THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON. THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1874. NINETEENTH EDITION. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, Cambridge. CONTENTS. -♦- CHAPTER L PAQI CONCERNING THE COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE . . « . 7 CHAPTER H. CONCERNING THE ART OF POTTING THINGS ; BEING 'xHOUGHTS ON REPRESENTATION AND MISREPRE- bENTATION 25 CHAPTER m. CONCERNING TWO BLISTERS OF HUMANITY; BEING THOUGHTS ON PETTY MALIGNITY AND PETTY TRICKERY 65 CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING WORK AND PLAY 103 CHAPTER V. CONCERNING COUNTRY HOUSES AND COUNTRY LIFE . 133 CHAPTER VI. CONCERNING TIDINESS ; BEING THOUGHTS UPON AN OVERLOOKED SOURCE OF HUMAN CONTENT . .171 569901 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER Vn. PAGE HOW I MUSED IX THE RAILWAY TRAIN; BEING THOUGHTS ON RISING BY CANDLE-LIGHT; ON NER- VOUS FEARS ; AND ON VAPOURING 204 CHAPTER Vm. CONCERNIXa THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF THE DWELL- ING 235 CHAPTER rX. CONCERNING HURRY AND LEISURE 267 CHAPTER X. CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, AND HOW TO MEET THEM 309 CHAPTER XL CONCERNING GIVING UP AND COMING DOWN . . . 844 CHAPTER XH. CONCERNINQ THE DIGNITY OF DULNE88 880 CHAPTER Xni. C(mCERNINQ GROWING OLD 408 -♦- CONCLUSION . 441 CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. HIS is Monday morning. It is a beautiful sunshiny morning early in July. I am sitting on the steps that lead to my door, somewhat tired by the duty of yesterday, very restful and thankful. Before me little expanse of the brightest grass, too little to be called a lawn, very soft and mossy, and very carefully mown. It is shaded by three noble beeches, about two hundred years old. The sunshine around has a green tinge from the reflection of the leaves. Double hedges, thick and tall, the inner one of gleaming beech, Bhut out all sight of a country lane that runs hard by: a lane into which this gravelled sweep of would-be avenue enters, after winding deftly through evergreens, rich and old, so as to make the utmost of its little length. Oe the side furthest from the lane, the miniature lawn opens into a garden of no great extent, and beyond the garden you see a green field sloping upwards to a wood which bounds the view. One half of the front of the house is covered to the roof by a climbing rose-tree, so rich now with clus- ter roses that you see only the white soft masses of fra- grance. Crimson roses and fuchsias cover half-way up 8 COXCEKNING THE the remainder of the front wall ; and the sides of the fliglit of steps are green with large-leaved ivy. If ever there was a dwelling embosomed in great trees and ever greens, it is here. Everything grows beautifully: oaks, horse-chestnuts, beeches : laurels, yews, hollies ; lilacs and hawthorn trees. Off a little way on the right, grace- fal in stem, in branches, in the pale bark, in the light-green leaves, I see my especial pet, a fair acacia. This is the true country ; riot the poor shadow of it which you have near great and smoky towns. That sapphire air is polluted by no factory chimney. Smoke is a beauty here, there is so little of it : rising thin and blue from the cottage ; hospitable and friendly-looking from the rare mansion. The town is five miles distant: there is not even a vil- lage near. Green fields are all about : hawthorn hedges and rich hedge-rows : great masses of wood everywhere. But this is Scotland : and there is no lack of hills and rocks, of little streams and waterfalls ; and two hundred yards off, winding round that churchyard whose white stones you see by glimpses through old oak-branches, a large river glides swiftly by. It is a quiet and beautiful scene ; and it pleases me to think that Britain has thousands and thousands like it. But of course none, in my mind, equal this : for this has been my home for five years. I have been sitting here for an hour, with a book on my knee ; and upon that a piece of paper, whereon I have been noting down some thoughts for the sermon which I liope to write during this week, and to preach next Sun- day in that little parish-church of which you can see a corner of a gable through the oaks which surround the churchyard. I have not been able to think very con- nectedly, indeed : for two little feet have been pattering COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. 9 round me, two little hands pulling at me occasionally, and a little voice entreating that I should come and have a race upon the green. Of course I went: for like most men who are not very great or very bad, I have learned, for the sake of the little owner of the hands and the voice, to love every little child. Several times, too, I have been obliged to get up and make a dash at a very small weed which I discerned just appearing through the gravel }. and once or twice my man-servant has come to consult me about matters connected with the garden and tlie stable. My sermon will be the better for all these inter- ruptions. I do not mean to say that it will be absolutely good, though it will be as good as I can make it ; but it will be better for the races with my little girl, and for the thoughts about my horse, than it would have been if I had not been interrupted at all. The Roman Catholic Church meant it well ; but it was far mistaken when it thought to make a man a better parish priest by cutting him off from domestic ties, and quite emancipating him from all the little worries of domestic life. That might be the way to get men who would preach an unpractical religion, not human in interest, not able to comfort, di- rect, sustain through daily cares, temptations, and sor- rows. But for preaching which will come home to men's business and bosoms ; which will not appear to ignore those things which must of necessity occupy the greatest part of an ordinary mortal's thoughts ; commend me to the preacher who has learned by experience what are liuman ties, and what is human worry. It is a characteristic of country life, that living in the country you have so many cares outside. In town, you have nothing to think of (I mean in the way of little ma- terial matters) b«^yoiid the walls of your dwelling. It is 10 COXCERNIXG THE not your business to see to the paving of the street before your door ; and if you live in a square, you are not indi- vidually responsible for the tidiness of the shrubbery in its centre. When you come home, after the absence of a week or a month, you have nothing to look round upon and see that it is right. The space within the house's walls is not a man's proper province. Your library table and your books are all the domain which comes within the scope of your ordei'ly spirit. But if you live in the country, in a house of your own with even a few acres of land attached to it, you have a host of things to think of when you come home from your week's or month's absence : you have an endless number of little things worrying you to take a turn round and see that they are all as they should be. You can hardly sit down and rest for their tugging at you. Is the grass all trimly mown ? Has the pruning been done that you ordered ? Has that rose-tree been trained ? Has that bit of fence been mended ? Ai'e all the walks perfectly free from weeds ? Is there not a gap left in box- wood edgings ? and are the edges of all walks through grass sharp and clearly defined? Has that nettly corner of a field been made tidy ? Has any one been stealing the fruit ? Have the neighboring cows been in your clover ? How about the stable? — any fractures of the harness? — any scratches on the carriage ? — anything amiss with the horse or horses? All these, and innumerable questions more, press on the man who looks after matters for himself, when he arrives at home. Still, there is good in all this. That which in a de- sponding mood you call a worry, in a cheerful mood you think a source of simple, healthful interest in life. And there is one case in particular, in which I doubt not the COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. H reader of simple and natural tastes (and such may all my readers be) has experienced, if he be a country parson not too rich or great, the benefit of these gentle counter- irritants. It is when you come home, leaving your wife and children for a little while behind you. It is autumn : you are having your holiday : you have all gone to the sea-side. You have been away two or three weeks ; and you begin to think that you ought to let your parishioners see that you have not forgotten them. You resolve to go home for ten days, which shall include two Sundays with their duty. You have to travel a hundred and thirty miles. So on a Friday morning you bid your little cir- cle good-bye, and set off alone. It is not, perhaps, an extreme assumption that you are a man of sound sense and feeling, and not a selfish, conceited humbug : and, the case being so, you are not ashamed to confess that you are somewhat saddened by even that short parting ; and that various thoughts obtrude themselves of possible accident and sorrow before you meet again. It is only ten days, indeed : but a wise man is recorded to have once advised his fellow-men in words which run as follows, ' Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.' And as you sail along in the steamer, and sweep along in the train, you are thinking of the little things that not without tears bade their gov- ernor farewell. It was early morning when you left : and as you proceed on your solitary journey, the sun as- cends to noon, and declines towards evening. You have read your newspaper : there is no one else in that com- partment of the carriage : and hour after hour you grow more and more dull and downhearted. At length, as the sunset is gilding the swept harvest-fields, you reach the quiet little railway station among the hills. It is wonder- 12 - COXCERXDsG THE ful to see it. There is no village : hardly a dwelling in sight : there are rocky hills all round ; great trees ; and a fine river, by following which the astute engineer led his railway to this seemingly inaccessible spot. You alight on that primitive platfonn, with several large trees growing out of it, and with a waterfall at one end of it and beyond the little palisade, you see your trap (let me not say carriage), your man-servant, your horse, perhaps your pair. How kindly and pleasant the expression even of the horse's back ! How unlike the bustle of a railway station in a large town ! The train goes, the brass of the engine red in the sunset ; and - you are left in perfect stillness. Your baggage is stowed, and you drive away gently. It takes some piloting to get down the steep slope from this out-of-the-way place. What a change from the thunder of the train to this audible quiet ! You interrogate your servant first in the comprehensive question, if all is right. Relieved by his general affirm- ative answer, you descend into particulars. Any one sick in the parish ? how was the church attended on the Sundays you were away ? how is Jenny, who had the fever ; and John, who had the paralytic stroke ? How are the servants ? how is the horse ; the cow ; the pig ; the dog ? How is the garden progressing ? how about fruit ; how about flowers ? There was an awful thun- derstorm on Wednesday : the people thought it was the end of the world. Two bullocks were killed: and thirteen sheep. Widow Wiggins' son had deserted from the army, and had come home. The harvest-home at such a farm is to-night: may Thomas go? What a little quiet world is the country parish : what a micro- cosm even the country parsonage ! You are interested and pleased : you are getting over your stupid feeling of COUNTRY PAESON'S LIFE. 13 depression. You are interested in all these little mat- ters, not because you have grown a gossiping, little- minded man ; but because you know it is fit and right and good for you to be interested in such things. You have five or six miles to drive : never less : the scene grows always more homely and familiar as you draw nearer home. And ari'ived at last, what a deal to look at 1 What a welcome on the servants' faces : such a contrast to the indifferent looks of servants in a town. You hasten to your library-table to see what letters await you: country folks are always a little nervous about their letters, as half expecting, half fearing, half hoping, some vague, great, undefined event. You see the snug fire: the chamber so precisely arranged, and so fresh-looking : you remark it and value it fifty times more amid country fields and trees than you would turninof out of the manifest life and civilization of the city street. You are growing cheerful and thankful now ; but before it grows dark, you must look round out of doors : and that makes you entirely thankful and cheerful. Surely the place has gi'own greener and prettier since you saw it last ! You walk about the garden and the shrubbery : the gravel is right, the grass is right, the trees are right, the hedges are right, every- thing is right. You go to the stable-yard : you pat your horse, and pull his ears, and enjoy seeing his snug lesting-place for the night. You peep into the cow- house, now growing very dark : you glance into tho abode of the pig : the dog has been capering about you all this while. You are not too great a man to take pleasure in these little things. And now when you enter your library again, where your solitary meal is spread, you sit down in the mellow lamplight, and feel 14 CONCEKNING THE quite happy. How different it would have been to have walked out of a street-cab into a town-house, with nothing beyond its walls to think of I This is so sunshiny a day, and everything is look- ing so cheerful and beautiful, that I know my present testimany to the happiness of the country parson's life must be received with considerable reservation. Just at the present hour, I am willing to declare that I think the life of a country clergyman, in a pretty parish, with a well-conducted and well-to-do population, and with a fair living, is as happy, useful, and honour- able as the life of man can be. Your work is all of a pleasant kind ; you have, generally speaking, not too much of it ; the fault is your own if you do not meet much esteem and regard among your parishioners of all degrees ; you feel you are of some service in your generation : you have intellectual labours and tastes which keep your mind from growing rusty, and which admit you into a wide field of pure enjoyment : you have pleasant country cares to divert your mind from head-woi'k, and to keep you for hours daily in the open air, in a state of pleasurable interest ; your little chil- dren grow up with green fields about them and pure air to breathe : and if your heart be in your sacrc d work, you feel, Sunday by Sunday and day by day, a solid enjoyment in telling your fellow-creatures the Good News you are commissioned to address to them, which it is hard to describe to another, but which you humbly and thankfully take and keep. You have not, indeed, the excitement and the exhilaration of command- ing the attention of a large educated congregation : those are reserved for the popular clergyman of a COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. 15 city parish. But then, you are free from the tempta lion to attempt the unworthy arts of thfe clap-trap mob- orator, or to preach mainly to display your own talents and eloquence ; you have striven to exclude all personal ambition; and, forgetting yourself or what people may think of yourself, to preach simply for the good of your fellow-sinners, and for the glory of that kind Master whom you serve. And around you there are none of those heart-breaking things which must crush the earnest clergyman in a large town : no destitution ; poverty, indeed, but no starvation: and, although evil will be wherever man is, nothing of the gross, daring, shocking vice, which is matured in the dens of the great city. The cottage children breathe a confined atmosphere while within the cottage ; but they have only to go to the door, and the pure air of heaven is about them, and they live in it most of their waking hours. Very different with the pale children of a like class in the city, who do but exchange the infected chamber for the filthy lane, and whose eyes are hardly ever gladdened by the sight of a green field. And when the diligent country parson walks or drives about his parish, not without a decided feeling of authority and ownership, he knows every man, woman, and child he meets, and all their concerns and cares. Still, even on this charming morning, I do not forget, that it depends a good deal upon the parson's present mood, what sort of account he may give of his country parish and his parochial life. If he have been recently cheated by a well-to-do farmer in the price of some farm produce ; if he have seen a humble neighbour deliberately foi'cing bis cow through a weak part of the hedge into a rich pasture-field of the glebe, and then have found him 16 CONCERNING THE ready to swear that the cow trespassed enth-ely without his knowledge or will ; if he meet a hulking fellow carrying in the twilight various rails from a fence to be used as firewood ; if, on a warm summer day, the whole congregation falls fast asleep during the sermon ; if a fanner tells him what a bad and dishonest man a di^ charged man-servant was, some weeks after the parson had found that out for himself and packed off the dishonest man ; if certain of the cottagers near appear disposed to live entirely, instead of only partially, of the parsonage larder ; the poor parson may sometimes be found ready to wish himself in town, compact within a house in a street with no back door ; and not spreading out such a surface as in the country he must, for petty fraud and peculation. But, after all, the country par- eon's great worldly cross lies for the most part in his poverty, and in the cares which arise out of that. It is not always so, indeed. In the lot of some the happy medium has been reached ; they have found the " neither poverty nor riches " of the wise man's prayer. Would that it were so with all ! For how it must cripple a clergyman's usefulness, how abate his energies, how destroy his eloquence, how sicken his heart, how narrow and degrade his mind, how tempt (as it has sometimes done), to unfair and dishonest shifts and expedients, to go about not knowing how to make the ends meet, not seeing how to pay what he owes ! If I were a rich man, how it would gladden me to send a fifty-pound note to certain houses I have seen ! What a dead weight it would lift from the poor wife's heart ! Ah ! I can think of the country parson, like poor Sydney Smith, adding his accounts, calculating his little means, wondering where he can pinch or pare any closer, till the poor COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. 17 fellow bends down his stupified head and throbbing temples on his hands, and wishes he could creep into a quiet grave. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ; or I should wonder how it does not drive some country parsons mad, to think what would become of their children if they were taken away. It is the warm nest apon the rotten bough. They need abundant faith ; let as trust they get it. But in a desponding mood, I can well imagine such a one resolving that no child of his shall ever enter upon a course in life which has brought himself such misery as he has known. I have been writing down some thoughts, as I have said, for the sermon of next Sunday. To-moiTow morning I shall begin to write it fully out. Some in- dividuals, I am aware, have maintained that listening to a sermon is irksome work ; but to a man whose tastes lie in that way, the writing of sermons is most pleasant occupation. It does you good. Unless you are a mere false pretender, you cannot try to impress any truth forcibly upon the hearts of others, without impressing it forcibly upon your own. Alt that you will ever make other men feel, will be only a subdued reflection of what you yourself have felt. And sermon-writing is a task that is divided into many stages. You begin afresh every week : you come to an end every week. If you are writing a book, the end appears very far away. If you find that although you do your best, you yet treat some part of your subject badly, you know that the bad passage remains as a permanent blot : and you work on under the cross-influence of that recollection. But if, with all your pains, this week's sermon is poor, •why, you hope to do better next week. You seek a fresh field : you try again. No doubt, in preaching 18 CONCERNING THE your sermons you are somewhat annoyed by rustic boorishness and want of thought. Various bumpkins will forget to close the door behind them when they enter church too late, as they not unfrequently do. Various men with great hob-nailed shoes, entering late instead of quietly slipping into a pew close to the door, will stamp noisily up the passage to the further extrem- ity of the church. Various faces will look up at you week by week, hopelessly blank of all interest or intelli- gence. Some human beings will not merely sleep, but loudly evince that they are sleeping. Well, you gradually cease to be worried by these little things. At first, they jarred through every nerve ; but you grow accustomed to them. And if you be a man of principle and of sense, you know better than to fancy that amid a rustic people your powers are thrown away. Even if you have in past days been able to interest congregations of the refined and cultivated class, you will now show your talent and your principle at once by accommodating your instructions to the comprehension of the simple souls committed to your care. • I confess I have no patience with men who profess to preach sermons carelessly prepared, because they have an uneducated congrega- tion. Nowhere is more careful preparation needed ; but of course it must be preparation of the right sort. Let it be received as an axiom, that the very first aim of the preacher should be to interest. He must interest, before he can hope to instruct or improve. And no matier how filled with orthodox doctrine and good advice a sermon may be : if it put the congregation to sleep, it is an abominably bad sermon. Surely, I go on to think, this kind of life must affect til the productions of the mind of the man who leads it. COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. 