all things are transformed and seen through +theories and associations as through coloured windows. We +make to ourselves day by day, out of history, and gossip, and +economical speculations, and God knows what, a medium in which we +walk and through which we look abroad. We study shop +windows with other eyes than in our childhood, never to wonder, +not always to admire, but to make and modify our little +incongruous theories about life. It is no longer the +uniform of a soldier that arrests our attention; but perhaps the +flowing carriage of a woman, or perhaps a countenance that has +been vividly stamped with passion and carries an adventurous +story written in its lines. The pleasure of surprise is +passed away; sugar-loaves and water-carts seem mighty tame to +encounter; and we walk the streets to make romances and to +sociologise. Nor must we deny that a good many of us walk +them solely for the purposes of transit or in the interest of a +livelier digestion. These, indeed, may look back with +mingled thoughts upon their childhood, but the rest are in a +better case; they know more than when they were children, they +understand better, their desires and sympathies answer more +nimbly to the provocation of the senses, and their minds are +brimming with interest as they go about the world.</p> +<p>According to my contention, this is a flight to which children +cannot rise. They are wheeled in perambulators or dragged +about by nurses in a pleasing stupor. A vague, faint, +abiding, wonderment possesses them. Here and there some +specially remarkable circumstance, such as a water-cart or a +guardsman, fairly penetrates into the seat of thought and calls +them, for half a moment, out of themselves; and you may see them, +still towed forward sideways by the inexorable nurse as by a sort +of destiny, but still staring at the bright object in their +wake. It may be some minutes before another such moving +spectacle reawakens them to the world in which they dwell. +For other children, they almost invariably show some intelligent +sympathy. “There is a fine fellow making mud +pies,” they seem to say; “that I can understand, +there is some sense in mud pies.” But the doings of +their elders, unless where they are speakingly picturesque or +recommend themselves by the quality of being easily imitable, +they let them go over their heads (as we say) without the least +regard. If it were not for this perpetual imitation, we +should be tempted to fancy they despised us outright, or only +considered us in the light of creatures brutally strong and +brutally silly; among whom they condescended to dwell in +obedience like a philosopher at a barbarous court. At +times, indeed, they display an arrogance of disregard that is +truly staggering. Once, when I was groaning aloud with +physical pain, a young gentleman came into the room and +nonchalantly inquired if I had seen his bow and arrow. He +made no account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to +accept so much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct of +his elders; and like a wise young gentleman, he would waste no +wonder on the subject. Those elders, who care so little for +rational enjoyment, and are even the enemies of rational +enjoyment for others, he had accepted without understanding and +without complaint, as the rest of us accept the scheme of the +universe.</p> +<p>We grown people can tell ourselves a story, give and take +strokes until the bucklers ring, ride far and fast, marry, fall, +and die; all the while sitting quietly by the fire or lying prone +in bed. This is exactly what a child cannot do, or does not +do, at least, when he can find anything else. He works all +with lay figures and stage properties. When his story comes +to the fighting, he must rise, get something by way of a sword +and have a set-to with a piece of furniture, until he is out of +breath. When he comes to ride with the king’s pardon, +he must bestride a chair, which he will so hurry and belabour and +on which he will so furiously demean himself, that the messenger +will arrive, if not bloody with spurring, at least fiery red with +haste. If his romance involves an accident upon a cliff, he +must clamber in person about the chest of drawers and fall bodily +upon the carpet, before his imagination is satisfied. Lead +soldiers, dolls, all toys, in short, are in the same category and +answer the same end. Nothing can stagger a child’s +faith; he accepts the clumsiest substitutes and can swallow the +most staring incongruities. The chair he has just been +besieging as a castle, or valiantly cutting to the ground as a +dragon, is taken away for the accommodation of a morning visitor, +and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish by the hour with a +stationary coal-scuttle; in the midst of the enchanted pleasance, +he can see, without sensible shock, the gardener soberly digging +potatoes for the day’s dinner. He can make +abstraction of whatever does not fit into his fable; and he puts +his eyes into his pocket, just as we hold our noses in an +unsavoury lane. And so it is, that although the ways of +children cross with those of their elders in a hundred places +daily, they never go in the same direction nor so much as lie in +the same element. So may the telegraph wires intersect the +line of the high-road, or so might a landscape painter and a +bagman visit the same country, and yet move in different +worlds.</p> +<p>People struck with these spectacles cry aloud about the power +of imagination in the young. Indeed there may be two words +to that. It is, in some ways, but a pedestrian fancy that +the child exhibits. It is the grown people who make the +nursery stories; all the children do, is jealously to preserve +the text. One out of a dozen reasons why <i>Robinson +Crusoe</i> should be so popular with youth, is that it hits their +level in this matter to a nicety; Crusoe was always at makeshifts +and had, in so many words, to <i>play</i> at a great variety of +professions; and then the book is all about tools, and there is +nothing that delights a child so much. Hammers and saws +belong to a province of life that positively calls for +imitation. The juvenile lyrical drama, surely of the most +ancient Thespian model, wherein the trades of mankind are +successively simulated to the running burthen “On a cold +and frosty morning,” gives a good instance of the artistic +taste in children. And this need for overt action and lay +figures testifies to a defect in the child’s imagination +which prevents him from carrying out his novels in the privacy of +his own heart. He does not yet know enough of the world and +men. His experience is incomplete. That +stage-wardrobe and scene-room that we call the memory is so ill +provided, that he can overtake few combinations and body out few +stories, to his own content, without some external aid. He +is at the experimental stage; he is not sure how one would feel +in certain circumstances; to make sure, he must come as near +trying it as his means permit. And so here is young heroism +with a wooden sword, and mothers practice their kind vocation +over a bit of jointed stick. It may be laughable enough +just now; but it is these same people and these same thoughts, +that not long hence, when they are on the theatre of life, will +make you weep and tremble. For children think very much the +same thoughts and dream the same dreams, as bearded men and +marriageable women. No one is more romantic. Fame and +honour, the love of young men and the love of mothers, the +business man’s pleasure in method, all these and others +they anticipate and rehearse in their play hours. Upon us, +who are further advanced and fairly dealing with the threads of +destiny, they only glance from time to time to glean a hint for +their own mimetic reproduction. Two children playing at +soldiers are far more interesting to each other than one of the +scarlet beings whom both are busy imitating. This is +perhaps the greatest oddity of all. “Art for +art” is their motto; and the doings of grown folk are only +interesting as the raw material for play. Not +Théophile Gautier, not Flaubert, can look more callously +upon life, or rate the reproduction more highly over the reality; +and they will parody an execution, a deathbed, or the funeral of +the young man of Nain, with all the cheerfulness in the +world.</p> +<p>The true parallel for play is not to be found, of course, in +conscious art, which, though it be derived from play, is itself +an abstract, impersonal thing, and depends largely upon +philosophical interests beyond the scope of childhood. It +is when we make castles in the air and personate the leading +character in our own romances, that we return to the spirit of +our first years. Only, there are several reasons why the +spirit is no longer so agreeable to indulge. Nowadays, when +we admit this personal element into our divagations we are apt to +stir up uncomfortable and sorrowful memories, and remind +ourselves sharply of old wounds. Our day-dreams can no +longer lie all in the air like a story in the <i>Arabian +Nights</i>; they read to us rather like the history of a period +in which we ourselves had taken part, where we come across many +unfortunate passages and find our own conduct smartly +reprimanded. And then the child, mind you, acts his +parts. He does not merely repeat them to himself; he leaps, +he runs, and sets the blood agog over all his body. And so +his play breathes him; and he no sooner assumes a passion than he +gives it vent. Alas! when we betake ourselves to our +intellectual form of play, sitting quietly by the fire or lying +prone in bed, we rouse many hot feelings for which we can find no +outlet. Substitutes are not acceptable to the mature mind, +which desires the thing itself; and even to rehearse a triumphant +dialogue with one’s enemy, although it is perhaps the most +satisfactory piece of play still left within our reach, is not +entirely satisfying, and is even apt to lead to a visit and an +interview which may be the reverse of triumphant after all.</p> +<p>In the child’s world of dim sensation, play is all in +all. “Making believe” is the gist of his whole +life, and he cannot so much as take a walk except in +character. I could not learn my alphabet without some +suitable <i>mise-en-scène</i>, and had to act a business +man in an office before I could sit down to my book. Will +you kindly question your memory, and find out how much you did, +work or pleasure, in good faith and soberness, and for how much +you had to cheat yourself with some invention? I remember, +as though it were yesterday, the expansion of spirit, the dignity +and self-reliance, that came with a pair of mustachios in burnt +cork, even when there was none to see. Children are even +content to forego what we call the realities, and prefer the +shadow to the substance. When they might be speaking +intelligibly together, they chatter senseless gibberish by the +hour, and are quite happy because they are making believe to +speak French. I have said already how even the imperious +appetite of hunger suffers itself to be gulled and led by the +nose with the fag end of an old song. And it goes deeper +than this: when children are together even a meal is felt as an +interruption in the business of life; and they must find some +imaginative sanction, and tell themselves some sort of story, to +account for, to colour, to render entertaining, the simple +processes of eating and drinking. What wonderful fancies I +have heard evolved out of the pattern upon tea-cups!—from +which there followed a code of rules and a whole world of +excitement, until tea-drinking began to take rank as a +game. When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, +we had a device to enliven the course of the meal. He ate +his with sugar, and explained it to be a country continually +buried under snow. I took mine with milk, and explained it +to be a country suffering gradual inundation. You can +imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still +unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what +inventions were made; how his population lived in cabins on +perches and travelled on stilts, and how mine was always in +boats; how the interest grew furious, as the last corner of safe +ground was cut off on all sides and grew smaller every moment; +and how in fine, the food was of altogether secondary importance, +and might even have been nauseous, so long as we seasoned it with +these dreams. But perhaps the most exciting moments I ever +had over a meal, were in the case of calves’ feet +jelly. It was hardly possible not to believe—and you +may be sure, so far from trying, I did all I could to favour the +illusion—that some part of it was hollow, and that sooner +or later my spoon would lay open the secret tabernacle of the +golden rock. There, might some miniature <i>Red Beard</i> +await his hour; there, might one find the treasures of the +<i>Forty Thieves</i>, and bewildered Cassim beating about the +walls. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, +savouring the interest. Believe me, I had little palate +left for the jelly; and though I preferred the taste when I took +cream with it, I used often to go without, because the cream +dimmed the transparent fractures.