19 There must be a smack of the country, its scenes and its cares, about them all. You walk in shady lanes : you stand and look at the rugged bark of old trees : you help tx) prune evergreens: you devise flower-gardens and winding walks. You talk to pigs, and smooth down the legs of horses. You sit on mossy walls, and saunter by the river side, and through woodland paths. You grow familiar with the internal arrangements of poor men's dwellings : you see much of men and women in those solemn seasons when all pretences are laid aside ; and they speak with confidence to you of their little cares and fears, for this world and the other. You kneel down and pray by the bedside of many sick ; and you know the look of the dying face well. Young children whom you have humbly sought to instruct in the best of knowledge, have passed away from this life in your presence, telling you in interrupted sentences whither they trusted they were going, and bidding you not forget to meet them there. You feel the touch of the weak fingers still ; the parting request is not forgotten. You mark the spring blossoms come back ; and you walk among the harvest sheaves in the autumn evening. And when you ride up the parish on your duty, you feel the influence of bare and lonely tracts, where, ten miles from home, you sometimes dismount from your horse;, and sit down on a grey stone by the wayside, and look for an hour at the heather at your feet, and at the sweeps of purple moorland far away. You go down to the churchyard frequently : you sit on the gravestone of your predecessor who died two hundred years since ; and you count five, six, seven spots where those who served the cure before you sleep. Then, leaning your head upon your hand, you look tliiiiy years into the future, and 20 CONCERNING THE wonder whether j'ou are to grow old. You read, through moss-covered letters, how a former incumbent of the parish died in the last century, aged twenty-eight. That afternoon, coming from a cottage where you had been seeing a frail old woman, you took a flying leap over a brook near, with precipitous sides ; and you thought that some day, if you lived, you would have to creep quietly round by a smoother way. And now you think you see an aged man, tottering and grey, feebly walking down to the churchyard as of old, and seating himself hard by where you sit. The garden will have grown weedy and untidy : it will not be the trim, precise dwelling which youthful energy and hopefulness keep it now. Let it be hoped that the old man's hat is not seedy, nor his coat threadbare : it makes one's heart sore to see that. And let it be hoped that he is not alone. But you go home, I think, with a quieter and kindlier heart. You live in a region, mental and material, that is very entii'ely out of tlie track of worldly ambition. You do not blame it in others : you have learnt to blame few things in others severely, except cruelty and falsehood : but you have outgrown it for yourself. You hear, now and then, of this and the other school or college friend becoming a great man. One is an Indian hero : one is attorney-general : one is a cabinet minister. You like to see their names in the newspapers. You remember how, in college competitions with them, you did not come off second-best. You are struck at finding that such a m\n, whom you recollect as a fearful dunce, is getting respectably on through life : you remember how at school you used to wonder whether the difference between the clever boy and the booby would be in after days the same great gulf that it was then. Your life COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. 21 goes on very regularly, each week much like the laRt. And, on the whole, it is very happy. You saunter for a little in the open air after breakfast : you do so when the evergreens are beautiful with snow as well as when ihe warm sunshine makes the grass white with widely- opened daisies. Your children go with you wherever you go. You are growing subdued and sobered ; but they are not : and when one sits on your knee, and lays upon your shoulder a little head with golden ringlets, you do not mind very much though your own hair (what is left of it) is getting shot with grey. You sit down in "your quiet study to your work : what thousands of pages you have written at that table ! You cease your task at one o'clock : you read your Times : you get on horse- back and canter up the parish to see your sick : or you take the ribbons and tool into the county towiT. You feel the stir of even its quiet existence : you drop into the bookseller's : you grumble at the venerable age of the Reviews that come to you from the club. Generally, you cannot be bothered with calls upon your tattling acquaintances : you leave these to your wife. You drive home again, through the shady lanes, away into the greeh country : your man-servant in his sober livery tells you with pride, when you go to the stable-yard for a few minutes before dinner, that Mr. Snooks, the great judge of horse-flebh, had declared that afternoon in the inn-stable in town, that he had not seen a better-kejit carriage and harness anywhere, and that your plump steed was a noble creature. It is well when a servant is proud of his belongings : he will be a happier man, and a more faithful and useful. When you next drive out you will see the silver blazing in the sun with increased brightness. And now you have the pleasant evening, 22 CONCERNING THE before you. You never fail to dress for dinner : living so quietly as you do, it is especially needful, if you would avoid an encroaching rudeness, to pay careful attention to the little refinements of life. And the great event of the day over, you have music, books, and children : you have the summer saunter in the twilight : you have the winter evening fireside : you take perhaps another tura at your sermon for an hour or two. The day hm brought its work and its recreation : you can look back each evening upon something done : save when you give yourself a holiday which you feel has been fairly toiled for. And what a wonderful amount of work, such as it is, you may, by exertion regular but not excessive, turn off in the course of the ten months and a-half of the working year ! And thus, day by day, and month by month, the life of the country parson passes quietly away. It will be briefly comprehended on his tombstone, in the assurance that he did his duty, simply and faithfully, through so many years. It is somewhat monotonous, but he is too busy to weary of it : it is varied by not .much society, in the sense of conversation with educated men with whom the clergyman has many common feelings. But it is inexpressibly pleasing when, either to his own house or to a dwelling near, there comes a visitor with whom an entire sympathy is felt, though probably holding very antagonistic views : then come the ' good talks ' with delighted Johnson : genial evenings, and long walks of afternoons. The daily post is a daily strong sensation, sometimes pleasing, sometimes painful, as he brings tidings of the outer world. You have your daily Times : each Monday morning brings your Saturday Review : and the Illustrated London News comes not COUNTRY PARSON'S Lr\ 23 merely for the children's sake. You read all the Qiiar* terlies, of course : you skim the monthlies : but it is with tenfold interest and pleasure that month by month you receive that magazine which is edited by a dear friend who sends it to you, and in which sometimes certain pages have the familiar look of a friend's face. You di'aw it wet from its big envelope : you cut its leaves with care : you enjoy the fragrance of its steam as it dries at the study fire : you glance at the shining backs of that long row of volu*ies into which the pleasant monthly visitants have accumulated : you think you will have another volume soon. Then there is a great delight in occasionally receiving a large bundle of books which have been ordered from your bookseller ia the city a hundred miles off: in reading the address in such big letters that they must have been made with a brush : in stripping off the successive layers of immense- ly thick brown paper : in reaching the precious hoard within, all such fresh copies (who are they that buy the copies you turn over in the shop, but which you would not on any account take ?) : such fresh copies, with their bran-new bindings and their leaves so pure in a material sense : in cutting the leaves at the rate of two or three volumes an evening, and in seeing the entire accession of literature lying about the other table (not the one you write on) for a few days ere they are given to the shelves. You are not in the least ashamed to confess that you are pleased by all these little things. You regard it as not necessarily proving any special pettiness of mind or heart. You regard it as no proof of greatness in any man, that he should appear to care nothing for anything. Vour private belief is that it shows him to be either a humbug or a fool. 24 THE COUNTRY PARSON'S LIFE. In this little volume the indulgent reader will find certain of those Essays which the writer discovered on cutting the leaves of the magazine which comes to him on the last day of every month. They were written, as something which might afford variety of work, which often proves the most restful of all recreations. They are lothing more than that which they are called, a country's clergyman's Recreations. My solid work, and ray first thoughts, are given to that which is the business and the happiness of my life. But these Essays have led me into a field which to myself was fresh and pleasant. And T have always I'eturned from them, with increased interest, to graver themes and trains of thought. I have not forgot, as I wrote them, a certain time, when my little children must go away from their early home : when these evergreens I have planted and these walks I have made shall pass to my successor (may he be a better man ! ) ; and when I shall perhaps find my resting-place under those ancient oaks. Nor have I wholly failed to remember a coming day, when bishops and archbishops shall be called to render an account of the fashion in which they exercised their solemn and dignified trusts ; and when I, who am no more than the minister of a Scotch country parish, must answer for the diligence with which I served my little cure. CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE ART OF PUTTING THINGS: BEING THOUOnXS ON REPRESENTATION AND MISREPRESENTATION. A^ ^ ET the reader be assured that the word f^ Representation, which has caught his eye \ on glancing at the title of this essay, has '^-^^^pcj nothing earthly to do with the Elective Franchise, whether in boroughs or counties. Not a syllable will be found upon the following pages bearing directly or indirectly upon any New Reform Bill. I do not care a rush who is member for this county. I have no doubt that all members of Parliament are very much alike. Everybody knows that each individual legislator who pushes his way into the House, is actuated solely by a pure patriotic love for his country. No briefless barrister ever got into Parliament in the hope of getting a place of twelve hundred a year. No barrister in fair practice ever did so in the hope of getting a silk gown, or the Solicitor-Generalship, or a scat on the bench. No merchant or country-gentleman ever did so in the hope of gaining a little accession of dignity and influence in the town or county in which he lives. All these things are universally understood ; and they are men- tioned here merely to enable it to be said, that thia treatise has nothing: to do with them. 26 CONCERNING THE Edgar Allan Poe, the miserable genius who died m America a few years ago, declared that he never had the least difficulty in tracing the logical steps by which he chose any subject on wliich he had ever written, and matured his plan for treating it. And some readers maj remember a curious essay, contained in his collected works, in which he gives a minute account of the genesis of his extraordinary poem, The Raven. But Poe was a humbug ; and it is impossible to place the least faith in anything said by hira upon any subject whatever. In his writings we find him repeatedly avowing that he would assert any falsehood, provided it were likely to excite interest and ' create a sensation.* I believe that most authors could tell us that very frequently the con- ception and the treatment of their subject have darted on them all at once, they could not tell how. Many clergy- men know how strangely texts and topics of discourse have been suggested to them, while it was impossible to trace any link of association with what had occupied their minds the instant before. The late Douglas Jer- rold relates how he first conceived the idea of one of his most popular productions. Walking on a winter day, he passed a large enclosure full of romping boys at play. He paused for a minute ; and as he looked and mused, a thought flashed upon him. It was not so beautiful, and you would say not so natural, as the reflections of Gray, as he looked from a distance at Eton College. As J(!rrold gazed at the schoolboys, and listened to their merry shouts, there burst upon him the concepticn of Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures ! There seems little enough connexion with what he was looking at ; and although Jerrold declared that the sight suggested the idea, he could not pretend to trace the link of association. ART OF PUTTIXG THINGS. 27 It would be very interesting if we could accurately know the process by which authors, small or great, piece to- gether tlieir grander characters. How did Milton pile up his Satan ; how did Shakspeare put together Hamlet or Lady Macbeth ; how did Charlotte Bronte imagine Rochester? Writers generally keep their secrets, and do not let us see behind the scenes. We can trace, in- deed, in successive pieces by Sheridan, the step-by-step development of his most brilliant jests, and of his most gushing bursts of the feeling of the moment. No doubt Lord Brougham had tried the woolsack, to see how it would do, before he fell on his knees upon it (on the impulse of the instant), at the end of his great speech on the Reform Bill. But of course Lord Brougham would not tell us ; and Sheridan did not intend us to know. Even Mr. Dickens, when, in his preface to the cheap edition of Pickwick, he avows his purpose of telling us all about the origin of that amazingly successful serial, gives us no inkling of the process by which he produced the character which we all know so well. He tells us a great deal about the mere details of the work : the pages of letter-press, the number of illustrations, the price and times of publication. But the process of actual author- ship remains a mystery. The great painters would not tell where they got their colours. The effort which gives a new character to the acquaintance of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen, shall be concealed beneath a decorous veil. All that Mr. Dickens tells us is this : ' I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number.' And to the natural question of curiosity, 'How on earth did you think of Mr. Pickwick?' the author's silence replies, 'I don't choose to tell you that!' And now, courteous reader, you are humbly asked to 28 CONCERNING THE Buffer the writer's discursive fashion, as he records how the idea of the present discourse, treatise, dissertation, or essay flashed upon his mind. Yesterday was a most beautiful frosty day. The air was indescribably exhil- arating : the cold was no more than bracing ; and as I fared forth for a walk of some miles, I saw the tower of the ancient church, green with centuries of ivy, look- ing through the trees which surround it, the green ivy oilvered over with hoar-frost. The hedges on either hand, powdered with rime, were shining in the cold sunshine of the winter afternoon. First, I passed through a thick pinewood, bordering the road on both sides. The stems of the fir-trees had that warm, rich colour which is always pleasant to look at; and the green branches were just touched with frost. One undervalues the evergreens in summer : their colour is dull when compared with the fresher and brighter green of the deciduous trees ; but now, when these gay transients have changed to shivering skeletons, the hearty firs, hollies, and yews warm and cheer the wintry landscape. Not the wintry, I should say, but the winter land- scape, which conveys quite a different impression. The wor(i- wintry wakens associations of bleakness, bareness, and bitterness ; a hearty evergreen tree never looks wintry, nor does a landscape to which such trees give the t(me. Then emerging from the wood, I was in an open country. A great hill rises just ahead, which the road will skirt by and bye : on the right, at the foot of a little cliff hard by, runs a shallow, broad, rapid river. Looking across the river, I see a large range of nearly level park, which at a mile's distance rises into upland ; the park shows broad green glades, broken and bounded by fine trees, in clumps and in avenues. In summer- ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 29 lime you would see only the green leaves : but now, peering tLrough the branches, you can make out the outline of the grey turrets of the baronial dwelling which has stood there, added to, taken from, patched, and altered, but still the same dwelling, for the last four hundred years. And on the left, I am just pa'^sing the rustic gat»,tvay through which you approach that quaint cottage oil the knoll two hundred yards off — one story high, with deep thatch, steep gables, overhanging eaves, and verandah of rough oak — a sweet little place, where Izaak Walton might successfully have carried out the spirit of his favourite text, and 'studied to be quiet.' All this way, three miles and more, I did not meet a human being. There was not a breath of air through the spines of the firs, and not a sound except the ripple of the river. I leant upon a gate, and looked into a field. Something was grazing in the field ; but I cannot remember whether it was cows, sheep, oxen, elephants, or camels ; for as I was looking, and thinking how I should begin a sermon on a certain subject much thought upon for the last fortnight, my mind resolutely turned away from it, and said, as plainly as mind could express it, For several days to come I shall produce material upon no subject but one, — and that shall be the com- prehensive, practical, suggestive, and most important sub- ject of the Art op Putting Things ! And indeed there is hardly a larger subject, in relation to the social life of the nineteenth century in England ; and there is hardly a practical problem to the solution of which so great an amount of ingenuity and industry, honest and dishonest, is daily brought, as the grand prob- lem of setting forth yourself, your goods, your horses, your case, your plans, your thoughts and arguments — all your belongings, in short — to the best advantage. 30 CONCERNING THE From the Pi'ime Minister, who exerts all his wonderful skill and eloquence to put his policy before Parliament and the countiy in the most favourable light, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who does his very best to cast a rosy hue- even upon an income-tax, down to tlic shopman who arranges his draperies in the window against market-day in that fashion which he thinks wil prove most fascinating to the maid-servant with her newly-paid wages in her pocket, and the nurse who in a most lively and jovial manner assures a young lady of three years old that she will never feel the taste of her castor-oil, — yea, even to the dentist who with a joke and a smiling face approaclies you with his forceps in his hand: — from the great Attorney-General seeking to place his view of his case with convincing force before a bewildered jury (that view being flatly opposed to common sense), down to the schoolboy found out in some mischievous trick and trying to throw the blame upon somebody else : almost all civilized beings in Great Britain are from morning to night labouring hard to put things in general or something in particular in the way that they think will lead to the result which best suits their views ; — are, in short, practising the art of repre- senting or misrepresenting things for their own advantage. Great skill, you would say, must result from this con- ctant practice : and indeed it probably does. But then, f/oople are so much in the habit of trying to put things themselves, that they are uncommonly sharp at seeing (lirjugh the devices of others. ' Set a thief to catch a thi( f,' says the ancient adage : and so, set a man who can himself tell a very plausible story without saying any- thing positively untrue, to discover the real truth under the rainbow tints of the plausible story told by another. But do not fancy, my kind reader, that I have any ART OF PUTTING THINGS. ^1 purpose of making a misanthropical onslaught upon poor humanity. I am very far from desiring to imply that there is anything essentially wrong or dishonest in trying to put things in the most favourahle light for our views and plans. The contrary is the case. It is a noble gift, when a man is able to put great truths or momentous tacts before our minds with that vividness and force which shall make us feel these facts and truths in their grand reality. A great evil, to which human beings are by their make subject, is, that they can talk of things, know things, and understand things, without feeling them in their true importance — without, in short, realizing them. Tliere ap^iears to be a certain numbness about the mental organs of perception ; and the man who is able to put things so strikingly, clearly, pithily, forcibly, glaringly, whether these things are religious, social, or political truths, as to get through that numbness, tliat crust of insensibility, to the quick of the mind and heart, must be a great man, an earnest man, an honest man, a good man. I believe that any great reformer will find less practical discouragement in the opposition of bad people than in the inertia of good people. You cannot get them to feel that the need and the danger are so imminent and urgent ; you cannot get them to bestir themselves with the activity and energy which the case de- mands. You cannot get them to take it in that the open sewer and the airless home of the working man are sueli a very serious matter ; you cannot get them to feel that the vast uneducated masses of the British population form a mine beneatii our feet which may explode any day, with God knows what devastation. I think that not all the won- derful eloquence, freshness, and pith of Mr. Kingsley form a talent so valuable as liis power of compeliing people tc 32 CONCERNING THE feel what they had always known and talked about, but nevei' felt. And wherein lies that power, but just in his skill to put things — in his power of truthful representation? Sydney Smith was once talking with an Irish Roman Catholic priest about the pi'oposal to endow the Komish Church in Ireland. ' We would not take tlie Saxon money,' said the worthy priest, quite sincerely ; ' we would not defile our fingers with it. No matter whether Parliament offered us endowments or not, we would not receive them.' 'Suppose,' replied Sydney Smith, 'you were to receive an official letter that on callino; at such a bank in the town three miles off, you would hereafter receive a hundred pounds a quai-ter, the first quarter's allowance payable in advance on the next day; and suppose that you wanted money to do good, or to buy books, or anything else : do you mean to say you would not drive over to the town and take the hundred pounds out of the bank ? ' The priest was staggered. He had never looked at the thing in that precise light. He had never had the vague distant question of endowment brouglit so home to him. He had been quite sincere in his spirited repudiation of Saxon coin, as recorded above ; but he had not exactly understood what he was saying and doing. ' Oh, Mr. Smith,' he replied, ' you have suck a way of putting things!' What a triumph of the Anglican's art of truthful representation I One of the latest instances of skill in putting things which I remember to have struck me I came upon, where abundance of such skill may be found — in a leading article in the Times. The writer of that article was endeavouring to show that the work of the country clergy is extremely light. Of course he is sadly mis- taken ; but this by the way. As to sermons, said th ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 33 lively writer (I don't pretend to give his exact words), "what work is there in a sermon ? Just fancy tl]at you are writing half a dozen letters of four pages each, and crossed ! The thing was cleverly put ; and it really came on me with the force of a fact, a new and surprising fact. Many sermons has this thin right hand written ; but my impression of a sermon, drawn from some years* experience, is of a composition very different from a letter — something demanding that brain and heart should be worked to the top of their bent for more hours than need be mentioned here ; something implying as hard and as exhausting labor as man can well go through. Surely, I thought, I have been working under a sad delusion 1 Only half a dozen light letters of gossip to a friend : that is the amount of work implied in a sermon ! Have I been all these years making a bugbear of such a simple and easy matter as that f Hei'e is a new and cheerful way of putting the thing ! But unhappily, though the clever representation would no doubt convey to some thousands of readers the impression that to write a sermon was a very simple affair after all, it broke down, it crumpled up, it went to pieces when brought to the test of fact. When next morning I had written my text, I thought to myself. Now here I have just to do the same amount of work which it would cost me to write lialf a dozen letters to half a dozen friends, giving them our little news. Ah, it would not do ! In a little, I was again in the struggle of mapping out my subject, and cutting a straight track through the jungle of the woi'ld of mind ; looking about for illustrations, seeking words to put my meaning with clearness and interest before the simple country folk I preach to. It was not the least like letter-writing. The clever writer's way of putting a 34 COXCEEXIXG THE things was wrong; and though I acquit him of any crime beyond speaking with authority of a thing which he knew nothing about, I must declare that his repre- sentation was a misrepresentation. If you have sulTicient skill, you may put what is painful so that it shall sound pleasant ; you may put a wearisome journey by railway in such a connection with cozy cushions, warm rugs, a review or a new book, storm sweeping the fields without, and warmth and ease within, that it shall seem a delight- ful thing. You may put work, in short, so that it shall look like play. But actual experiment breaks down the representation. You caimot change the essential nature of things. You cannot make black white, though a clever man may make it seem so. Still, we all have a great love for trying to put any hard work or any painful business, which it is certain we must go through, in such a light as may make it seem less terrible. And it is not difficult to deceive ourselves when we are eager to be deceived. No one can tell how much comfort poor Daraien drew from the way in which he put the case on the morning of his death by horrible tortures : ' The day will be long,' he said, ' but it will have an end.' No one can tell what a gleam of light may have darted upon the mind of Charles I. as he knelt to the block, when Bishop Juxon put encouragingly the last trial the monarch had to go through : ' one last stage, somewhat turbulent and troublesome, but still a very short one.' No one can tell how much it soothed the self-love of Tom Purdie, when Sir Walter Scott ordered him to cut down some trees which Tom wished to stand, and positively commanded that they should go down in si)ite of all Tom's ai'gumeuts and expostulations, and all this in the presence of a number of genlleujcn ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 35 before whom Tom could not bear any impeachment of his woodcraft ; no one, I say, can tell how much it soothed the worthy forester's self-love when after half an hour's sulky meditation he thought of the happy plan of f utting the thing on another footing than that of obedi- ence to an order, and looking up cheerfully again, said, *As for those trees, I think I'll tah' your advice, Sir Walter ! ' Would it be possible, I wonder, thus pleasant- ly io put the writing of an article so as to do away the sense of the exertion which writing an article implies ? Have we not all little tricks which we play upon our- selves, to make our labour seem lighter, our dignity greater, our whole position jollier, than in our secret soul we know is the fact ? Think, then, thou jaded man, bending over the written page which is one day to at- tain the dignity of print in Fraser or Blackwood, how in these words thou art addressing many thousands of thy enlightened countrymen and thy fair countrywomen, and becoming known (as Fielding puts it in one of his simply felicitous sentences) 'to numbers who otherwise never saw or knew thee, and whom thou shalt never see or know\' Think how thou shalt lie upon massive library-tables, in substantially elegant libraries, side by side perhaps with Helps, Kingsley, or Hazlitt ; how thou shalt lighten the cares of middle-aged men, and (if thou art a writer of fiction) be smuggled up to young ladies' chambers ; who shall think, as they read tliy article (oh, much mistaken!), what a nice man thou art ! Alas ! all that way of putting things is mere poetry. It wont do. It still remains, and always must remain, the Stretch and strain of mind and muscle, to write. Let not the critic be severe on people who write ill : they deserve much credit and sympathy because they write 36 CONCEKXES^G THE at all. But though these grand and romantic ways of putting the writing of one's article will not serve, there are little prosaic material expedients which really avail to put it in a light in which it looks decidedly less laborious. Slowly let the large drawer be pulled out wherein lies the paper which will serve, if we are allowed to see them, for many months to come. There lies the large blue quarto, so thick and substantial ; there the massive foolscap, so soft and smooth, over which the pen 60 pleasantly and unscratchingly glides ; that is the raw material for the article. Draw it forth deliberately : fold it accurately : then the ivory stridently cuts it through. Weigh the paper in your hand ; then put the case thus : * Well, it is only covering these pages with writing, after all ; it is just putting three-and-twenty lines, of so many "words each on the average, upon each of these unblotted surfaces.' Surely there is not so much in that. Do not think of all the innumerable processes of mind that go to it ; of the weighing of the consequences of general propositions ; of the choice of words ; of the pioneering your track right on, not turning to either hand ; of the memory taxed to bring up old thoughts upon your subject ; of the clock striking unheard while you are bent upon your task, so much harder than carrying any reasonable quantity of coals, or blacking ever so many boots, or jurrying ever so many horses. Just stick to this view of the matter, just put the thing this way — that all you liave to do is to blacken so many pages, and take the comfort of that way of putting it. To such people as we human beings are, there is hard- ly any matter of greater practical importance than what we have called the Art of Putting Things. For, to us, things are what they seem. They affect us just according ART OF PUTTIXG THINGS. 37 to what we think them. Our knowledge of things, and our feeling in regard to things, are all contingent on the way in which these things have been put before us ; and what different ways there are of putting every possible doctrine, or opinion, or doing, or thing, or event ! And w hat mischievous results, colouring all our views and feel* ligs, may follow from an important subject having been wrongly, disagreeably, injudiciously put to us when we were children ! How many men hate Sunday all their lives because it was put to them so gloomily in their boyhood ; and how many Englishmen, on the other hand, fancy a Scotch Sunday the most disagreeable of days because the case has been wrongly put to them, while ia truth there is, in intelligent religious Scotch families, no more pleasant, cheerful, genial, restful, happy day. And did not Byron always hate Horace, put to him in youth with the associations of impositions and the birch ? There is no more sunshiny inmate of any home than the happy-tempered one who has the art of putting all things in a pleasant light, from the great misfortunes of life down to a broken carriage-spring, a servant's failings, a child's salts and senna. You are extremely indignant at some person who has used you ill ; you are worried and annoyed at his misconduct ; it is as though you were going about with a mustard blister applied to your mind : when a word or two from some genial iiiend puts the entire matter in a new light, and your irritation goes, the blister is removed, your anger dies out, you would like to pat the offending being on the head, and say you bear him no malice. And it is wonderful what a little thing sometimes suffices to put a case thus differently. When you are complaining of somebody's ill-usage, it will change your feeling and the look of things, if the friend 38 CONCERNING THE you are speaking to does no more than say of ihe peccaol brother, ' Ah ! poor feUow ! ' I think that every man or woman who has got servants, and who has pretty fre- quently to observe (I mean to see, not to speak of) some fault on their part, owes a deep debt of gratitude to the man, whoever he was, who thus kindly and wisely gov us a forbearing stand-point from which to regard a ser vant's failings, by putting the thing in this way, true in itself though new to many, that you cannot expect per- fection for fourteen, or even for fifty pounds a-year. Has not that Avay of putting things sometimes checked you when you meditated a sharp reproof, and allayed anger which otherwise would have been pretty hot? Even when a rogue cheats you (though that, I confess, is a peculiarly irritating thing), is not your wrath mollified by putting the thing thus: that the poor wretch probably needed very much the money out of which he cheated you, and would not have cheated you if he could have got it honestly ? When a horse-dealer sells you. at a remarkably stiff figure, a broken-winded steed, do not yield to unqualified indignation. True, the horse-dealer is always ready to cheat ; but feel for the poor fellow, every man thinks it right to cheat him ; and with every man's hand against him, what wonder though his hand should be against every man? Everything, you see, turns on the way in which you put things. And i^ s bo from earliest youth to latest age. The old scholar, whose delight is to sit among his books, thus puts his library : — My days among the dead are passed: ^ Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast. The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse night a::i day.* • Sourlll'y. AET OF PUTTING THINGS. 39 You see the library was not mere shelves of books, and the books were not mere printed pages. You remem- ber how Robinson Crusoe, in his cheerful moods, put his island home. He sat down to his lonely meal, but that was not how he put things. No. ' Here was my majesty, nil alone by myself, atten(ied by my servants : ' his ser- vants being the dog, parrot, and cat. I remember how a wealthy merchant, a man quite of the city as opposed to the country, once talked of emigrating to America, and buying an immense tract of land, where he and his fam- ily should lead a simple, vmartiiicial, innocent life. He Avas not in the least cut out for such a life, and would have been miserable in it, but he was fascinated with the notion because he put it thus : — 'I shall have great flocks and herds, and live in a tent like Abraham^ And that way of putting things brought up before the busy man of the nineteenth century 1 know not what sweet picture of a primevally quiet and liappy life. I can remember yet how, when I crept about my father's study, a little boy of three years old, I felt the magic of the art of putting things. All children are restless. It is impos- sible for tliem to remain still, and we all know how a child in a study worries the busy scholar. All admoni- tions to keep quiet failed ; it was really impossible to obey them. Creep, creep about ; upset footstools ; pull off table-covers; upset ink. But when the thing was put in a different way; when the kind voice said, — ' Now, you'll be my little dog : creep into your house theie under the table, and lie quite still,' there was no diihculty in obeying tJiat command: and, except an occa- sional bow-wow, there was perfect stillness. The art of putting things had i)revailed. It was necessary to keep still ; for a dog in a study, I knew, must keep still, and T was a dog. 40 CONCERNIXG TIIE It must be a worrying thing for a great warrior or statesman, fighting a great battle, or introducing a great legislative measure, to remember that the estimation in "which he is to be held in his own day and country, and in other countries and ages, depends not at all on what his conduct is in itself, but entirely on the way in which it shall be put before mankind — represented, or misrep- resented, in newspapers, in rumours, in histories. How very unlikely it is that history will ever put the case on its real merits : the characters of history will either be praised far above their deserts, or abused far beyond their sins. ' Do not read history to me,' said Sir Robert Walpole, ' for that, I know, must be false.' History could be no more than the record of the way in which men had agreed to put things ; and those behind the scenes, the men who pull the wires which move the puppets, must often have reason to smile at the absurd mistakes into which the history-writing outsiders fall. And even apart from ignorance, or bias, or intention to deceive, what a fearful thought it must be to a great man taking a conspicuous part in some great solemnity, such as the trial of a queen, or the impeachment of a governor-general, to reflect that this great solemnity, and his own share in it, and how he looked, and A'hat he said, may possibly be put before mankind by the great histo- rian Mr. Wordy ! One can enter into Johnson's feeling when, on hearing that Boswell intended to write his biography, he exclaimed, in mingled terror and fury — ' If I thought that he contemplated writing my life, I should render that impossible by taking his ! ' It was eomething to shudder at, the idea of going down to posterity as represented by a Boswell ! But the great lexicographer was mistaken : the Dutch-jiaintcr-like bi» ART OF PUTTIXG TIUNGS. 41 ography showed him exactly as he was, the great, little, mighty, weak, manly, babyish mind and heart. And not great men alone, historical personages, have this reason for disquiet and apprehension. Don't you know, my reader not unversed in the ways of life, that it depends entirely on how the story is told, how the thing is repre- sented or misrepresented, whether your conduct on ai.y given occasion shall appear heroic or ridiculous, reason- able or absurd, natural or affected, modest or impudent and don't you know, too, what a vast number of ill-set people are always ready to give the story the unfavour- able turn, to put the matter in the bad light ; and how many more, not really ill-set, not really with any mali- cious intention, are prompted by their love of fun, in relating any act of any acquaintance, to try to set it in a ridiculous light ? Your domestic establishment is shabby or unpretending, elegant or tawdry, just as the fancy of the moment may lead your neighbour to put the thing. Your equipage is a neat little turn-out or a shabby attempt, your house is quiet or dull, yourself a genius or a blockhead, just as it may strike your friend on the instant to put the thing. And don't we all know some people — not bad people in the main — who never by any chance put the thing except in the unfavourable way ? I have heard the selfsame house called a snug little place and a miserable little hole ; the same man called a lively talker and an absurd rattlebrain; the same person called a gentlemanlike man and a missy piece of affectation ; the same income called competence and starvation ; the same horse called a noble animas and an old white cow : — the entire difference, of course, lay in the fashion in which the narrator chose, from in- herent bonhomie or inherent verjuice, to put the thing. 42 COXCEKNIXG THE "While Mr. Crlglit probably regards it as the most en- nobling occupation of humanity to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, Byron said, as implying the lowest degree of degradation — Trust not for freedom to the Franks. — Thej' have a king who buijs and iuls ! And it is just the two opposite ways of putting the same admitted fact, to say that Britain is the first mercantile community of the world, and to say that we are a nation of shopkeepers. One way of putting the fact is the dignified, the other is the degrading. If a boy plays truant or fiills asleep in church, it just depends on how you put it, or how the story is told, whether you are to see in all this the natural thoughtlessness of boy- hood, or a first step towards the gallows. ' Billy Brown stole some of my apples,' says a kind-hearted man : ' well, poor fellow, I daresay he seldom gets any.' ' Billy Brown stole my apples,' says the severe man : ' ah, the vagabond, he is born to be hanged.' Sydney Smith put Catholic Emancipation as common justice and common sense : Dr. McNeile puts it as a great national sin, and the origin of the potato disease. John Foster mentions in his Diary, that he once expostulated with a great, hulking, stupid bump- kin, as to some gross transgression of which he had been guilty. Little effect was produced on the bumpkin, for dense stupidity is a great duller of the conscience. Foster persisted : ' Do not you think,' he said, ' that the Almighty will be angry at such conduct as yours?' Blockhead as (ho I'ellow^ was, he could take in the idea of my essay : he replied, 'That's just as A tak's ut ! ' But what struck little Paul Dombey as strange, that the same bells rung for \feddings and for funerals, and that the same sound was merry or doleful, just as we put it, is true of many ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 43 things besides bells. The character of everj'thing we hear or see is reflected upon it from our own minds. The sun sees the earth look bright because it first made it so. You go to a public meeting, my friend. You make a speech. You get on, you think, uncommonly well. When your auditor Mr. A. or Miss B. goes home, and i3 asked there what sort of a[)pearance you made, don't you fancy that the reply will be affected in any appreciable degree by the actual fact ! It depends en- tirely on the state of the relator's nerves or digestion, or the passing fancy of the moment, whether you shall be said to have done delightfully or disgustingly ; whether you shall be said to have made a brilliant figure, or to have made a fool of yourself. You never can be sure, though you s[)oke with the tongue of angels, but that ill- nature, peevishness, prejudice, thoughtlessness, may put the case that your speech was most abominable. Do you fancy that you could ever say or do anything that Mr. Snarling could not find fault with, or Miss Limejuice could not misrepresent ? Years ago I was accustomed to frequent the courts of law, and to listen with much interest to the- great advo- cates of that time, as Follett, Wilde, Thesiger, Kelly, Nowhere in the world, I think, is one so deeply im- pressed with the value of tact and skill in putting thi-ngs, as in the Court of Queen's Bench at the trial of an im- portant case by a jury. Does not all the enormous dif- ference, as great as that between a country bumpkin and a hog, between Follett and Mr. Briefless, lie simply in their respective powers of putting things? The actual facts, the actual merits of the case, have very little in- deed to do with the verdict, compared with the counsel's *kill in i)utting them ; (he artful marshalling of circum- 44 CONCERNING THE stances, the casting weak points into shadow, and bring* ing out strong points into glaring relief. I remember how I used to look with admiration at one of these great men when, in his speech to the jury, he was approaching some circumstance in the case which made dead acrainst him. It was beautiful to see the intellectual gladiator cautiously approaching the hostile fact; coming up to it, tossing and turning it about, and finally showing that it made strongly in his favour. Now, if that were really so, why did it l(X)k as if it made against him ? Why should so much depend on the way in which he put it? Or, if the fact was in truth one that made against him, why should it be possible for a man to put it so that it should seem to make in his favour, and all without any direct falsification of facts or arguments, without any of that mere vulgar mis- representation which can be met by direct contradiction ? Surely it is not a desirable state of matters, that a plau- sible fellow should be able to explain away some very doubtful conduct of his own, and by skilful putting of things should be able to make it seem even to the least discerning, that he is the