</p> +<p>Even with games, this spirit is authoritative with +right-minded children. It is thus that hide-and-seek has so +pre-eminent a sovereignty, for it is the wellspring of romance, +and the actions and the excitement to which it gives rise lend +themselves to almost any sort of fable. And thus cricket, +which is a mere matter of dexterity, palpably about nothing and +for no end, often fails to satisfy infantile craving. It is +a game, if you like, but not a game of play. You cannot +tell yourself a story about cricket; and the activity it calls +forth can be justified on no rational theory. Even +football, although it admirably simulates the tug and the ebb and +flow of battle, has presented difficulties to the mind of young +sticklers after verisimilitude; and I knew at least one little +boy who was mightily exercised about the presence of the ball, +and had to spirit himself up, whenever he came to play, with an +elaborate story of enchantment, and take the missile as a sort of +talisman bandied about in conflict between two Arabian +nations.</p> +<p>To think of such a frame of mind, is to become disquieted +about the bringing up of children. Surely they dwell in a +mythological epoch, and are not the contemporaries of their +parents. What can they think of them? what can they make of +these bearded or petticoated giants who look down upon their +games? who move upon a cloudy Olympus, following unknown designs +apart from rational enjoyment? who profess the tenderest +solicitude for children, and yet every now and again reach down +out of their altitude and terribly vindicate the prerogatives of +age? Off goes the child, corporally smarting, but morally +rebellious. Were there ever such unthinkable deities as +parents? I would give a great deal to know what, in nine +cases out of ten, is the child’s unvarnished feeling. +A sense of past cajolery; a sense of personal attraction, at best +very feeble; above all, I should imagine, a sense of terror for +the untried residue of mankind go to make up the attraction that +he feels. No wonder, poor little heart, with such a +weltering world in front of him, if he clings to the hand he +knows! The dread irrationality of the whole affair, as it +seems to children, is a thing we are all too ready to +forget. “O, why,” I remember passionately +wondering, “why can we not all be happy and devote +ourselves to play?” And when children do +philosophise, I believe it is usually to very much the same +purpose.</p> +<p>One thing, at least, comes very clearly out of these +considerations; that whatever we are to expect at the hands of +children, it should not be any peddling exactitude about matters +of fact. They walk in a vain show, and among mists and +rainbows; they are passionate after dreams and unconcerned about +realities; speech is a difficult art not wholly learned; and +there is nothing in their own tastes or purposes to teach them +what we mean by abstract truthfulness. When a bad writer is +inexact, even if he can look back on half a century of years, we +charge him with incompetence and not with dishonesty. And +why not extend the same allowance to imperfect speakers? +Let a stockbroker be dead stupid about poetry, or a poet inexact +in the details of business, and we excuse them heartily from +blame. But show us a miserable, unbreeched, human entity, +whose whole profession it is to take a tub for a fortified town +and a shaving-brush for the deadly stiletto, and who passes +three-fourths of his time in a dream and the rest in open +self-deception, and we expect him to be as nice upon a matter of +fact as a scientific expert bearing evidence. Upon my +heart, I think it less than decent. You do not consider how +little the child sees, or how swift he is to weave what he has +seen into bewildering fiction; and that he cares no more for what +you call truth, than you for a gingerbread dragoon.</p> +<p>I am reminded, as I write, that the child is very inquiring as +to the precise truth of stories. But indeed this is a very +different matter, and one bound up with the subject of play, and +the precise amount of playfulness, or playability, to be looked +for in the world. Many such burning questions must arise in +the course of nursery education. Among the fauna of this +planet, which already embraces the pretty soldier and the +terrifying Irish beggarman, is, or is not, the child to expect a +Bluebeard or a Cormoran? Is he, or is he not, to look out +for magicians, kindly and potent? May he, or may he not, +reasonably hope to be cast away upon a desert island, or turned +to such diminutive proportions that he can live on equal terms +with his lead soldiery, and go a cruise in his own toy +schooner? Surely all these are practical questions to a +neophyte entering upon life with a view to play. Precision +upon such a point, the child can understand. But if you +merely ask him of his past behaviour, as to who threw such a +stone, for instance, or struck such and such a match; or whether +he had looked into a parcel or gone by a forbidden +path,—why, he can see no moment in the inquiry, and it is +ten to one, he has already half forgotten and half bemused +himself with subsequent imaginings.</p> +<p>It would be easy to leave them in their native cloudland, +where they figure so prettily—pretty like flowers and +innocent like dogs. They will come out of their gardens +soon enough, and have to go into offices and the +witness-box. Spare them yet a while, O conscientious +parent! Let them doze among their playthings yet a little! +for who knows what a rough, warfaring existence lies before them +in the future?