most innocent and injured of human beings. And it is provoking, too, when you feel at once that his defence is a mere intellectual juggle, and yet, with all your logic, when you cannot just on the instant tear it to pieces, and put the thing in the light of truth. Indeed, so well is it understood that by tact and address you may so put things as to make the worse ap- pear the better reason, that the idea generally conveyed, when we talk of putting things, is, that there is something wrong, something to be adroitly concealed, some weak point in regard to which dust is to be thrown into too ob- eervant eyes. There is a common impression, not one of unqualified truth, that when all is above board, there ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 45 is less need for skilful putting of the case. Many peo[)lQ think, though the case is by no means so, that truth may always be depended on to tell its own story and produce its due impression. Not a bit of it. However good my case might be, I should be sorry to intrust it to Mr. Num- skull, with Sir Fitzroy Kelly on the other side. It is a coarse and stupid expedient to have recourse to anything like falsification in putting things as they would make best for yourself, reader. And there is no need for it. Unless you have absolutely killed a man and taken his watch, or done something equally decided, you can easily represent circumstances so as to throw a favour- aole light upon yourself and your conduct. It is a mis- take to fancy that in this world a story must be either true or false, a deed either right or wrong, a man either good or bad. There are few questions which can be answered by Yes or No. Almost all actions and events are of mino;Ied character; and there is something to be said on both sides of almost every subject which can be debated. Who does not remember how, when he was a boy, and had done some mischief which he was too honest to deny, he revolved all he had done over and over, put- ting it in many lights, trying it in all possible points of view, till he had persuaded himself that he had done quite right, or at least that he had done nothing that was so very wrong, after all ? There was a lurking feeling, probaldy, that all this was self-deception ; and oh ! how our way of putting the case, so favourably to ourselves, vanished into air when our Teacher and Governor sternly called us to account ! All those Jesuitical artifices were (brgotten ; and we just felt that we had done wrong, and there was no use trying to justify it. The noble use of the power of putting things, is when 4G COXCERXIXG THE a man employs that power to give tenfold force to truth. When you go and hear a great preacher, you sometimes come away wishing heartily that the impi-ession he made on you would last : for you feel that though what struck you so much was not the familiar doctrine, which you knew quite well before, but tlie way in which he put it, still that startling view of things was the right view. Probably in the pulpit more than anywhere else, we feel the difference between a man who talks about and about things — and another man who puts them so that we feel (hem. And when one thinks of all the ignorance, want, and misery which surround us in the wretched dwellings of the poor, which we know all about but take so coolly, it is sad to remember that Truth does not make itself felt as it really is, but depends so sadly for the practical effect upon the skill with which it is put — upon the tact, graphic power, and earnest purpose of the man who tells it. A landed proprietor will pass a wretched row of cot- tages on his estate daily for years, yet never think of making an effort to improve them : who, when the thing is fairly put to him, will forthwith bestir himself to have thinfTs brousht into a better state. He will wonder how he could have allowed matters to go on in that unhappy style so long ; but will tell you truly, that though the thing was before his eyes, he really never before thought of it in that light. Some people have a happy knack for putting in a pleasant way everything that concerns themselves. Mr. A.'s son gets a poor place as a Bank clerk : his fether gO(3S about saying that the lad has found a fine opening in business. The young man is ordained, and gets a curacy on Salisbury Plain : his father rejoices that there, never seeing a human face, be has abundant leisure for stud;^, ART OF TUTTING THINGS. it and for improving liis mind. Or, the curacy is in tlio most crowded part of" Manchester or Bethnal Green : the father now rejoices tliat his son has opportunities of acquiring clerical experience, and of visiting tlie homes of the poor. Such a man's liouse is in a well-wooded country : the situation is delightfully sheltered. He removes to a bare district without a tree : — ah! there lie has beautiful pure air and extensive views. It is well fcr human beings when they have the pleasant art of thua putting things ; for many, we all know, have the art of putting things in just the opposite way. They look at all things through jaundiced eyes ; and as things appear to themselves, so they put them to others. You remember, reader, how once upon a time David Hume, the historian, kindly sent Rousseau a present of a dish of beef-steaks. Rousseau fired at this : he discerned in it a deep-laid insult : he put it that Hume, by sending the steaks, meant to insinuate that he, Rousseau, could not afford to buy proper food for himself Ah, I have known various Rousseaus ! They had not the gfjnius, indeed, but they had all the wrongheadedness. Who does not know the contrasted views jf mankind and of life that pervade all the writings of Dickens and of Thackeray ? It is the same world that lies before both, but how (liifercntly tliey put it ! And look at tlie accounts in the Blue and Yellow newspapers respectively, of tiie borough Member's speech to his constituents last night in the Corn Exchange. Judge by tlie account in the one paper, and he is a Burke for eloquence, a Peel for tact, a Shippen for incorruptible ir.togrity. Judge by the account in the other, and you would wonder where the ehictors •caught a mortal who combines so remarkably ignorance, utupidity, carelessness, inefficiency, and dishonesty. As 48 CONCERNIXG THE for the speech, one journal declares it was fluent, the other that it was stuttering ; one that it was frank, the other that it was trimming ; one that it was sense, the otlier that it was nonsense. Nor need it be supposed that either journal intends deliberate falsehood. Each believes his own way of putting the case to be the right way ; and the truth, in most instances, doubtless lies midway betwee But in fact, till the end of time, there will be at least two ways of putting everything. Perhaps the M. P. warmed with his subject, and threw himself heart and soul into his speech. Shall we say that he spoke with eloquent energy, or shall we put it that he bellowed like a bull ? Was he quiet and correct ? Then we may choose be- tween saying that he is a classical speaker, and that he was as stiff as a poker. He made some jokes, perhaps : take your choice whether you shall call him clever oi flippant, a wit or a buffoon. And so of everybody else. You know a clever, well-read young woman : you may either call her such, or talk sneeringly of blue-stockings. You meet a lively, merry girl, who laughs and talks with all the frankness of innocence. Tou would say of her, my kindly reader, something like what I have just said ; but crabbed Mrs. Backbite will have it that she is a romp, a boisterous hoyden, of most unformed manners. Per- haps Mrs. Backbite, spitefully shaking her head, says she trusts, she really hopes, there is no harm in the girl — but certainly no daughter of hers should be allowed to associate with her. And not merely does the way, favour- able or unfavourable, in which the thing shall be put, depend mainly on tlie temperament of the person who puts it — so that you shall know beforehand that Mr. Snarling will always give the unfavourable view, and Mr. Jollikin the favourable : but a further element of disturbance is ART OF PUTTIXG THINGS. 49 introduced by the fact, that often the narrator's mood 13 Buch, that it is a toss-up, five minutes before he begins to tell his storj, whether he shall put the conduct of his hero as; good or bad. Who needs the art of putting things more than the painter of portraits? Who sees so much of the little- ness, the petty vanity, the silliness, of mankind ? It must lie hard lor such a man to retain much respect for human nature. The lurking belief in the mind of every man, that he is remarkably good-looking, concealed in daily miercocrrse with his fellows, breaks out in the painter's Btudio. And, without positive falsification, how cleverly the artist often contrives to put the features and figure of his sifter in a satisfactory fashion ! Plave not you seen the portrait of a plain, and even a very ugly person, which was strikingly like, and still very pleasant looking and almost pretty ? Have not you seen things so skil- fully put, that the little snob looked dignified, the vulgar boor gentlemanlike, the plain-featured woman angelic — and all the while the likeness was accurately preserved ? It seems to me that in the case of many of those fine things which stir the heart and bring moisture to the eye, it depends entirely on the way in which they are put, whether they shall strike us as pathetic or silly, as sublime or ridiculous. The venerable aspect of the de- throned monarch, led in the triuni])hal procession of the IJoman Emperor, and looking indifferently on the scene, as he repeated often the words of Solomon, ' Vanity, van- ity, all is vanity,' depends much for the effect it always produces on the reader, upon the stately yet touching fashion in which GibI)on tells the story. So with Ilaz- litt's often-recurring account of Poussin's celebrated pic- ture, the Et in Arradid E(jo. As for Burke flinging the 4 50 COXCERXIXG THE dagger upDn the floor of the House of Commons, am] Brougham falHng on his knees in the House of Peers, what a ridiculous representation Punch could give of such things ! What shall be said of Addison, often tipsy in life, yet passing away with the words addressed to hia legardless step-son, ' See in what peace a Christian can die ! ' We need not think of tilings which are essentially ridiculous, though their perpetrators intended them to be sublime : as Lord EUenborough's proclamation about the Gates of Somnauth, Sir William Codrington's despatch as to the blowing up of Sebastopol, and all the grand pas- sages in the writings of Mr. Wordy. Let me confess that I do think it a very unhealthy sign of the times, this love which now exists of putting grave matters in a ridiculous light, which produces Comic Histories of England, Comic Blachstones, Comic Parliamentary De- hates, Comic Latin Grammars, and the like. Dreary indeed must be the fun of such books ; but that is not the worst of them. Yet one cannot seriously object to such a facetious serial as Punch, which represents the funny element in our sad insular character. Punch lives by the art of putting things, and putting them in a single way ; but how wonderfully well, how successfully, how genially, lie puts all things funnily ! But to burlesque Macbeth or Othello, to travesty Virgil, to parody the soliloquy in Hamlet, though it may be putting things in a novel and Hmusing way, approaches to the nature of sacrilege. Sometimes, indeed, the ludicrous way of putting things has served an admirable purpose ; as in the imitations of Southey's Sapphics and Kotzebue's morality in the Poetry of the Anti-jacobin. And the ludicrous way of putting thing;? has sometimes brought them much more vividly home to ' men's business and bosoms,' as in Syd- ART OF TUTTING THIXGS. 51 oey Smith's description of the possible resuhs of a French invasion. Nor has it failed to answer the end of most cosrent arijument, as in his description of Mrs. Partington sweeping back the Atlantic Ocean. Do not fancy, my friend, that you can by possibility so lire that ill-natured folk will not be able to put every- thing you do unfavorably. The old man with the ass was a martyr to the desire so to act that there should be o possibility of putting what he did as wrong. An when John Gilpin's wife, for fear the neighbours should think her proud, caused the chaise to draw up five doors off, rely upon it some of the neighbours would say she did so in the design of making her carriage the more conspicuous. When you give a dinner-party, and after your guests are gone, sit down and review the prog- ress of the entertainment, thinking how nicely every- thing went on, do you remember, madam, that at that same moment your guests are seated in their own homes, putting all the circumstances in quite a different way : laughing at your hired greengrocer, who (you were just saying) looked so like a butler; execrating your cham- pagne, which (you are this moment flattering yourself) passed for the product of the grape and not of the goose- berry ; and generally putting yourself, your children, your house, your dinner, your company, your music, into such ridiculous lights, that, if you knew it (which happily yon never will), you would wish that you had mingled a little strychnine with the vintage so vilified. Still, it is pleasant to believe that there is no real malice in the way in wliicli most people cut up their friends b(;liind tlieir backs. You really have a very kindly feeling towards Mr. A. or IMrs. B., though you do turn them into ridicule in their absence. Altei- lanirhin'jr at Mr. A. to 52 COXCERXIXG THE Mrs. B., you are quite ready to laugh at Mrs. B. to IMr. A. Tlie truth appears to be, that all this is an instance of that reaction which is necessary to human beings In people's presence politeness requires that you should put everything that concerns them in the most agreeable and favourable way. Impatient of this constraint, you revenge yourself upon it whenever circumstances permit, by putting things in the opposite fashion. I feel not the least enmity towards Mr. Snooks for saying behind my back that my essays are wretched trash. He has fre- quently said in my presence tliat they are far superior to anything ever written by Macaulay, Milton, or Shak- speare. I knew that after my dear friend's civility had been subjected to so violent a strain as was implied in his making the latter declaration, it would of necessity fly back, like a released bow, whenever he left me ; and that the first mutual acquaintance he met would have the satisfaction of hearing the case put in a very different way. And no doubt, if my dear friend were put upon his oath, bis true opinion of me would transpire as nearly midway between the two w'ays of putting it respectively before my face and behind my back. You are a country clergyman, let us say, my reader, with a small parish ; and while you do your duty faith- fully and zealously, you spend a spare hour now and then upon a review or a magazine article. You like the thought that thus, from your remote solitude, you are addressing a larger audience than that which you address Sunday by Sunday. You think that reasonable and can- did people would say that this is an improving and pleas- ant way of employing a little leisure time, instead of rusting into stu[)idity or mooning about blankly, or smok ing yourself into vacancy, or reading novels, or listening AKT OF PUTTING TIIIXGS. 53 to and retailing gossip, or banging about Ibe streets of the neighbouring county town, or growing sarcastic and misantliropic. But don't you remember, my dear friend, that although you put the case in this way, it is highly probable that some of your acquaintances, whose prof- fered CGiitributions to the periodical with which you are supposed to be connected have been ' declined with thanks,' and whom malignant editors exclude from the opportunity of enlightening an ungrateful world, may put the matter very differently indeed ? True, you are always thorouglily prepared with your sermon on Sun- days, you are assiduous in your care of the sick and the aged, you have cottage lectures here and tliere through- out the parish, you teach classes of children and young people, you know familiarly the face and the circum- stances of every soul of your population, and you hon- estly give your heart and strength to your sacred calling, suffering nothing whatever to interfere with that: but do you fancy that all this diligence will prevent Miss Lem- onjuice and Mr. Flyblow from exclaiming, ' Ah, see Mr. Smith ; isn't it dreadful ? See how he neglects his proper work, and spends his time, his whole lime, in writ- ing articles for the Quarterly Review ! It's disgraceful ! The bishop, if he did his duty, would pull him up !' A striking instance of the effect of skilfully putting things may be found in the diary of Warren Hastings. The great Governor-General always insisted that his conduct of Indian affairs had been just and beneficent, and that the charges brought by Burke and Sheridan were without foundation in truth. lie declared that he bad that conviction in the centre of his being ; that he was as sure of it as of his own existence. But as he listened to the opening speech of Burke, he tells us he 54 CONCERNING THE saw things in a new light. He felt the spell of the way in which the great orator put things. Could this really be the right way ? ' For half an hour,' says Hastings, ' I looked up at Burke in a reverie of wonder, and during that time I actually felt myself the most guilty being upon earth ! ' But Hastings adds that he did what the boy who has played truant does — he took refuge in his own way of putting things. ' I recurred to my own heart, and there found what sustained me under all this accusation.' A young lad's choice of a profession depends mainly upon the way in which the life of that profession is put before him. If a boy is to go to the bar, it will be expe- dient to make the Chancellorship the prominent feature in the picture presented to him. It will be better to keep in the background the lonely evenings in the chambers at the Temjile, the weary back-benches in court, the heart- sickening waiting year after year. And the first impres- sion, strongly rooted, will probably last. I love my own profession. I would exchange its life and its work for no other position on earth ; but I feel that I owe part of its fascination to the fragrance cf boyish fancies of it which linger yet. Blessed be the kind and judicious parent or preceptor, whose skilful putting of things long ago has given to our vocation, whatever it may be, a charm which can overcome the disgust which might otherwise come of the hard realities, the little daily worries, the disccur- agements and frustrated hopes ! How much depends on first impressions — on the way in which a man, a place, a book is put to us for the first time ! Something of cheer- lessness and dreariness will* always linger about even the summer aspect of the house which you first approached when the winter afternoon was closing in, dark, gusty, sold, miserable-looking What a difference it makes to ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 55 the little man who is to have a tooth pulled out, whether the dentist approaches with a grievous look, in silence, with the big forceps conspicuous in his hand ; or comes up cheerfully, with no display of steel, and says, with a erailing face, ' Come, my little friend, it will be over in a moment ; you will hardly have time to feel it ; you will Btand it like a brick, and mamma will be proud of having such a brave little boy ! ' Or, if either man or boy has a long task to go through, how much more easily it will be done if it is put in separate divisions than if it is set be- fore one all in a mass ! Divide et impera states a grand principle in the art of putting things. If your servant is to clear away a mass of snow, he will do it in half the time and with twice the pleasure if you first mark it out into squares, to be cleared away one after the other. By the make of our being we like to have many starts and many arrivals: it does not do to look too far on without a break. I remember the driver of a mail-coach telling me, as I eat on the box through a sixty mile drive, that it would weary him tc death to drive that road daily if it were as straight as a railway : he liked the turnings and windings, which put the distance in the form of successive bits. It was sound philosophy in Sydney Smith to advise us, whether physically or morally, to ' take short views.' It would knock you up at once if, when the railway-carriage moved out of the station at Edinburgh, you began to trace in your mind's eye the whole route to London. Never do that. Think first of Dunbar, then of Newcastle, then of York, and putting the thing thus, you will get over the distance without fatigue of mind. What little child would have heart to begin the alphabet, if, befbi'e he did so, you put clearly before him all the school and col- fege woik of which it is the beginning? The poor little 5G COXCEKXIXG TUE tiling .vould knock up at once, wearied out by 3-our want of skill in putting things. And ?o it is that Providence, kindly and gradually putting things, wiles us onward, still keeping hojie and heart, through the trials and cares of life. Ah, if we had had it put to us at the outset how much we should have to go through, to reach even our present stage in life, we should have been ready to think it the best plan to sit down and die at once ! But, in compassion for human weakness, the Great Director and Shower of events practises the Art of Putting Things. Mi^dit we not sometimes do so When we do not .'' When we see some poor fellow grumbling at his lot, and shirking his duty, might not a little skill employed in putting these things in a proper light serve better than merely expressing our contempt or indignation ? A sini^le sentence might make him see that what he was complaining of was reasonable and right. It is quite wonderful from what odd and perverse points of view people will look at things : and then things look so very different. The hill behind your house, which you have seen a thousand times, you would not know if you approached it from some unwonted quarter. Now, if you see a man afflicted with a perverse twist of mind, making him put things in general or something in particular in a wrong way, you do him a much kinder turn in directing him how to put things rightly, than if you were a skilful guraeon and cured him of the most fearful squint that ever hid behind blue spectacles. Did not Franklin go to hear Whitefield preach a char- ity sermon resolved not to give a penny ; and was he not so thoroughly overcome by the great preacher's way of putting the claims of the charity which he was advocat- ing, that he ended by emptying liis pockets into the plate ? ART OF rUTTIXG THINGS. 57 I daresay Alexander the Great was somewhat stag- gered in his plans of conquest by Parmenio's way of putting things. ' After you have conquered Persia, what will you do ? ' ' Then I shall conquer India.' ' After you have conquered India, what will you do ? ' ' Con- quer Scythia.' ' And after you have conquered Scylhia, what will you do ? ' ' Sit down and rest.' ' AVell,' said Parraenio to the conqueror, ' why not sit down and rest now ? ' I trust young Sheridan was proof against his father's way of putting things, when the young man said he meant to go down a coal[)it. ' Why go down a coal- pit ? ' said Sheridan the elder. ' Merely to be able to say I have been there.' ' You blockhead,' replied the high- principled sire, ' what is there to keep you from saying 60 without going ? ' I remember witnessing a decided success of the art of putting things. A vulgar rich man, who had recently bought an estate in Aberdeenshire, exclaimed, * It is monstrous hard ; I have just had this morning to pay forty pounds of stipend to the parish minister for my property. Now, I never enter the parish church (nor any other, he might have added), and why should I pay to maintain a Church to which I don't belong ? ' I omit the oaths which served as sauce. Now, that was Mr. Oddbody's way of putting things, and you would say his case was a hard one. But a quiet man who was present clianged the aspect of matters. ' Is it not true, Mr. Odd- body,' he said, ' that when you bought your estate, il8 rental was reckoned after deducting the payment you mention ; that the exact value of your annual payment to the minister was calculated, and the amount deducted from tlie price you paid for the proi)erty ? And is it not therefore true, that not a penny of that forty poundd 58 COXCEENIXG THE really comes out of your pocket ? ' Mr. Oddbody'is face elongated. The bystanders unequivocally signified what they thought of him ; and as long as he lived he never failed to be remembered as the man \vho had tried to extort sympathy by false pretences. To no man is tact in putting things more essential than to the clergyman. An injudicious and unskilful preacher may so put the doctrines which he sets forth as to make them appear revolting and absurd. It is a fear- ful thing to hear a stupid fellow preaching upon the doo trine of Election, He may so put that doeti'ine that he shall fill every clcver young lad who hears him with prej- udices against Christianity, which may last through life. And in advising one's parishioners, especially in admin- istering reproof where needful, let the parish priest, if he would do good, call into play all his tact. "With the best intentions, through lack of skill in putting things, he may do great mischief. Let the calomel be concealed beneath the jelly. Not that I counsel sneakiness ; that is worse than the most indiscreet honesty. There is no need to put things, like the Dean immortalized by Pope, who when preaching in the Chapel Royal, said to his hearers that unless they led religious lives they would ultimately reach a place ' which he would not mention in so polite an assembly.' Nor will it be expedient to put things like the contemptible wretch who, preaching before Louis XIV., said Nous mourrons tous ; then, turning to the king, and bowing humbly, presque tous. And it is only in addressing quite exceptional congregations that it would now-a-days be regarded as a piece of proper respect for the miglity of the earth, were the preacher, in stating that all who heard him were sinners, to add, by way of reservation, all who have less than a thousand a year. ART OF rUTTLN^G THINGS 59 Any man who approaches the matter wilh a candid spirit, must be much struck by the difference between the Protestant and the Roman CathoUc ways of putting the points at issue between the two great Churches. The Roman prayers are in Latin, for instance. A violent Protestant says that the purpose is to keep the people in ignorance. A strong Romanist tells you that Latin w;i3 the universal language of educated men when these prayers were drawn up ; and puts it that it is a fine thing to think that in all Romish churches over Chris- tendom the devotions of the people are expressed in the selfsame words. Take keeping back the Bible from the people. To us nothing appears more flagiant than to deprive any man of God's written word. Still the Romanist has something to say for himself. He puts it that there is so much ditiiculty in understanding much ■ of the Bible — that such pernicious errors have followed from false interpretations of it. Think, even, of the dogma of the infallibility of the Church. The Protes- tant puts that dogma as an instance of unheard-of arro- gance. The Romanist puts it as an instance of deep humility and earnest faith. He says he does not hold that the Church, in her own wisdom, is able to keep infallibly right ; but he says that he has perfect confi- dence that God will not suffer the Church deliberately to fall into error. Here, certainly, we have two very different ways of putting the same things. But who shall say that there are no more than two ways of putting any incident, or any opinion, or any char- acter? There are innumerable ways — ways as many as are the idiosyncrasies of the men tiiat put them. You have to describe an event, have you ? Then you may put it in the plain matter-of-fact way, like the 'Times' re- 60 CONOERNIXG THE porter ; or in the sublime way, like Milton and Mr. Wordy ; or in the ridiculous Avay, like Punch (of design), and Mr. Wordy (unintentionally) ; or in the romantic way, like Mr. G. P. R. James ; or in the minutely cir- cumstantial way, like Defoe or Poe ; or in the affectedly simple Avay, like Peter Bell; or in the forcible, know- ing way, 'ike Macaulay ; or in the genial, manly, good- bumoured way, like Sydney Smith ; or in the flippant way, like Mr. Richard Swiveller, who when he went to a.-k for an old gentleman, inquired as to the health of the ' ancient buffalo ; ' or in the lackadaisical way, like many young ladies ; or in the whining, grumbling way, like many silly people whom it is unnecessary to name : or in the pretentious, lofty way, introducing familiarly many titled names without the least necessity, like many natives of beautiful Erin. What nonsense it is to say, as it has been said, that the eflfect of anything spoken or written depends upon ■ the essential thought alone ! Why, nine-tenths of the practical power depends on the way in which it is put. Somebody has asserted that any thought which is not elo- quent in any words whatever, is not eloquent at all. He might as well have said that black was white. Not to speak of the charm of the mere music of gracefully mod- ulated words, and felicitously arranged phrases, how mr.ch there is in beautifully logical treatment, and beau- tifully clear development, that will interest a cultivated man in a speech or a treatise, quite irrespective of its subject. I have known a very eminent man say that it was a delight to him to hear Follett make a speech, ha did not care about what. The matter was no matter ; the intellectual treat was to watch how the great advocate put it. And we have all read with delight stories with ART OF PUTTING THINGS. 61 no incident and little character, yet which derived a nameless fascination from the way in which they were told. Tell me truly, my fair reader, did you not shed some tears over Dickens's story of Richard Doubledick ? Could you have read that story aloud without bi'eaking down ? And yet, was there ever a story with less in it ? But how beautifully Dickens put what little there was, and how the melody of the closing sentences of the suc- cessive paragraphs lingers on the ear ! And you have not forgotten the exquisite touches with which Mrs. Stowe put so simple a matter as a mother looking into her dead baby's drawer. I have known an attempt at the pathetic made on a kindred topic provoke yells of laugh- ter ; but I could not bear the woman, and hardly the man, who could read Mrs. StoAve's putting of that simple conception without the reverse of smiles. Many readers, too, will not forget how more sharply they have seen many places and things, from railway engine sheds to the Britannia Bridge, when put by the graphic pen of Sir Francis Head. That lively baronet is the master of clear, sharp presentment. I have not hitherto spoken of such ways of putting things as were practised in King Hudson's railway re- ports, or in those of the Glasgow Western Bank, cooked to make things pleasant by designed misrepresentation. So far we have been thinking of comparatively innocent variations in the ways of putting things — of putting the best foot foremost in a comparatively honest way. But how much intentional misrepresentation there is in Brit- ish society I How few people can tell a thing exactly as they saw it ! It goes in one colour, and comes out another, like liglit through tinted glass. It is rather amusing, by the way, when a friend comes and tells you a story which 62 CONCERNING THE he heard from yourself, but so put that you hardly know it again. Unscrupulous putters of things should have good memories. There is no reckoning the ways in which, by varying the turn of an expression, by a tone or look, an entirely false view may be given of a conver- sation, a transaction, or an event. A lady says to her cook, You are by no means overworked. Tlie cook com plains in the servants' hall that her mistress said she liad nothing to do. Lies, in the sense of pure inventions, are not common, I believe, among people with any claim to respectability ; but it is perfectly awful to think how great a part of ordinary conversation, especially in little country towns, consists in putting things quite differently from the actual fact ; in short, of wilfid misrepresentation. Many people cannot resist the temptation to deepen the colours, and strengthen the lines, of any narration, in order to make it more telling. Unluckily, things usually occur in life in such a manner as just to miss what would give them a point and make a good story of them ; and the temptation is strong to make them, by the deflection of a hair's breadth, what they ought to have been. It is sad to think, that in ninety-nine out of every hun- dred cases in which things are thus untruly put, the rep- resentation is made worse than the reality. Few old ladies endeavour, by their imaginative putting of things, to exhibit their acquaintances as wiser, better, and more amiable, than the fact. An exception may be made when- ever putting her friends and their affairs in a dignified light would reflect credit upon the old lady herself. Then, indeed, their income is vast, their house is magnificent, their horses are Eclipses, their conversation is brilliant, their attention to their friends unwearying and indescrib- able. Alas for our race : that we lean to evil rather than ART OF PUTTING THIXGS. G3 to gooJ, and that it is so much more easy and piquant to pitch into a man tlian to praise him ! Let us rejoice that there is one happy case in which the way of putting things, thougli often false, is always favourable. I mean the accounts which are given in country newspapers of the character and the doing;? of the great men of the district. I often admire the country editor's slvill in putting all things (save the speech of the opposition M. P., as already mentioned) in such a rosy light ; nor do I admire his genial bonhomie less than his art. If a marquis makes a stammering speech, it is sure to be put as most interesting and eloquent. If the rec- tor preaches a dull and stu[)id charity sermon, it is put as striking and effective. A public meeting, consisting chiefly of empty benches, is put as most respectably attended. A gift of a little flannel and coals at Christ- mas-time, is put as seasonable munificence. A bald and seedy building, just erected in the High-street, is put as chaste and classical ; an extravagant display of ginger- bread decoration is put as gorgeous and magnificent. In brief, what other men heartily wish this world were, the conductors of local prints boldly declare that it is. Whatever they think a great man would like to be called, that they make haste to call him. Happy fellows, if they really believe that they live in such a world an«l among such beings as they put ! Their gushing heart is too much for even their sharp head, and they see all things glorified by the sunshine of their own exceeding amiability. The subject greatens on me, but the paper dwindles : the five-and-forty fair expanses of foolscap are darkened at last. It would need a volume, not an essay, to do this matter justice. Sir Bulwcr Lytton has declared, in 6-i THE AET OF PUTTING THINGS. pages charming but too raanj, that the world's great question is, What will he do with It ? I shall not debate the point, but simply add, that onlj second to that question in comprehensive reach and in practical im}>or- lance is the question — How will he put It ? CHAPTER III. CONCERNING TWO BLISTERS OF HUMANITY BEING THOUGHTS ON PETTY MALIGNITY AND PETTY TRICKERY. ^ T is highly improbable that any reader of ^ ordinary power of imagination, would guess •| the particular surface on which the paper W^ is spread whereon I am at the present moment writing. Such is the reflection which flov/s naturally from my pencil's point as it begins to darken this page. I am seated on a manger, in a very light and snug stable, and my paper is spread upon a horse's face, occupying the flat part between the eyes. You would not think, unless you tried, what an extensive superficies may there be found. If you put a thin book next the horse's skin, you will write with the greater facility : and you will find, as you sit upon the edge of the manger, that the animal's head occupies a position which, as regards height and slope, is sibfficiently con- venient. His mouth, it may be remarked, is not far from your knees, so that it would be highly inexpedient to attempt the operation with a vicious, biting brute, or indeed with any horse of whose temper you are not well assured. But you, my good Old Boy (for such is the quadruped's name), you would not bite your master. Too many carrots have you received from his hand ; too 68 CONCERNING TWO many pieces of bread Lave you licked up from his extended palm. A thought has struck me which I vvi.,h to preserve in writing, though indeed at this rate it will be a long time before I work my way to it. I am wait- ing hei'e for five minutes till my man-servant shall return with something for which he has been sent, and where- fore should even five minutes be wasted ? Life is not very long, and the minutes in which one can write with ease are not very many. And perhaps the newness of such a place of writing may communicate something of freshness to what is traced by a somewhat jaded hand. You winced a little, Old Boy, as I disposed my book and this scrap of an old letter on your face, but now you stand perfectly still. On either side of this page I see a large eye looking down wistfully ; above the page a pair of ears are cocked in quiet curiosity, but with no indica- tion of fear. Not that you are deficient in spirit, my dumb friend ; you will do your twelve miles an hour with any steed within some miles of you ; but a long course of kindness has gentled you as well as Mr. Rarey could have done, though no more than seven summers have passed over your head. Let us ever, kindly reader, look with especial sympathy and regard at any inferior animal on which tlie doom of man has fallen, and which must eat its food, if not in the sweat of its brow, then in that of its sides. Curious, that a creature should be called all through life to labour, for which yet there remains no rest! As for us human beings, we can under- stand and we can bear with much evil, and many trials and sorrows here, because we are taught that all these form the discipline which shall prepare us for another world, a world that shall set this right. But for you, my poor fellow-creature, I think with sorrow as I write hero BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 67 upon your head, there remains no such immo'^nlity aa remains for me. What a difference Uetween ue ! You to your sixteen or eighteen years here^ and the,n oblivion. I to my threescore and ten, and then eternity I Yes, the difference is immense ; and it touches me to think of your life and mine, of your doom 8Jid mine. I know a house where, at morning and evening prsyer, when the house- hold assembles, among the servants there always walks xn a certain shaggy little dog, who listens with the deep- est attention and the most solemn gravity to all that is said, and th'in, when prayers are over, goes out again with his friends, I cannot witness that silent procedure withou'; being much moved by the sight. Ah, my fel- low-cr«i8tore, this is something in which you have no part.! Made by the same Hand, breathing the same air, sustained like us by food and drink, you are witnessing an act of ours which relates to interests that do not con- cern you, and of which you have no idea. And so, here we are, you standing at the manger, Old Boy, and I sitting upon it ; the mortal and the immortal ; close together ; your nose on my knee, my paper on your head ; yet with something between us broader than the broail Atlantic. As for you, if you suffer here, there is no other life to make up for it. Yet it would be well if many of those who are your betters in the scale of crea- tion, fulfilled their Creator's purposes as well as you. lie gav3 you strength and swiftness, and you use these to many a valuable end : not many of the superior race will \enture to say that they turn the powers God gave (hern to account as Avorthy of their nature. If it come to the question of deserving, you deserve belter than me. Forgive me, my fellow-creature, if I iiave sometimea given you an angry ilick, wiien y >u sliied a little at a 68 CONCERNING TWO , pig or a donkey. But I know you bear me no malice ; you forget the flicks (they are not many), and you think rather of the bread and the carrots, of the times I have pulled your ears, and smoothed your neck, and patted your nose. And forasmuch as this is all your life, I shall do my very best to make it a comfortable one. Happiness, of course, is something which you can never know. Yet, my friend and companion through many weary miles, you shall have a deep-littered stall, and store of corn and hay so long as I can give them ; and uay this hand never write another line if it ever does you wilful injury ! Into this paragraph has my pencil of its own accord rambled, though it was taken up to write about some- thing else. And such is the happiness of the writer of essays : he may wander a])out the world of thought at his will. The style of the essayist has attained what may be esteemed the perfection of freedom, when it per- mits him, in writing upon any subject whatsoever, to say whatever may occur to him upon any other subject. And truly it is a pleasing thing for one long tiammelled by the requirements of a rigorous logic, and fettered by thoughts of symmetry, connexion, and neatness in the discussion of his topic, to enter upon a fresh field where all these things go for nothing, and to write for readers many of whom would never notice such characteristics if they were present, nor ever miss them if they were absent. There is all the difference between plodding wearily along the dusty highway, and rambling through green fields, and over country stiles, leisurely, saunter- ingly, going nowhere in particular. You would not wish to be always desultory and rambling, but it is pleasant to be so now and then. And there is a delightful freedom BLISTERS OF HUMANIXr. C9 about the feeling that you are producing an entirely un.symmetrical composition. It is fearful work, if you have a thousand thoughts and shades of thought about any subject, to get them all arranged in what a logiciao would call their proper places. It is like having a dis- /ccted puzzle of a thousand pieces given you in confusion, and being required to fit all the little pieces of ivory into their box again. By most men this work of orderly and symmetrical composition can be done well only by its being done comparatively slowly. In the case of ordi- nary folk the mind is a machine, which may indeed, by putting on extra pressure, be worked flister ; but the result is the deterioration of the material which it turns off. It is an extraordinary gift of nature and training, when a man is like Follett, who, after getting the facts of an involved and intricate case into his mind only at one or two o'clock in the morning, could appear in Court at nine A. m., and there proceed to state the case and all his reasonings upon it, with the very perfection of logical method, every thought in its proper place, and all this at the rate of rapid extempore speaking. The difference between the rate of writing and that of speaking, with most men, makes the difference between producing good material and bad. A great many minds can turn off a fair manufacture at the rate of writing, which, when over- driven to keep pace with speaking, will bring fortii very poor stuff indeed. And besides this, most people cannot grasp a large subject in all its cxent and its bearings, and get tlieir thouglits upon it mar-hailed and sorted, unless they have at least two or tliree days to do so. At 6rst all is confusion and indefiniteness, but gradually things settle into onk-i-. Hardly any mind, by any effort, can get them into order quickly. If at all, it is by a 70 ' CONCERNING TWO tremendous exertion ; ■whereas the mind has ji curioug power, without any perceptible effort, of arranging in order thoughts u[)on any subject, if you give it time. Who that has ever written his ideas on some involved point but knows this ? You begin by getting up infor» mation on the subject about which you are to write. You throw into the mind, as it were, a great heap of crude, unordered material. From this book and that book, from this review and that newspaper, you collect the observations of men who have regarded your subject from quite different points of view, and for quite different purposes ; you throw into the mind cartload after cart- load of facts and opinions, with a despairing wonder how you will ever be able to get that huge, contradictory, vague mass into anything like shape and order. And if, the minute you had all your matter accumulated, you were called on to state what you knew or thought upon the subject, you could not do so for your life in any satisfactory manner. You would not know where to begin, or how to go on ; it would be all confusion and bewilderment. Well, do not make the