</p> +<h2>WALKING TOURS</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> must not be imagined that a +walking tour, as some would have us fancy, is merely a better or +worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways of +seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of +canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But +landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is +indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the +picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of the hope and +spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and +spiritual repletion of the evening’s rest. He cannot +tell whether he puts his knapsack on, or takes it off, with more +delight. The excitement of the departure puts him in key +for that of the arrival. Whatever he does is not only a +reward in itself, but will be further rewarded in the sequel; and +so pleasure leads on to pleasure in an endless chain. It is +this that so few can understand; they will either be always +lounging or always at five miles an hour; they do not play off +the one against the other, prepare all day for the evening, and +all evening for the next day. And, above all, it is here +that your overwalker fails of comprehension. His heart +rises against those who drink their curaçoa in liqueur +glasses, when he himself can swill it in a brown john. He +will not believe that the flavour is more delicate in the smaller +dose. He will not believe that to walk this unconscionable +distance is merely to stupefy and brutalise himself, and come to +his inn, at night, with a sort of frost on his five wits, and a +starless night of darkness in his spirit. Not for him the +mild luminous evening of the temperate walker! He has +nothing left of man but a physical need for bedtime and a double +nightcap; and even his pipe, if he be a smoker, will be +savourless and disenchanted. It is the fate of such an one +to take twice as much trouble as is needed to obtain happiness, +and miss the happiness in the end; he is the man of the proverb, +in short, who goes further and fares worse.</p> +<p>Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone +upon alone. If you go in a company, or even in pairs, it is +no longer a walking tour in anything but name; it is something +else and more in the nature of a picnic. A walking tour +should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; +because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way +or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your +own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince +in time with a girl. And then you must be open to all +impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what you +see. You should be as a pipe for any wind to play +upon. “I cannot see the wit,” says Hazlitt, +“of walking and talking at the same time. When I am +in the country I wish to vegetate like the +country,”—which is the gist of all that can be said +upon the matter. There should be no cackle of voices at +your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the +morning. And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot +surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much +motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and +sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes +comprehension.</p> +<p>During the first day or so of any tour there are moments of +bitterness, when the traveller feels more than coldly towards his +knapsack, when he is half in a mind to throw it bodily over the +hedge and, like Christian on a similar occasion, “give +three leaps and go on singing.” And yet it soon +acquires a property of easiness. It becomes magnetic; the +spirit of the journey enters into it. And no sooner have +you passed the straps over your shoulder than the lees of sleep +are cleared from you, you pull yourself together with a shake, +and fall at once into your stride. And surely, of all +possible moods, this, in which a man takes the road, is the +best. Of course, if he <i>will</i> keep thinking of his +anxieties, if he <i>will</i> open the merchant Abudah’s +chest and walk arm-in-arm with the hag—why, wherever he is, +and whether he walk fast or slow, the chances are that he will +not be happy. And so much the more shame to himself! +There are perhaps thirty men setting forth at that same hour, and +I would lay a large wager there is not another dull face among +the thirty. It would be a fine thing to follow, in a coat +of darkness, one after another of these wayfarers, some summer +morning, for the first few miles upon the road. This one, +who walks fast, with a keen look in his eyes, is all concentrated +in his own mind; he is up at his loom, weaving and weaving, to +set the landscape to words. This one peers about, as he +goes, among the grasses; he waits by the canal to watch the +dragon-flies; he leans on the gate of the pasture, and cannot +look enough upon the complacent kine. And here comes +another, talking, laughing, and gesticulating to himself. +His face changes from time to time, as indignation flashes from +his eyes or anger clouds his forehead. He is composing +articles, delivering orations, and conducting the most +impassioned interviews, by the way. A little farther on, +and it is as like as not he will begin to sing. And well +for him, supposing him to be no great master in that art, if he +stumble across no stolid peasant at a corner; for on such an +occasion, I scarcely know which is the more troubled, or whether +it is worse to suffer the confusion of your troubadour, or the +unfeigned alarm of your clown. A sedentary population, +accustomed, besides, to the strange mechanical bearing of the +common tramp, can in no wise explain to itself the gaiety of +these passers-by. I knew one man who was arrested as a +runaway lunatic, because, although a full-grown person with a red +beard, he skipped as he went like a child. And you would be +astonished if I were to tell you all the grave and learned heads +who have confessed to me that, when on walking tours, they +sang—and sang very ill—and had a pair of red ears +when, as described above, the inauspicious peasant plumped into +their arms from round a corner. And here, lest you should +think I am exaggerating, is Hazlitt’s own confession, from +his essay <i>On Going a Journey</i>, which is so good that there +should be a tax levied on all who have not read it:—</p> +<p>“Give me the clear blue sky over my head,” says +he, “and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road +before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner—and +then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on +these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for +joy.”</p> +<p>Bravo! After that adventure of my friend with the +policeman, you would not have cared, would you, to publish that +in the first person? But we have no bravery nowadays, and, +even in books, must all pretend to be as dull and foolish as our +neighbours. It was not so with Hazlitt. And notice +how learned he is (as, indeed, throughout the essay) in the +theory of walking tours. He is none of your athletic men in +purple stockings, who walk their fifty miles a day: three +hours’ march is his ideal. And then he must have a +winding road, the epicure!