slightest effort. What is impossible now will be quite easy by and bye. The peas, which cost a sovereign a pint at Christmas, are quite cheap in their proper season. Go about other things for three or four days : and at the end of that time you will be aware that the machinery of your mind, voluntarily and almost unconsciously playing, has sorted nnd arranged that mass of matter which you threw into it. Where all was confusion and uncertainty, all is now order and clearness ; and you see exactly where to begin, and what to say next, and where and how to leave off. The probability is, that all this has not been done with- out an effort, and a considerable amount of labour. But BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 71 then, instead of the labour having been all at once, it has been very much subdivided. The 8ubject was simmering in your mind all the while, though you were hardly aware of it. Time after time, you took a little run at it, and saw your way a little forther through it. But this mul- titude of little separate and momentary efforts does not count for much ; though in reality, if they were all put together, they would probably be found to have amounted to as much as the prolonged exertion which would at a single heat have attained the end. A large result, at- tained by innumerable little, detached efforts, seems as if it had been attained without any effort at all. I love a parallel case ; and I must take such cases from my ordinary experience. Yesterday, passiiig a little cot- tage by the wayside, I perceived at the doc r the carcase of a very large pig extended on a table. Approaching, as is my wont, the tenant of the cottage and owner of the pig, I began to converse with him on the uze and fatness of the poor creature which had that morMug quitted its sty forever. It had been shot, he told n e ; for such, in these parts, is at present the most apprc ved way of se- curing for swine an end as little painful as may be. I admired the humanity of the intention, and hoped that it might be crowned with success. Then my friend, the proprietor of the bacon, began to discourse on the philos- o[)Iiy of the rearing of pigs by labouring men. No doubt, he said, the four j)ounds, or thereabout, which lie would get for his pig, would be a great help to a hard-working man with five or six little children. But after all, he remarked, it was likely enough that during the months of the pig's life, it had bit by i)it consumed and cost him as much as he would get for it now. But then, he went 3n, it cost us Uail ill little sums we hardly felt; while the 72 COXCERXIXG TWO four pounds it will sell for come all in a lump, and seera lo give a very perceptible profit. Successive unfelt six- pences had mounted up to that considerable sum ; even as five hundred little unfelt mental efforts had mounted up to the large result of sorting and methodizing the mass of crude fact and opinion of which we were think- ing a little while ago. Having worked through this preliminary matter (which will probably be quite enough for some readers, even aa the Solan goose which does but whet the appetite of the Highlander, annihilates that of the Sassenach), I now come to the subject which was in my mind when I began to write on the horse's head. I am not in the stable now ; for the business which detained me there is long since despatched : and after all, it is more convenient to write at one's study-table. I wish to say something con- cerning certain evils which press upon humanity ; and which are to the feeling of the mind very much what a mustard-blister is to the feehng of the body. To the healthy man or woman they probably do not do much serious harm ; but they maintain a very constant irrita- tion. They worry and annoy. It is extremely interest- ing, in reading the published diaries of several great and good men, to find them recording on bow many days they were put out of sorts, vexed and irritated, and rendered unfit for their work of writing, by some piece of petty malignity or petty trickery. How well one can sympa- thize with that good and great, and honest and amiable and sterling man. Dr. Chalmers, when we find him re- cording in his diary, when he was a country parish min- ister, how he was unable to make satisfactory progress with his sermon one whole forenoon, because some tricky and over-reaching farmer in the neighbourhood drove two BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 73 calves info -a field of his glebe, where the great man found them in the morning devouring his fine young clover ! There was something very irritating and annoy- ing in the paltry dishonesty. And the sensitive machin- ery of the good man's mind could not work sweetly when the gritty grains of the small vexation were fretting its polished surface. Let it be remarked in passing, that the peculiar petty dishonesty of driving cattle into a neigh- bouring proprietor's field, is far from being an uncommon one. And let me inform such as have suffered from it of a remedy against it which has never been known to fail. If the trespassing animals be cows, wait till the afternoon : then have them well milked, and send them home. If horses, let them instantly be put in carts, and sent off ten miles to fetch lime. A sudden strength will thenceforward invest your fences ; and from having been so open that no efforts on the part of your neighbours could keep their cattle from straying into your fields, you will find them all at once become wholly impervious. But, to return, I maintain that these continual bhsters, of petty trickery and petty malignity, produce a very vexatious effect. You are quite put about at finding out one of your servants in some petty piece of dishonesty or deception. You are decidedly worried if you happen to be sitting in a cottage where your coachman does not know that you are ; and if you discern fx'om the window that functionary, who never exercises your horses in your presence save at a walk, galloping them furiously over the hard stones ; shaking their legs and endangering their wind. It is annoying to find your haymakers working desperately hard and fast when you appear in the field, not aware that from amid a little clump of wood you had discerned them a minute before reposing quietly 74 CONCEKNING TWO upon the fragrant heaps, and possibly that you had over heard them saying that they need not work very hard, as they were working for a gentleman. You would not have been displeased had you found them honestly resting on tiie sultry day : but you are annoyed by the small attempt to deceive you. Such pieces of petty trickery put you more out of sorts than you would like to acknowledge : and you are likewise ashamed to discover that you mind so much as you do, when some goodnatured friend cornea and informs you how Mr. Snarling has been misrepre- eenting something you have said or done ; and Miss Limejuice has been telling lies to your prejudice. You are a clergyman, pei'haps ; and ycu said in your sermon last Sunday that, st'-ong Protestant as you are, you be- lieved that many ^oo^ people may be found in the Church of Rome. WeU, evir since then, Miss Limejuice has not ceased to ruoh about the parish, exclaiming in every house she entered, ' Js not this awful ? Here, on Sunday morning, the rector said that we ought all tc become Roman CathoUcs ! One comfort is, the Bishop is to have him up direct\y. I was always sure that he was a Jesuit in disguise.' Or yom are a country gentle- man : and at an election-time you told one of your tenantr. that such a candidate wa-s your friend, and that yoM would be happy if he could conscientiously vote for hii>, but that he was to do just what he thout^ht right. E^er since, Mr. Snarling has been SDreading a report tha*^^ yo\^ went, drunk, into your tenant's house, that yoi> ^h'-U'** your fist in his face, that you took him by the collar and shook him, that you told him that, if he did not vote for your friend, you would turn him out of vour farm, and send his wife and children to the wnrUhouse. Foi in such playful exaggerations do people in small commu BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 75 nities not unfrequently indulge. Now you are vexed when you hear of such pieces of petty malignity. They don't do you much harm ; for most people whose opin- ion you value, know how much weight to attach to any statement of Miss Liraejuice and Mr. Snarling ; and if you try to do your duty day by day where God has put you, and to live an honest, Christian life, it will go hard but you will live down such malicious vilification. But these things worry. They act as blisters, in short, with- out the medicinal value of blisters. And little contempti- ble worries do a great deal to detract from the enjoyment of life. To meet great misfortunes we gather up our endurance, and pray for Divine support and guidance ; but as for small blisters, the insect cares (as James Montr gomery called them) of daily life, we are very ready to think that they are too little to trouble the Almighty with them, or even to call up our fortitude to fiice them. This is not a sermon ; but let it be said that whosoever would learn how rightly to meet the pei-petually-recurring wor- ries of workday existence, should read an admirable little treatise by Mrs. Stowe, the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cahin, entitled Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline. The price of the work is one penny, but it contains advice which is worth an uncounted number of pence. Nor, as I think, are there to be found many more corroding and vexatious agencies than those which have been already named. To know that your servants, or your humbler neighbours, or your tradespeofjle, or your tenantry, or your scholars, are practising upon you a system of petty deception ; or to be informed (as you are quite sure to be informed) how such and such a mischievous (or perhaps only thoughtless) acquaintance is putting words into your mouth which you never uttered, or abusing your wife and 76 COXCERNING TWO children, or gloating over your failure to get into parlia- ment, or the lameness of your horses, or the speech you stuck in at the recent public dinner ; — all these things are pettily vexatious to many men. No doubt, over-seu- sitiveness is abundantly foolish. Some folk appear not raerely to be thinskinned, but to have been (morally) depi'ived of any skin at all ; and such folk punish them- selves severely enough for their folly. They wince when any one comes near them. The Pope may go wrong, but they cannot. It is treasonable, it is inexpiable sin, to hint that, in judgment, in taste, in conduct, it is possible for them to deviate by a hair's-breadth from the right line of perfection. Indeed, I believe that no immorality, no criminality, would excite such wrath in some men, as to tread upon a corner of their self-conceit. Yet it ia curious how little sympathy these over-sensitive people have for the sensitiveness of other people. You would say they fancied that the skin of which they have been denuded has been applied to thicken to rhinoceros cal- lousness the moral hide of other men. They speak their mind freely to their acquaintances of their acquaint- ances' belongings. They will tell an acquaintance (they have no friend>, so I must repeat the word) that he made a very absurd speech, that she sung very badly, that the situation of his house (which he cannot leave) is abomi- nably dull, that his wife is foolish and devoid of accom- plishments, that her husband is a man of mediocre abili- ties, that her little boy has red hair and a squint, that the potatoes he rears are abominably bad, thai he is get- ting unwieldily stout, that his riding-horse has no hair on his tail. All these things, and a hundred more, such people say with that mixture of dulness of perception and small malignity of nature which go to make wl at is BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 77 Vulgarly called a person who ' speaks his mind.' The right way to meet such folk is by an instant reciprocal action. Just begin to speak your mind to them, and see how they look. Tell them, with calm politeness, that before expressing their opinion so confidently, they should have considered what their opinion was worth. Tell them that civility requires that you should listen to their opinion, but that they may be assured that you will act upon your own. Tell them what you think of their spelling, their punctuation, their features, their house, their carpets, their window-curtains, their general stand- ing as members of the human race. How blue they will look ! They are quite taken aback when the same petty malignity and insolence which they have been accus- tomed for years to carry into their neighbours' territory is suddenly directed against their own. And you will find that not only are they themselves skinlessly sensi- tive, but that their sensitiveness is not bounded by their own mental and corporeal being ; and that it extends to the extreme limits of their hoi'ses' legs, to the very top of their chimney-pots, to every member of the profession which was honored by the choice of their great-grandfather. You have observed, no doubt, that the mention of over- sensitive people acted upon the writer's train of thought as a pair of points in the rails act upon a railway train. It shunted me off the main line ; and in these remarks on people who talk their mind, I have been, so to speak, running along a siding. To go back to the point where I left the line, I observe, that altliough it is very foolish to mind much about such small matters as being a little cheated day by day, and a good deal misrepresented now and then by amiable acquaintances, still it is the fact that even upon people of a healthful temperament such things 78 COXCERXIXG TTVO act as moral blisters, as moral pebbles in one's boots. The petty malignity which occasionally annoys you is generally to be found among your acquaintances, and people of the same standing with yourself; while the petty trickery for the most pai't exists in the case of your inferiors. I think one always feels the better for looking any small evil of life straight in the face. To define a thing, to fix its precise dimensions, almost invariably makes it look a good deal smaller. Indefiniteness much increases apparent size ; so let us now examine the size and the operation of these blisters of humanity. As for petty malignity, my reader, have you not seen a great deal of it ? There are not many men who appear to love their neighbours as themselves. No one enjoys a misfortune or disappointment which befalls himself: but there is too much truth in the smart Frenchman's saying, that there is something not entirely disagreeable to us in the misfortunes of even our very best friends. The malignity, indeed, is petty. It is only in small matters. And it is rather in feeling than in action. Even that sour Miss Liraejuice, though she would be very glad if your horse fell lame or your carriage upset, would not see you drowning without doing her very best to save you. Ah, poor thing ! she is not so bad, after all. This has been to her but a bitter world ; and no wonder if she is, on the gurface, a little embittered by it. But when you get fairly through the surface of her nature, as real misfor- tunes and trials do, there is kindliness about that withered heart yet. She would laugh at you if you broke down in your speech on the hustings ; but she would throw herseli in the path of a pair of furious runaway liorses, to save a little child from their trampling feet. I do not believe BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 79 that among ordinary people, even in a gossiping little country town, there is much real and serious malice in this world. I cling to that belief; for if many men were truly as mischievous as you would sometimes think when you hear them talk, one might turn misanthrope and hermit at once. There is hardly a person you know who would do you any material injury ; not one who would cut down your roses, or splash your entrance-gate with mud : not one who would not gladly do you a kind turn it it lay within his power. Yet there are a good many who ■would with satisfaction repeat any story which might be a little to your disadvantage ; which might tend to prove that you are rather silly, rather conceited, rather ill-in- formed. You have various friends who would not object to show up any ridiculous mistake you might happen to make ; who would never forget the occasion on which it ajipeared that you had never heard of the Spectator or Sir Roger de Coverley, or that you thought that Mary Queen of Scots was the mother of George III. You have various friends who would preserve the remem- brance of the day on which the rector rebuked you for talking in church ; or on which your partner and yourself fell flat on the floor of the ball-room at the county town of Oatmealshire, in the midst of a galop. You have various goodnatured friends to whom it would be a positive enjoyment to come and tell you what a very unfavour- able opinion Mr. A and Mrs. B and Miss C had been exjjressing of your talents, character, and general con- duct. How true was the remark of Sir Fretful Plagiary, tiiat it is quite unnecessary for any man to take pains to learn anything bad that has been said about him, inas- much as it is quite sure to be told him by some good- na'ured fri'.'nd or other ! You have various acquaintances 80 COXCERXING TWO who will be very much gratified when a rainy day spoils the pic-nic to which you have invited a large party ; and who will be perfectly enraptured, if you have hii'ed a steamboat for the occasion, and if the day proves so stormy that every soul on board is deadly sick. And indeed it is satisfactory to think that in our uncertain dimate, where so many festal days are marred as to their enjoyment by drenching showers, there is corapensatioi\ for the sufferings of the people who are ducked, in the enjoyment which that fact affords to very many of their friends. By taking a larger view of things, you discover that there is good in everything. You were Senior Wrangler : you just miss being made a Bishop at forty- two. No doubt that was a great disappointment to your- self; but think what a joy it was to some scores of fellows whom you beat at College, and who hate you accordingly. Some months ago a proprietor in this county was raised to the peerage. His tenantry were entertained at a public dinner in honour of the event. The dinner was held in a large canvas pavilion. The day came. It was fearfully stormy, and torrents of rain fell. A perfect shower-bath was the portion of many of the guests ; and finally the canvas walls and roof broke loose, smashed the crockery, and whelmed the feast in fearful ruin. During the nine days which followed, the first remark made by every one you met was, ' What a gad pity about the storm spoiling the dinner at Stuckup Place ! ' And the countenance of every one who thus expressed his sorrow was radiant with joy ! And quite natural too. They would have felt real regret had tlie new peer been drowned or shot : but the petty malignity which dwells in the human bosom made them rejoice at the small but irritating misfortune which had befallen. BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 81 Shall I confess it, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I re- joiced in common with all my fellow-creatures ! I was ashamed of the feeling. I wished to ignore it and extin- guish it ; but there was no doubt that it was there. And if Lord Newman was a person of enlarged and philosoph- ic mind, he would have rejoiced that a small evil, which merely mortified himself and gave bad colds to his tenant- ry, afforded sensible pleasure to several thousands of his fellow-men. Yes, my reader : it is well that a certain measure of small malice is ingrained in our fallen nature. For thus some pleasure comes out of almost all pain; some good from almost all evil. Your little troubles vex you, but they gratify your friends. Your horse comes down and smashes his knees. No doubt, to you and your groom it is unmingled bitterness. But every man within several miles, whose horse's knees have already been smashed, hails the event as a real blessing to himself. You signally fail of getting into Parliament, though you stood for a county in which you fancied that your own in- fluence and that of your connexions was all-powerful. No doubt, you are sadly mortified. No doubt, you do not look like yourself for several weeks. But what chuckles of joy pervade the hearts and faces of five hundred fel- lows who have no chance of "jettinjr into the House them- selves, and who dislike you for your huge fortune, your grand house, your countless thoroughbreds, your insuffer- able dignity, and your general forgetfulness of the place where you grew, whi.ch l)y those around you is perfectly well remembered. And while it is true that even pe.)plft of a tolerably benevolent nature do not really feel any great regret at any mortification or disajipointment v.hicii befalls a wealthy and pretentious neighbour, it is also certain that a greater luitnber of folk do actually gloat 6 82 CONCERNING TWO over any event which humbles the wealthy and preten- tious man. You find them, with a malignant look, putting the case on a benevolent footing. ' This taking-down will do him a great deal of good : he will be much the wiser and better for it.' It is not uncharitable to believe, that in many cases in which such sentiments are expressed, the true feeling of the speaker is rather one of satisfac- tion, at the pain which the disappointment certainly gives, than of satisfaction at the beneficial discipline which may possibly result from it. The thing said amounts to this : ' I am glad that Mr. Richman has got a taking-down, be- cause the taking-down, though painful at the time, is in fact a blessing.' The thing felt amounts to this : ' I am glad that Mr. Richman has got a taking-down, because I know it will make him very miserable.' Every one who reads this page knows that this is so. Ah, my malicious acquaintances, if you know that the sentiment you enter- tain is one that would provoke universal execration if it were expressed, does not that show that you ought not to entertain it? I have said that I do not believe there is much real malignity among ordinary men and women. It is only at the petty misfortunes of men's friends that they ever feel this unamiable satisfaction. When great sorrow be- falls a friend, all this unworthy feeling goes ; and the heart is filled with true sympathy and kindness A man must be very bad indeed if this is not the case. It strikes me as something fiend-like rather than human, Byron's savage exultation over the melancholy end of the great and amiable Sir Samuel Romilly. Romilly had given him offence by acting as legal adviser to some whom Byron regarded as his enemies. But it was babyish to cherish enmity for such a cause as that ; and it was dia- BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 83 bolical to rejoice at the sad close of that life of useful- ness and honour. It was not good in James "Watt, writ- ino- in old age an account of one of his many great in- ventions, to name very bitterly a man who had pirated it ; and to add, with a vengeful chuckle, that the poor man was ' afterwards hanged.' No private ground of oflence should make you rejoice that your fellow-creature was banged. You may justifiably rejoice in such a caso only wiien the man hanged was a public offender, and an enemy of the race. Thi-ow up your hat, if you please, when Nana Sahib stretches the hemp at last ! I'hat is all right. He never did harm to you individually : but you think of Cawnpore ; and it is quite fit that there should be a bitter, burning satisfaction felt at the condign punishment of one whose punishment eternal justice de- mands. What is the use of the gallows, if not for that in- carnate demon ? I think of the poor sailors who were present at the trial of a bloodthirsty pirate of the Cuban coast. ' I suppose,' said the one doubtingly to the other, « the devil will get that fellow.' ' I should hope so,' was the unhesitating reply ; ' or what would be the use of having any devil ! ' But some real mischievous malice there is, even among people who bear a creditable character. I have occasion- ally heard old ladies (very few) tearing up the character of a friend with looks as deadly as thougli their weapon had been a stiletto, instead of that less immediately fatal instiuraent of offence, concerning wliich a very high au- thority informs us, that in some cases it is 'set on fire of hell.' Ah, you poor girl, who danced three times (they call it nine) with Mr. A. at the Assembly last night, hap- pily you do not know the venomous way in which certain spiteful tabbies are i)ilching into you this morning ! And 84 CONCEKXIXG TWO you, my friend, who drove along Belvidere-place (tLa fashionable quarter of the county town) yestei-day, in your new drag with the new harness and the pair of thoroughbreds, and fancied that you were charming every eye and heart, if you could but hear how your eq.iipage and yourself were scarified last evening, as several of your elderly female acquaintances sipped together the cup that cheers ! How they brought up the time thai you were flogged at the public school, and the term you were rusticated at Oxford ! Even the occasion was not forgotten on which your grandfather was believed, forty years since, to have rather done Mr. Softly in the matter of a glandered steed. And the peculiar theological tenets of your grandmother were set forth in a fashion that would have astoomded that good old lady. And you, who are so happily occupied in building in that beautiful wood- laud sjjot that graceful Elizabethan house, little you know how bitterly some folk, dwelling in hideous seedy man- sions, sneer at you and your gimcracks, and your Gothic style in which you ' go back to barbarism.' You, too, my friend, lately made a Queen's counsel, or a judge, or a bishop, if the shafts of envy could kill you, you would not live long. It is curious, by the way, how detraction follows a man when he first attains to any eminent place in State or Church ; how keenly his qualifications arc canvassed ; how loudly his unfitness for his situation ia proclaimed ; and how, when a few months have passed, everybody gets quite reconciled to the appointment, and accepts it as one of the conditions of human affairs. Sometimes, indeed, the right man, by emphasis, is put in the right place ; so unquestionably the right man that even envy is silenced : as when Lord St. Leonards was made Lord Chancellor, or when Mr. Melvill was ap BLISTERS OF IIUJIANITY. 85 pointed to preach before the House of Commons. But even when men who have been plucked at the University were made bishops, or princes wlio had never seen a £»un fired in anger field-marshals, or briefless barristers judges, although a general outcry arose at the time, it very Epeedily died away. When you find a man actually in a place, you do not weigh his claims to be there so keenly as if you were about to appoint him to it. If a resolute premier made Tom Spring a chief-justice, I doubt not that in six weeks the country would be quite accustomed to the fact, and accept it as part of the order of nature. How else is it that the nation is content to have blind and deaf generals placed in high command, and infirm old ad- mirals going to sea who ought to be going to bed ? It is a sad fact that there are men and women who will, without much investigation as to its truth, repeat a story to the prejudice of some man or woman whom they know. They are much more critical in weighing the evidence in support of a tale to a friend's credit and advantage. I do not think they would absolutely invent such a calumnious narrative ; but they will repeat, if it has been told them, what, if they do not know it to be false, they also do not know to be true, and strongly suspect to be false. ]\Iy friend Mr. C, rector of a parish in Hampshire, has a living of about five hundred a year. Some months ago he bought a horse, for which he paid fifty pounds. Soon after he did so, I met a certain malicious woman wlio lived in his neighbourhood. ' So,' said she, with a look far from benevolent, ' Mr. C. has gone and paid a hundred pounds for a horse ! Monstrous extravagance for a man with his means and with a family.' 'No, Miss Verjuice,' I replied : ' INIr. C. did not pay nearly the sum you men- tion for his horse : he paid no more ibr it than a man 8ft CONCERNING TWO of his means could afford.' Miss Verjuice was not in the least discomfited by the failure of her first shaft of petty malignity. She had another in her quiver which she in- stantly discharged. ' Well,' said she, with a face of deadly ferocity, ' if Mr. C. did not pay a hundred pounds for his horse, at all events he said he did!' This was the drop too much. I told Miss Verjuice, with considerable as parity, that my friend was incapable of petty vapouring and petty falsehood ; and in my book, from that day for- ward, there has stood a black cross against the individual's name. Egypt, it seems, is the country where malevolence in the sense of pure envy of people who are better off, is most prevalent and is most feared. People there believe that the envious eye does harm to those on whom it rests. Thus, they are afraid to possess fine houses, furniture, and horses, lest they should excite envy and bring misfortune. And when they allow their children to go out for a walk, they send them dirty and ill-dressed, for fear the covetous eye should injure them : — At the bottom of this superstition is an enormous prevalence of env}' among the lower Egyptians. You see it in all their iictions. Half of the stories told in the coliee-shops by the professional story- tellers, of which the Arabian Nights are a specimen, turn on malevo- lence. Malevolence, not attributed, as it would be in European tictior, to some insult or injury intlicted by the person who is its object, buf to mere envy: envy of wealth, or of the other means of ?:yoymenty honourably acquired and liberally used.* A similar envy, no doubt, occasionally exists in this country ; but people here are too enlightened to fancy that it can do them any harm. Indeed, so far from standing in fear of exciting envy by their display of possessions and advantages, some people feel much grati- * Archbishop Whatcly's Bacon, p. 97. BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 87 fied at the thought of the amount of envy and raahgnity which they are likely to excite. ' Wont old Hunks turn green with fury,' said a friend to me, ' the first time I drive up to his door with those horses ? ' They were indeed beautiful animals ; but their proprietor appeared to i)rize them less for the pleasure they afforded himself, than for the mortification they would inflict on certain of his neighbours. ' "Wont Mrs. Grundy burst with spite when she sees this drawing-room ? ' was the remark of my lately-married cousin Henrietta, when she showed me that very pretty apartment for the first time. ' Wont Snooks be ferocious,' said Mr. Dryasdust the book-col- lector, ' when he hears that I have got this almost unique edition ? ' Ah, my fellow-creatures, we are indeed a fallen race ! Hazlitt maintains that the petty malignity of mortals finds its most striking field in the matter of will-making. He says : The last act of oiir lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good and plague and disappoint as many people as possible.* Every one knows that this brilliant essayist was accustomed to deal in sweeping assertions ; and it is to be hoped that such cases as that which he here describes form the exception to the rule. But it must be admitted that most of us have heard of wills at whose reading we might almost imagine their malicious maker fancied ho might be invisibly present to chuckle over the disap- pointment and mortification which he was dealing even from his grave. Cases are also recorded in which rich * Tabh-Tulk, vol. i. p. 171. 'Essay on Will-making.' 88 CONCERNING TWO old bachelors have played upon the hopes of half a dozen poor relations, by dropping hints to each separately that he was to be the fortunate heir of all their wealth ; and then have left tlieir fortune to an hospital, or have de- parted from this world intestate, leaving an inheritance mainly of quarrels, heart-burnings, and Chancery suits. How often the cringing, tale-bearing toady, who has borne the ill-humours of a rich sour old maid for thirty years, in the hope of a legacy, is cut off with nineteen guineas for a mourning ring ! You would say perhaps, ' Serve her right.' I differ from you. If any one likes to be toadied, he ought in honesty to pay for it. He knows quite well he would never have got it save for tiie hope of payment ; and you have no more right to swindle some poor creature out of years of cringing and flattering than out of pounds of money. A very odd case of petty malice in will-making was that of a man who, not having a penny in this woi"ld, left a will in which he bequeathed to his friends and acquaintance large estates in various parts of England, money in the funds, rings, jewels, and plate. His inducement was the prospect of the delight of his friends at first learning about the rich possessions which were to be theirs, ant* then the bitter disappointment at finding how they ha(' been hoaxed. Such deceptions and hoaxes are very ci'uel. Who does not feel for poor Moore and his wife, receiving a lawyer's letter just at a season of special embarrassment, to say that some deceased admirer of the poet had left him five hundred pounds, and, after being buoyed up with hope for a few days, finding that some malicious rascal had been playing upon them ! No ; poor people know that want of money is too serious a raattei to be joked about. BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 89 Let me conclude what I have to say about potty malignity by observing that I am very far from main- taining that all unfavoui-able remark about people you know proceeds from this unaraiable motive. SoTne folk appear to fancy that if you speak of any man in any terms but those of superlative praise, this must be be- cause you bear him some ill-will : they cannot understand tliat you may merely wish to speak truth and do justice. Every person who writes a stupid book and finds it unfavourably noticed in any review, instantly concludes that the reviewer must be actuated by some petty spite. The author entirely overlooks the alternative that his book may be said to be bad because it is bad, and be- cause it is the reviewer's duty to say so if he thinks so. I remember to have heard the friend of a lady who had published a bitterly bad and unbecoming work speaking of the notice of it which had appeared in a periodical of the very highest class. The notice was of course unfa- vourable. ' Oh,' said the writer's friend, ' I know why the review was so disgraceful : the man who wrote it was lately jilted, and he hates all women in consequence !' It happened that I had very good reason to know who wrote the depreciatory article, and I could declare that the motive assigned to the reviewer had not the least existence in fact. Unfavouiable remark has frequently no earthly con- nexion with malignity great or petty. It is quite fit that, as in people's presence politeness requires that you should not say what you think of them, you should have an opportunity of doing so in their absence; and every one feels when the limits of fair criticism are passed. What could you do if, after listening with every appearance of interest to some old lady's wearisome vapouring, you fell bound to pretend, after you had made your escape. 90 CONCERNING TWO that you tliouglit her conversation was exceedingly inter- esting ? What a relief it is to tell what you have suf- fered to some sympathetic friend ! I have heard injudi- cious people say, as something much to a man's credit, that he never speaks of any mortal except in his praise. I do not think the fact is to the man's advantage. It appears to prove either that the man is so silly that he thinks everything he hears and sees to be good, or that he is s? crafty and reserved that he will not commit him- self by saying what he thinks. Outspoken good-nature will sometimes get int/) scrapes from which self-contained craft will keep free ; but the man who, to use Miss Edgeworth's phrase, ' thinks it best in general not to speak of things,' will be liked by nobody. By petty ti'ickery I mean that small deception which annoys and w^orries you, without doing you material harm. Thus it passes petty trickery when a bank pub- lishes a swindling report, on the strength of whose false representations of prosperity you invest your hard-won savings in its stock and lose them all. It passes petty trickery when your clerk absconds with some hundreds of pounds. It indicates petty trickery when you find your servants writing their letters on your crested note- paper, and enclosing them in your crested envelopes. It indicates that at some time or other a successful raid has been made upon your paper-drawer. It indicates petty trickery when you find your horses' ribs beginning to be conspicuous, though they are only half worked and are allowed three feeds of corn a day. Observe your coach- man then, my friend. Some of your corn is going where it should not. It indicates petty trickery when your horses' coats are full of dust, though whenever you happen to be present they are groomed with Incredible vigour : they are not so in 3-our absence. It indicates BLISTERS OF HUilANITY. 91 petty trickery when, suddenly turning a corner, you find your coachman galloping the horses along the turnpike- road at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour. It indi- cates petty trickery when you find your neighbours' cows among your clover. It indicates petty trickery when you find amid a cottager's stock of firewood several palisadea taken from your park-fence. It indicates petty trickery when you discei'n in the morning the traces of very large hobnailed shoes crossing your wife's flower-garden towards the tree where the magnum bonums are nearly ripe. But why extend the catalogue ? Every man can add to it a hundred instances. Says Bacon, ' The small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite, and it were a good deed to make a list of them.' Who could make such a list ? What numbers of people are practis- ing petty trickery at every hour of the day ! Yet, foras- much as these tricks are small and pretty frequently seen through, they form only a blister : they are ii-ritating but not dangerous : and it is very irritating to know that you have been cheated, to however small an extent. How inestimable is a thoroughly honest servant ! Apart from anything like principle, if servants did but know it, it is well worth their while to be strictly truthful and reliable : they ai-e then valued so much. It is highly expedient, besides being right. And not only is it extremely vex- atious to find out any domestic in dishonesty of any kind ; not only does it act as a blister at the moment, but it fos- ters in one's self a suspicious habit of mind which has in it something degrading. It is painful to be obliged to feel that you must keep a strict watch upon your stable or your granary. You have somewhat of the feeling of a spy ; yet you cannot, if you have ordinary powers of observation, shut your eyes to what passes round vou. 92 CONCERNING TWO There is, indeed, some petty trickery vvhicli is higlily venial, not to say pleasing. When a little child, on being offered a third plate of plum-pudding, says, with a wistful and half-ashamed look, ' No, thank you,' well you know that the statement is not entirely candid, and that the poor little thing would be sadly disappointed if you took him at his word. Think of your own childish days ; think what plum-pudding was then, and instantly send the little man a third plate, larger than the pre- vious two. So if your gardener gets wet to the skin in mowing a little bit of turf, in a drenching summer- shower, which turns it, parched for the last fortnight, to emerald green, tell him he must be very wet, and give hira a glasd of whisky ; never mind, though he, in his polite- ness, declares that he does not want the whisky, and is perfectly dry and comfortable. You will find him very readily dispose of the proffered refreshment. So if you go into a poor, but spotlessly-clean little cottage, where a lonely widow of eighty sits by her spinning-wheel. Her husband and her children are dead, and there she is, all alone, waiting till she goes to rejoin them. A poor, dog's- eared, ill-printed Bible lies on the rickety deal-table near. You take a large parcel which you have brought, wrapped in brown paper ; and as you talk with the good old Christian, you gradually untie it. A well-sized vol- ume appears ; it is the Volume which is worth all the rest that ever were written ; and you tell your aged friend that you have brought her a Bible, with great, clear type, which will be easily read by her failing eyes, and you ask her to accept it. You see the flush of joy and gratitude on her face, and you do not mind though ehe says something wliich is not strictly true — that it was too kind of you, that she did not need it, that she could manage witii the old one yet. Nor would you BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 93 severely blame the brave fellow who jumped off a bridge forty feet high, and pulled out your brother when he was just sinking in a flooded river, if, when you thanked him with a full heart for the risk he had run, he replied, in a careless, good-humoured way, that he had really dene nothing worth the speaking of. The brave man is pained by your thanks : but he thought of his wife and children when he leaped from the parapet, and he knew well that he was hazarding his life. And he is perfectly aware that the statement which he makes is not consis- tent with fiict — but surely you would never call him a trickster ! Mr. J. S. Mill, unquestionably a very courageous as well as a very able writer, has declared in a recent publi- cation, that, in Great Britain, the higher classes, for the most part, speak the truth, while the lower classes, almost without exception, have frequent recourse to falsehood. I think Mr. Mill must have been unfortunate in his experience of the poor. I have seen much of them and I have found among them much honesty and truthfulness, along with great kindness of heart. They have little to give away in the form of money, but will cheerfully give their time and strength in the service of a sick neigh- bour. I have known a shepherd who had come in from the hills in the twilight of a cold December afternoon, weary and worn out, find that the little child of a poor widow in the next cottage had suddenly been taken ill, and without sitting down, take his stick, and walk away through the dark to the town nine miles off, to fetch the doctor. And when I told the fine fellow how much I respected his manly kindness, I found he was quite un- aware tluit he had done anything remarkable ; * it was just what ony neibour wad do for anither ! ' And I could 94 CONCERNING TWO mention scores of similar cases. And as for truthfulness, I have known men and women among the peasantry, both of England and Scothmd, whom I would have trusted with untold sold — or even with what the High- land laird thought a more searching test of rectitude — ■ with unmeasured whisky. Still, I must sorrowfully admit that I have found in many people a strong tendency, ■when they had done anything wrong, to justify them- selves by falsehood. It is not impossible that over-severe masters and mistresses, by undue scoldings administered for faults of no great moment, foster this unhappy ten- dency. It was not, however, of one class more than another, that the quaint old minister of a parish in Lan- arkshire was speaking, when one Sunday morning he read as his text the verse in the Psalms, • I said in my haste, All men are liars,' and began his sermon by thoughtfully saying : — * Aye, David, ye said it in your haste, did you ? If ye had lived in this parish, ye might have said it at your leisure ! ' There is hardly a sadder manifestation of the spirit of petty trickery than that which has been pressed on the attention of the public by recent accounts of the adulter- alion of food. It is, indeed, sad enough. When chalk, and alum, and plaster, are sold to the poor for bread, And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life; and when the luxuries of the rich are in many cases quite as much tampered with ; while, when medical appliances become needful to correct the evil effects of red lead, plaster of Paris, cantharides, and oil of vitriol, the physician is quite uncertain as to the practical power BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 95 of the medicine he prescribes, inasmuch as drugs are as much adulterated as food. Still, there seems reason to hope that, more frequently than the Lancet Commission would lead one to think, you really get in the shops the thing you ask and pay for. I firmly believe that, in this remote district of the world, such petty dishonesty is unknown : and I cannot refrain fi'om saying that, notwith- standing all I have read of late years in tracts, sermons, poems, and leading articles, of the frequency of fraud in the dealings of tradesmen in towns, I never in my owu experience have seen the least trace of it. jNIost human beings, however, will tell you that day by day they witness a good deal of indirectness, insincer- ity, and want of straightforwardness — in fact, of petty trickery. There are many people who appear incapa- ble of doing anything without going round about the bush, as Caledonians say. There are many people who always try to disguise the real motive for what they do. They will tell you of anything but the consideration that actually weighs with them, though that is in most cases perfectly well known to the person they are talking to. Some men will tell you that they travel second-class by railway because it is warmer, cooler, airier, pleasanter than the first-class. They suppress all mention of the consideration that obviously weighs with them, viz., that it is cheaper. Mr. Squeers gave the boys at Dotheboys Hall treacle and sulphur one morning in the week. Tho reason he assigned was that it was good for their health ; but his more outsjjoken wife stated the true reason, which was that, by sickening the children, it made breakfast unnecessary ujjon that day. Some Dissenters pretend that they want to aboli.