</p> +<p>Yet there is one thing I object to in these words of his, one +thing in the great master’s practice that seems to me not +wholly wise. I do not approve of that leaping and +running. Both of these hurry the respiration; they both +shake up the brain out of its glorious open-air confusion; and +they both break the pace. Uneven walking is not so +agreeable to the body, and it distracts and irritates the +mind. Whereas, when once you have fallen into an equable +stride, it requires no conscious thought from you to keep it up, +and yet it prevents you from thinking earnestly of anything +else. Like knitting, like the work of a copying clerk, it +gradually neutralises and sets to sleep the serious activity of +the mind. We can think of this or that, lightly and +laughingly, as a child thinks, or as we think in a morning dose; +we can make puns or puzzle out acrostics, and trifle in a +thousand ways with words and rhymes; but when it comes to honest +work, when we come to gather ourselves together for an effort, we +may sound the trumpet as loud and long as we please; the great +barons of the mind will not rally to the standard, but sit, each +one, at home, warming his hands over his own fire and brooding on +his own private thought!</p> +<p>In the course of a day’s walk, you see, there is much +variance in the mood. From the exhilaration of the start, +to the happy phlegm of the arrival, the change is certainly +great. As the day goes on, the traveller moves from the one +extreme towards the other. He becomes more and more +incorporated with the material landscape, and the open-air +drunkenness grows upon him with great strides, until he posts +along the road, and sees everything about him, as in a cheerful +dream. The first is certainly brighter, but the second +stage is the more peaceful. A man does not make so many +articles towards the end, nor does he laugh aloud; but the purely +animal pleasures, the sense of physical wellbeing, the delight of +every inhalation, of every time the muscles tighten down the +thigh, console him for the absence of the others, and bring him +to his destination still content.</p> +<p>Nor must I forget to say a word on bivouacs. You come to +a milestone on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet under +trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a +pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the birds +come round and look at you; and your smoke dissipates upon the +afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the sun lies warm +upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside +your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an +evil conscience. You may dally as long as you like by the +roadside. It is almost as if the millennium were arrived, +when we shall throw our clocks and watches over the housetop, and +remember time and seasons no more. Not to keep hours for a +lifetime is, I was going to say, to live for ever. You have +no idea, unless you have tried it, how endlessly long is a +summer’s day, that you measure out only by hunger, and +bring to an end only when you are drowsy. I know a village +where there are hardly any clocks, where no one knows more of the +days of the week than by a sort of instinct for the fête on +Sundays, and where only one person can tell you the day of the +month, and she is generally wrong; and if people were aware how +slow Time journeyed in that village, and what armfuls of spare +hours he gives, over and above the bargain, to its wise +inhabitants, I believe there would be a stampede out of London, +Liverpool, Paris, and a variety of large towns, where the clocks +lose their heads, and shake the hours out each one faster than +the other, as though they were all in a wager. And all +these foolish pilgrims would each bring his own misery along with +him, in a watch-pocket! It is to be noticed, there were no +clocks and watches in the much-vaunted days before the +flood. It follows, of course, there were no appointments, +and punctuality was not yet thought upon. “Though ye +take from a covetous man all his treasure,” says Milton, +“he has yet one jewel left; ye cannot deprive him of his +covetousness.” And so I would say of a modern man of +business, you may do what you will for him, put him in Eden, give +him the elixir of life—he has still a flaw at heart, he +still has his business habits. Now, there is no time when +business habits are more mitigated than on a walking tour. +And so during these halts, as I say, you will feel almost +free.</p> +<p>But it is at night, and after dinner, that the best hour +comes. There are no such pipes to be smoked as those that +follow a good day’s march; the flavour of the tobacco is a +thing to be remembered, it is so dry and aromatic, so full and so +fine. If you wind up the evening with grog, you will own +there was never such grog; at every sip a jocund tranquillity +spreads about your limbs, and sits easily in your heart. If +you read a book—and you will never do so save by fits and +starts—you find the language strangely racy and harmonious; +words take a new meaning; single sentences possess the ear for +half an hour together; and the writer endears himself to you, at +every page, by the nicest coincidence of sentiment. It +seems as if it were a book you had written yourself in a +dream. To all we have read on such occasions we look back +with special favour. “It was on the 10th of April, +1798,” says Hazlitt, with amorous precision, “that I +sat down to a volume of the new <i>Héloïse</i>, at +the Inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold +chicken.” I should wish to quote more, for though we +are mighty fine fellows nowadays, we cannot write like +Hazlitt. And, talking of that, a volume of Hazlitt’s +essays would be a capital pocket-book on such a journey; so would +a volume of Heine’s songs; and for <i>Tristram Shandy</i> I +can pledge a fair experience.</p> +<p>If the evening be fine and warm, there is nothing better in +life than to lounge before the inn door in the sunset, or lean +over the parapet of the bridge, to watch the weeds and the quick +fishes. It is then, if ever, that you taste Joviality to +the full significance of that audacious word. Your muscles +are so agreeably slack, you feel so clean and so strong and so +idle, that whether you move or sit still, whatever you do is done +with pride and a kingly sort of pleasure. You fall in talk +with any one, wise or foolish, drunk or sober. And it seems +as if a hot walk purged you, more than of anything else, of all +narrowness and pride, and left curiosity to play its part freely, +as in a child or a man of science. You lay aside all your +own hobbies, to watch provincial humours develop themselves +before you, now as a laughable farce, and now grave and beautiful +like an old tale.</p> +<p>Or perhaps you are left to your own company for the night, and +surly weather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember +how Burns, numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when +he has been “happy thinking.” It is a phrase +that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side by +clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming +dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many +far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn into +solid habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no +time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the +Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit +all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed +world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without +discontent and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to +be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice +audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we +forget that one thing, of which these are but the +parts—namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink +hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like frightened +sheep. And now you are to ask yourself if, when all is +done, you would not have been better to sit by the fire at home, +and be happy thinking. To sit still and +contemplate,—to remember the faces of women without desire, +to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be +everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain +where and what you are—is not this to know both wisdom and +virtue, and to dwell with happiness? After all, it is not +they who carry flags, but they who look upon it from a private +chamber, who have the fun of the procession. And once you +are at that, you are in the very humour of all social +heresy. It is no time for shuffling, or for big, empty +words. If you ask yourself what you mean by fame, riches, +or learning, the answer is far to seek; and you go back into that +kingdom of light imaginations, which seem so vain in the eyes of +Philistines perspiring after wealth, and so momentous to those +who are stricken with the disproportions of the world, and, in +the face of the gigantic stars, cannot stop to split differences +between two degrees of the infinitesimally small, such as a +tobacco pipe or the Roman Empire, a million of money or a +fiddlestick’s end.</p> +<p>You lean from the window, your last pipe reeking whitely into +the darkness, your body full of delicious pains, your mind +enthroned in the seventh circle of content; when suddenly the +mood changes, the weather-cock goes about, and you ask yourself +one question more: whether, for the interval, you have been the +wisest philosopher or the most egregious of donkeys? Human +experience is not yet able to reply; but at least you have had a +fine moment, and looked down upon all the kingdoms of the +earth. And whether it was wise or foolish, +to-morrow’s travel will carry you, body and mind, into some +different parish of the infinite.</p> +<h2>PAN’S PIPES</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> world in which we live has been +variously said and sung by the most ingenious poets and +philosophers: these reducing it to formulæ and chemical +ingredients, those striking the lyre in high-sounding measures +for the handiwork of God. What experience supplies is of a +mingled tissue, and the choosing mind has much to reject before +it can get together the materials of a theory. Dew and +thunder, destroying Atilla and the Spring lambkins, belong to an +order of contrasts which no repetition can assimilate. +There is an uncouth, outlandish strain throughout the web of the +world, as from a vexatious planet in the house of life. +Things are not congruous and wear strange disguises: the +consummate flower is fostered out of dung, and after nourishing +itself awhile with heaven’s delicate distillations, decays +again into indistinguishable soil; and with Cæsar’s +ashes, Hamlet tells us, the urchins make dirt pies and filthily +besmear their countenance. Nay, the kindly shine of summer, +when tracked home with the scientific spyglass, is found to issue +from the most portentous nightmare of the universe—the +great, conflagrant sun: a world of hell’s squibs, +tumultuary, roaring aloud, inimical to life. The sun itself +is enough to disgust a human being of the scene which he +inhabits; and you would not fancy there was a green or habitable +spot in a universe thus awfully lighted up. And yet it is +by the blaze of such a conflagration, to which the fire of Rome +was but a spark, that we do all our fiddling, and hold domestic +tea-parties at the arbour door.</p> +<p>The Greeks figured Pan, the god of Nature, now terribly +stamping his foot, so that armies were dispersed; now by the +woodside on a summer noon trolling on his pipe until he charmed +the hearts of upland ploughmen. And the Greeks, in so +figuring, uttered the last word of human experience. To +certain smoke-dried spirits matter and motion and elastic +aethers, and the hypothesis of this or that other spectacled +professor, tell a speaking story; but for youth and all ductile +and congenial minds, Pan is not dead, but of all the classic +hierarchy alone survives in triumph; goat-footed, with a gleeful +and an angry look, the type of the shaggy world: and in every +wood, if you go with a spirit properly prepared, you shall hear +the note of his pipe.</p> +<p>For it is a shaggy world, and yet studded with gardens; where +the salt and tumbling sea receives clear rivers running from +among reeds and lilies; fruitful and austere; a rustic world; +sunshiny, lewd, and cruel. What is it the birds sing among +the trees in pairing-time? What means the sound of the rain +falling far and wide upon the leafy forest? To what tune +does the fisherman whistle, as he hauls in his net at morning, +and the bright fish are heaped inside the boat? These are +all airs upon Pan’s pipe; he it was who gave them breath in +the exultation of his heart, and gleefully modulated their +outflow with his lips and fingers. The coarse mirth of +herdsmen, shaking the dells with laughter and striking out high +echoes from the rock; the tune of moving feet in the lamplit +city, or on the smooth ballroom floor; the hooves of many horses, +beating the wide pastures in alarm; the song of hurrying rivers; +the colour of clear skies; and smiles and the live touch of +hands; and the voice of things, and their significant look, and +the renovating influence they breathe forth—these are his +joyful measures, to which the whole earth treads in choral +harmony. To this music the young lambs bound as to a tabor, +and the London shop-girl skips rudely in the dance. For it +puts a spirit of gladness in all hearts; and to look on the happy +side of nature is common, in their hours, to all created +things. Some are vocal under a good influence, are pleasing +whenever they are pleased, and hand on their happiness to others, +as a child who, looking upon lovely things, looks lovely. +Some leap to the strains with unapt foot, and make a halting +figure in the universal dance. And some, like sour +spectators at the play, receive the music into their hearts with +an unmoved countenance, and walk like strangers through the +general rejoicing. But let him feign never so carefully, +there is not a man but has his pulses shaken when Pan trolls out +a stave of ecstasy and sets the world a-singing.</p> +<p>Alas if that were all! But oftentimes the air is +changed; and in the screech of the night wind, chasing navies, +subverting the tall ships and the rooted cedar of the hills; in +the random deadly levin or the fury of headlong floods, we +recognise the “dread foundation” of life and the +anger in Pan’s heart. Earth wages open war against +her children, and under her softest touch hides treacherous +claws. The cool waters invite us in to drown; the domestic +hearth burns up in the hour of sleep, and makes an end of +all. Everything is good or bad, helpful or deadly, not in +itself, but by its circumstances. For a few bright days in +England the hurricane must break forth and the North Sea pay a +toll of populous ships. And when the universal music has +led lovers into the paths of dalliance, confident of +Nature’s sympathy, suddenly the air shifts into a minor, +and death makes a clutch from his ambuscade below the bed of +marriage. For death is given in a kiss; the dearest +kindnesses are fatal; and into this life, where one thing preys +upon another, the child too often makes its entrance from the +mother’s corpse. It is no wonder, with so traitorous +a scheme of things, if the wise people who created for us the +idea of Pan thought that of all fears the fear of him was the +most terrible, since it embraces all. And still we preserve +the phrase: a panic terror. To reckon dangers too +curiously, to hearken too intently for the threat that runs +through all the winning music of the world, to hold back the hand +from the rose because of the thorn, and from life because of +death: this it is to be afraid of Pan. Highly respectable +citizens who flee life’s pleasures and responsibilities and +keep, with upright hat, upon the midway of custom, avoiding the +right hand and the left, the ecstasies and the agonies, how +surprised they would be if they could hear their attitude +mythologically expressed, and knew themselves as tooth-chattering +ones, who flee from Nature because they fear the hand of +Nature’s God! Shrilly sound Pan’s pipes; and +behold the banker instantly concealed in the bank parlour! +For to distrust one’s impulses is to be recreant to +Pan.</p> +<p>There are moments when the mind refuses to be satisfied with +evolution, and demands a ruddier presentation of the sum of +man’s experience. Sometimes the mood is brought about +by laughter at the humorous side of life, as when, abstracting +ourselves from earth, we imagine people plodding on foot, or +seated in ships and speedy trains, with the planet all the while +whirling in the opposite direction, so that, for all their hurry, +they travel back-foremost through the universe of space. +Sometimes it comes by the spirit of delight, and sometimes by the +spirit of terror. At least, there will always be hours when +we refuse to be put off by the feint of explanation, nicknamed +science; and demand instead some palpitating image of our estate, +that shall represent the troubled and uncertain element in which +we dwell, and satisfy reason by the means of art. Science +writes of the world as if with the cold finger of a starfish; it +is all true; but what is it when compared to the reality of which +it discourses? where hearts beat high in April, and death +strikes, and hills totter in the earthquake, and there is a +glamour over all the objects of sight, and a thrill in all noises +for the ear, and Romance herself has made her dwelling among +men? So we come back to the old myth, and hear the +goat-footed piper making the music which is itself the charm and +terror of things; and when a glen invites our visiting footsteps, +fancy that Pan leads us thither with a gracious tremolo; or when +our hearts quail at the thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves +that he has stamped his hoof in the nigh thicket.</p> +<h2>A PLEA FOR GAS LAMPS</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Cities</span> given, the problem was to +light them. How to conduct individual citizens about the +burgess-warren, when once heaven had withdrawn its leading +luminary? or—since we live in a scientific age—when +once our spinning planet has turned its back upon the sun? +The moon, from time to time, was doubtless very helpful; the +stars had a cheery look among the chimney-pots; and a cresset +here and there, on church or citadel, produced a fine pictorial +effect, and, in places where the ground lay unevenly, held out +the right hand of conduct to the benighted. But sun, moon, +and stars abstracted or concealed, the night-faring inhabitant +had to fall back—we speak on the authority of old +prints—upon stable lanthorns two stories in height. +Many holes, drilled in the conical turret-roof of this vagabond +Pharos, let up spouts of dazzlement into the bearer’s eyes; +and as he paced forth in the ghostly darkness, carrying his own +sun by a ring about his finger, day and night swung to and fro +and up and down about his footsteps. Blackness haunted his +path; he was beleaguered by goblins as he went; and, curfew being +struck, he found no light but that he travelled in throughout the +township.</p> +<p>Closely following on this epoch of migratory lanthorns in a +world of extinction, came the era of oil-lights, hard to kindle, +easy to extinguish, pale and wavering in the hour of their +endurance. Rudely puffed the winds of heaven; roguishly +clomb up the all-destructive urchin; and, lo! in a moment night +re-established her void empire, and the cit groped along the +wall, suppered but bedless, occult from guidance, and sorrily +wading in the kennels. As if gamesome winds and gamesome +youths were not sufficient, it was the habit to sling these +feeble luminaries from house to house above the fairway. +There, on invisible cordage, let them swing! And suppose +some crane-necked general to go speeding by on a tall charger, +spurring the destiny of nations, red-hot in expedition, there +would indubitably be some effusion of military blood, and oaths, +and a certain crash of glass; and while the chieftain rode +forward with a purple coxcomb, the street would be left to +original darkness, unpiloted, unvoyageable, a province of the +desert night.</p> +<p>The conservative, looking before and after, draws from each +contemplation the matter for content. Out of the age of gas +lamps he glances back slightingly at the mirk and glimmer in +which his ancestors wandered; his heart waxes jocund at the +contrast; nor do his lips refrain from a stave, in the highest +style of poetry, lauding progress and the golden mean. When +gas first spread along a city, mapping it forth about evenfall +for the eye of observant birds, a new age had begun for sociality +and corporate pleasure-seeking, and begun with proper +circumstance, becoming its own birthright. The work of +Prometheus had advanced by another stride. Mankind and its +supper parties were no longer at the mercy of a few miles of +sea-fog; sundown no longer emptied the promenade; and the day was +lengthened out to every man’s fancy. The city-folk +had stars of their own; biddable, domesticated stars.</p> +<p>It is true that these were not so steady, nor yet so clear, as +their originals; nor indeed was their lustre so elegant as that +of the best wax candles. But then the gas stars, being +nearer at hand, were more practically efficacious than Jupiter +himself. It is true, again, that they did not unfold their +rays with the appropriate spontaneity of the planets, coming out +along the firmament one after another, as the need arises. But +the lamplighters took to their heels every evening, and ran with +a good heart. It was pretty to see man thus emulating the +punctuality of heaven’s orbs; and though perfection was not +absolutely reached, and now and then an individual may have been +knocked on the head by the ladder of the flying functionary, yet +people commended his zeal in a proverb, and taught their children +to say, “God bless the lamplighter!” And since +his passage was a piece of the day’s programme, the +children were well pleased to repeat the benediction, not, of +course, in so many words, which would have been improper, but in +some chaste circumlocution, suitable for infant lips.</p> +<p>God bless him, indeed! For the term of his twilight +diligence is near at hand; and for not much longer shall we watch +him speeding up the street and, at measured intervals, knocking +another luminous hole into the dusk. The Greeks would have +made a noble myth of such an one; how he distributed starlight, +and, as soon as the need was over, re-collected it; and the +little bull’s-eye, which was his instrument, and held +enough fire to kindle a whole parish, would have been fitly +commemorated in the legend. Now, like all heroic tasks, his +labours draw towards apotheosis, and in the light of victory +himself shall disappear. For another advance has been +effected. Our tame stars are to come out in future, not one +by one, but all in a body and at once. A sedate electrician +somewhere in a back office touches a spring—and behold! +from one end to another of the city, from east to west, from the +Alexandra to the Crystal Palace, there is light! <i>Fiat +Lux</i>, says the sedate electrician. What a spectacle, on +some clear, dark nightfall, from the edge of Hampstead Hill, when +in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the design of the +monstrous city flashes into vision—a glittering hieroglyph +many square miles in extent; and when, to borrow and debase an +image, all the evening street-lamps burst together into +song! Such is the spectacle of the future, preluded the +other day by the experiment in Pall Mall. Star-rise by +electricity, the most romantic flight of civilisation; the +compensatory benefit for an innumerable array of factories and +bankers’ clerks. To the artistic spirit exercised +about Thirlmere, here is a crumb of consolation; consolatory, at +least, to such of them as look out upon the world through seeing +eyes, and contentedly accept beauty where it comes.</p> +<p>But the conservative, while lauding progress, is ever timid of +innovation; his is the hand upheld to counsel pause; his is the +signal advising slow advance. The word <i>electricity</i> +now sounds the note of danger. In Paris, at the mouth of +the Passage des Princes, in the place before the Opera portico, +and in the Rue Drouot at the <i>Figaro</i> office, a new sort of +urban star now shines out nightly, horrible, unearthly, obnoxious +to the human eye; a lamp for a nightmare! Such a light as +this should shine only on murders and public crime, or along the +corridors of lunatic asylums, a horror to heighten horror. +To look at it only once is to fall in love with gas, which gives +a warm domestic radiance fit to eat by. Mankind, you would +have thought, might have remained content with what Prometheus +stole for them and not gone fishing the profound heaven with +kites to catch and domesticate the wildfire of the storm. +Yet here we have the levin brand at our doors, and it is proposed +that we should henceforward take our walks abroad in the glare of +permanent lightning. A man need not be very superstitious +if he scruple to follow his pleasures by the light of the Terror +that Flieth, nor very epicurean if he prefer to see the face of +beauty more becomingly displayed. That ugly blinding glare +may not improperly advertise the home of slanderous +<i>Figaro</i>, which is a backshop to the infernal regions; but +where soft joys prevail, where people are convoked to pleasure +and the philosopher looks on smiling and silent, where love and +laughter and deifying wine abound, there, at least, let the old +mild lustre shine upon the ways of man.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> Browning’s <i>Ring and +Book</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2" +class="footnote">[2]</a> <i>A Week on the Concord and +Merrimack Rivers</i>, Wednesday, p. 283.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> <i>Lothair</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 386-h.htm or 386-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/386 + + + +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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