-h Church-rates, with a view to the good of the Church : of course everybody knows that 96 COXCERNIXG TWO their real wish is to do the Church .harm. Very soft indeed would the members of the Church be, if they believed that its avowed enemies are extremely anxious for its welfare. But the forms of petty trickery are end less. Bacon mentions in one of his Essays that he knew a statesman who, when he came to Queen Elizabeth with bills to sign, always engaged her in conversation about something else, to distract her attention from the papers ?he was signing. And when some impudent acquaint- ance asks you, reader, to put your name to another kind of bill, for his advantage, does he not always think to delude you into doing so by saying that your signing is a mere form, intended only for the fuller satisfaction of the bank that is to lend him the money ? He does not tell you that he is just asking you to give him the sum named on that stamped paper. Don't believe a word he says, and show him the door. Signing a promise to pay money is never a form ; if it be a form, why does he ask you to do it ? Bacon mentions another man, who ' when he came to have speech, would pass over that he in- tended most, and go forth, and come back again, and speak of it as a thing he had almost forgot.' I have known such men too. We have all known men who would come and talk about many indifferent things, and then at the end bring in as if accidentally the thing they came for. Always pull such men sharply up. Let them understand that you see through them. When they sit down, and begin to talk of the weather, the affairs of the district, the new railway, and so forth, say at once, ' Now, INIr. Pawky, I know you did not come to talk to me about these things. What is it you want to speak of? I am busy, and have no time to waste.' It is wonderful how this will beat down Mr. Pawky's guard. He is pre- BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 97 pared for sly finesse, but he is quite taken aback by down- right honesty. If you try to do him, lie will easily do you : but perfect candour foils the crafty man, as the sturdy Highlander's broadsword at once cut down the French master of fence, vapouring away with his rapier. You cannot beat a rogue with his own weapons. Try him with truth: like David, he 'has not proved' that armour; lie is quite unaccustomed to it, and he goes down. Men in towns know that time is valuable to them ; and by long experience they are assured that there is no use in trying to overreach a neighbour in a bargain, because he is so sharp that they will not succeed. But in a"-ri- cultural districts some persons may be found who appear to regard it as a fond delusion that ' honesty is the best policy ; ' and who never deal with a stranger without feeling their way, and trying how far it may be possible to cheat him. I am glad to infer, from the universal contempt in which such persons are held, that they form base, though by no means infrequent, exceptions to the general rule. The course which such individuals follow in buying and selling is quite marked and invariable. If they wish to buy a cow or rent a field, they begin by declaring with frequency and vehemence that they don't want the thing, — that in fact they would rather not have it, — that it would be inconvenient for them to become possessors of it. They then go on to say that Btill, if they can get it at a fair price, they may be in- diiced to think of it. They next declare that the cow is tlie very worst that ever was seen, and that very few men would have such a creature in their possession. The seller of the cow, if he knows his'customer, meanwhile listens with entire ir difference to Mr. Pawky's assever- ations, and after a while proceeds to name his price. 7 98 CONCERNING TWO Fifteen pounds for the cow, ' Oh,' says Mr. Pawky, getting up hastily and putting on his hat, ' I see you don'l want to sell it, I was just going to have offered you five pounds. I see I need not spend longer time here.' Mr. Pawky, however, does not leave the room : sometimes, indeed, if dealing with a green hand, he may actually depart for half an hour; but then he returns and resumes the negotiation. A friend of his has told him that possi- bly the cow was better than it looked. It looked very bad indeed ; but it might be a fair cow after aU. So the proceedings go on : and after an hour's haggling, and several scores of flilsehoods told by Mr. Pawky, he becomes the purchaser of the animal for the sum origi- nally named. Even now he is not exhausted. He as- sures the former owner of the cow that it is the custom of the district always to give back half-a-crown in the pound, and refuses to hand over more than £13 2s, Gd. The cow is by this time on its way to Mr. Pawky's farm. If dealing with a soft man, this final trick possibly succeeds. If with an experienced person, it wholly fails. And Mr. Pawky, after wasting two hours, telling sixty-five lies, and stamping himself as a cheat in the estimation of the person with whom he was dealing, ends by taking noth- ing by all his petty trickery. Oh, poor Pawky, Avhy not be honest and straightforward at once ? You would set just as much money, in five cases out of six ; and you would save your time and breath, and miss running up that fearful score in the book of the recordino: anjjel ! After any transaction with Mr. Pawky, how delightfuJ it is to meet with a. downright honest man ! I know several men — farmers, labourers, country gentlemen-— of that noble class, whose ' word is as good as their bond ! ' I know men whom you could not even imagine as taking BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. 99 a petty ad^ antage of any mortal. They are probably far from being pieces of perfection. They are crotchety in temper ; they are rough in address ; their clothes were never made by Stultz ; possibly they do not shave every morning. But as I look at the open, manly face, and feel the strong gripe of the vigorous hand, and rejoice to think that the world goes well with them, and that they lind it pay to speak the truth, — I feel for the minute aa if the somewhat overstrained sentiment had truth in it, that An honest man's the noblest work of God ! I am firmly convinced that no man, in the long run, gains by petty trickery. Honesty is the best policy. You remember how tlie roguish Ephraira Jenkinson, in the Vicar of Wakefield, mentioned that he contrived to cheat honest Farmer Flamborough about once a year; but still the honest farmer grew rich, and the rogue grew poor, and so Jenkinson began to bethink him that he was in the wrong track after all. A man who with many oaths declares a brokenwinded nag is sound as a bell, and thus gets fifty pounds for an animal he bought for ten, and then declares with many more oaths that he never warranted the horse, may indeed gain forty pounds in money by that transaction, but he loses much more than he gains. The man whom he cheated, and the friends of the man whom he cheated, will never trust him again ; and he soon acquires such a character that every one who is compelled to have any dealings with him stands on his guard, and does not believe a syllable he eiiys. I do not mention here the solemn consideration of how the gain and loss may be adjusted in the view of an- other world ; nor do more than allude to a certain solemn question as to tlie [n-oi'ii. wiiich would follow the gain of 100 CONCERNING TWO much more than forty pounds, by paeans which would damage sometliing possessed by every man. All trickery is folly. Every rogue is a fool. The publisher who advertises a book he has brought out, and appends a flattering criticism of it as from the Times or Fraser'i Magazine which never appeared in either periodical, does not gain on the whole by such petty deception ; neither does the publisher who appends highly recommendatory notices, marked with inverted commas as quotations, though with the name of no periodical attached, the fact being that he composed these notices himself. You will say that Mr. Barnum is an instance of a man who made a large fortune by the greater and lesser arts of trickery ; but would you, my honest and honourable friend, have taken that fortune on the same terms ? I hope not. And no blessing seems to have rested on Barnum's gains. Where are they now ? The trickster has been tricked — the doer done. There is a hollowness about all pros- perity which is the result of unfair and underhand means. Even if a man who has grown rich through trickery seems to be going on quite comfortably, depend upon it he cannot feel happy. The sword of Damocles is hanging over his head. Let no man be called happy before he dies. I believe, indeed, that in some cases the conscience grows quite callous, and the notorious cheat fancies him- self a highly moral and religious man ; and although it is always extremely irritating to be cheated, it is more irritating than usual to think that the man who has cheated you is not even made uneasy by the checks of his own conscience. I would gladly think that in most cases, Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of beiiifr cheated as to cheat. 13LISTERS OF HUMANITY. 101 I would gladly think that the man who has done another feels it as blistering to remember the feet as the man who has been done does. It would gratify me much if I were able to conclude that every man who is a knave knows that he is one. I doubt it. Probably he merely thinks himself a sharp, clever fellow. Only this morning I was cheated out of four and sixpence by a man of very decent appearance. He obtained that sum by making three statements, which I found on inquiring, after he had gone, were false. The gain, you see, was small. He obtained just eighteenpence a lie. Yet he went off, looking extremely honest. And no doubt he will be at his parish church next Sunday, shaking his head sympathetically at the more solemn parts of the sermon. And probably, when he reflects upon the transaction, he merely thinks that he was sharp and I was soft. The analogy between these small tricks and a blister holds in several respects. Each is irritating, and the irritation caused by each gradually departs. You are very indig- nant at first learning that you have been taken in ; you are rather sore, even the day after, — but the day after that you are less sore at having been done than sorry for the rogue who was fool enough to do you. I am writing only of that petty trickery which acts as a blister of humanity ; as I need say nothing of those numerous forms of petty trickery which do not irritate, but merely amuse. Such are those silly arts by which some people try to represent themselves to their fellow- creatures as richer, wiser, better-informed, more highly connected, more influential and more successful than the fact. I felt no irritation at the schoolboy who sat oppo- site me the other day in a railway carriage, and pretend- ed that he was reading a Greek play. I allowed him to 102 COXCERXING TWO BLISTERS OF HUMANITY. fancy his trick had succeeded, and conversed with him of the characteristics of ^schylus. He did not know much about them. A friend of mine, a clergyman, went to the house of a weaver in his parish. As he was about tc knock at the door, he heard a solemn voice within ; and he listened in silence as the weaver asked God's blessinnr upon his food. Then he lifted the latch and entered and thereupon the weaver, resolved that the clergyman should know he said grace before meat, began and re peated Ids grace over again. My friend was not angry j but he was very, very sorry. And never, till the man had been years in his grave, did he mention the fact. As for the fashion in which some people fire off, in con- versation with a new acquaintance, every titled name they know, it is to be recorded that the trick is invaria- bly as unsuccessful as it is contemptible. And is not a state dinner, given by poor people, in resolute imitation of people with five times their income, with its sham champagne, its disguised greengrocers, and its general turning the house topsy-turvy, — is not such a dinner one great trick, and a very transparent one ? The writer is extremely tired. Is it not curious that to write for four or five hours a day for four or five suc- cessive days, wearies a man to a degree that ten or twelve daily hours of ploughing does not weary the man whose work is physical? Mental work is much the greater stretch : and it is strain, not time, that kills. A horse that walks at two miles and a half an hour, plough- ing, will work twelve hours out of the twenty-four. A horse that runs in the mail at twelve miles an hour, works an hour and a half and rests twenty-two and a half; and with all that rest soon breaks down. The bearing of all this is, that it is time to stop ; and so, my long black goosequill, lie down ! CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING WORK AND PLAY. lOBODY likes to work. I should never work at all if I could help it. I mean, when I say that nobody likes work, that nobody l-jv^.^j--^5 does so whose tastes and likings are in a nat- ural and unsophisticated condition. Some men, by long training and by the force of various circumstances, do, I am aware, come to have an actual craving, a morbid ap- petite, lor work ; but it is a morbid appetite, just as truly as that which impels a lady to eat chalk, or a child to prefer pickles to sugar-plums. Or if my reader quarrels with the w^ord morbid, and insists that a liking for brisk, hard work is a healthy taste and not a diseased one, I will give up that phrase, and substitute for it the less strong one that a liking for work is an acquired taste, like that which leads you and me, my friend, to like bitter beer. Such a man, for instance, as Lord Campbell, has broun^ht himself to that state that I have no doubt he ndually enjoys the thought of the enormous quantity of work which he goes through ; but when he does so he floes a thing as completely out of nature as is done by the Indian fakir, who feels a gloomy satisfaction as he reflects on the success with which he has laboured tc weed out all 104 CONCERNING but bitterness from life. I know quite well that we can bring ourselves to such a state of mind that we shall feel a sad sort of pleasure in thinking how much we are taking out of ourselves, and how much we are denying ourselves. What college man who ever worked him- self to death but knows well the curious condition of mind ? He begins to toil, induced by the love of knowl- edge, or by the desire of distinction ; but after he had toiled on for some weeks or months, tliere gradually steala in such a feeling as that which I have been describing, I have felt it myself, and so know all about it. I do not believe that any student ever Avorked harder than I did. And I remember well the gloomy kind of satisfac- tion I used to feel, as all day, and much of the niglit, I bent over my books, in thinking how much I was fore- going. The sky never seemed so blue and so inviting as when I looked at it for a moment now and then, and so back to the weary page. And never did the green wood- land walks picture themselves to my mind so freshly and deliglitfully as when I thought of them as of something which I was resolutely denying myself. I remember even now, when I went to bed at half-past four in the morning, having risen at half-past six the previous morn- ing, and having done nearly as much for months, how I was positively pleased to see in the glass the ghastly cheeks, and the deep-black circles round the eyes. There is, I repeat, a certain pleasure in thinking one is working des[)3rately hard, and taking a great deal out of oneself ; but it is a pleasure which is unnatural, which is factitious, which is morbid. It is not the healthy, unsoj^histicated human animal. We know, of course, that Lord Chief- Justice Ellenborough said, when he was about seventy that the greatest pleasure that remained to him in life WORK AND PLAY. 105 was to hear a young barrister, named Follett, argue a point of law ; but it was a highly artificial state of mind, the result of a very long training, which enabled the emi- nent judge to enjoy the gratification wiiich he described ; and to ordinary men a legal argument, however ably con- ducted, would be sickeningly tiresome. If you want lo know the natural feeling of humanity towards work, see what children think of it. Is not the task always a dis- agreeable necessity, even to the very best boy ? How I used to hate mine ! Of course, my friendly reader, if you knew who I am, I should talk of myself less freely ; but as you do not know, and could not possibly guess, I may ostensively do what every man tacitly does, make my- self the standard of average human nature, the first me- ridian from which all distances and deflections are to be measured. Well, my feeling towards my school tasks was nothing short of hatred. And yet I was not a dunce. No, I was a clever boy. I was at the head of all my classes. Not more than once or twice have I competed at school or college for a prize which I did not get. And I hated work all the while. Therefore I believe that all unsophisticated mortals hate it. I have seen silly parents trying to get their children to say that they liked school- time better than holiday-time ; that they liked work bet- ter than play. I have seen, with joy, manly little fellows repudiating the odious and unnatural sentiment ; and de- claring manfully that they preferred cricket to Ovid. And if any boy ever tells you that he would rather learn his lessons than go out to the play-ground, beware of that boy. Either his health is drooping, and his mind be- coming prematurely and unnaturally developed ; or he is a little humbug. He is an impostor. He is seeking to obtain credit under false pretences. Depend upon it, 106 COXCERNIXG. unless it really be that he is a poor little spiritless man, deficient in nerve and muscle, and unhealthily precocioua in intellect, he has in him the elements of a sneak ; and he wants nothing but time to ripen him into a pickpocliet, a swindler, a horse-dealer, or a British Bank director. Every one, then, naturally hates work, and loves its opposite, play. And let it be remarked that not idle- ness, but play, is the opposite of work. But some peo- ple are so happy, as to be able to idealize their work into play ; or they have so great a liking for their work tliat they do not feel their work as effort, and thus the element is eliminated which makes work a pain. How I envy those human beings who have such enjoyment in their work, that it ceases to be work at all ! There is my friend Mr. Tinto the painter ; he is never so happy as when he is busy at his canvas, drawing forth from it forms of beauty ; he is up at his work almost as soon as he has daylight for it ; he paints all day, and he is sorry when the twilight compels him to stop. He delights in his work, and so his work becomes play. I suppose the kind of work which, in the case of ordinary men, never ceases to be work, never loses the conscious feeling of strain and effort, is that of composition. A great poet, possibly, may find much pleasure in writing, and there have been exceptional men who said they never were so happy as when they had the pen in their hand : Buffon, I think, tells us that once he wrote for fourteen hours at a stretch, and all that time was in a state of positive enjoyment ; and Lord Macaulay, in the preface to his recently published Speeches, assures us that the writing of his History is tlie occupa'«on and the hap[)iness of his life. Well, I am glad to hear it. Ordinary mortals cannot sympathize Avith the feeling WOEK AXD PLAY. 107 To them composition is simply hard work, and hard work is pain. Of course, even commonplace men have occa- Bionallj had their moments of inspiration, when thoughts present themselves vividly, and clothe themselves in felicitous expressions, without much or any conscious effort. But these seasons are short and far between : and although while they last it becomes comparatively pleasant to write, it never becomes so pleasant as it would be to lay down the pen, to lean back in the easy- chair, to take up the Times or Fraser, and enjoy the luxury of being carried easily along that track of thought which costs its writer so much labour to pioneer through the trackless jungle of the world of mind. Ah, how easy it is to read what it was so difficult to write ! There is all the difference between running down from London to Manchester by the railway after it has been made, and of making the railway from London to Manchester. You, my intelligent reader, who begin to read a chapter of Mr. Froude's eloquent History, and get on with it so fluently, are like the snug old gentleman, travelling- capped, railway-rugged, great-coated, and plaided, who leans back in the corner of the softly-cushioned carriage as it flits over Chat-moss ; while the writer of the chap* ter is like George Stephenson, toiling month after month to make the track along which you speed, in the face of difficulties and discouragements which you never think of. And so I say it may sometimes be somewhat easy and pleasant to write, but never so easy and pleasant as it is not to write. The odd thing, too, about the work of the pen is this : that it is often done best by the men who like it least and shrink from it most, and that it is often the most laborious writing along which the reader's mind glides most easily and pleasurably. It is not so in 108 CONCERNIXG other matters. As the general rule, no man dots well the work which he dislikes. No man will be a good preacher who dislikes preaching. No man will be a good anatomist who hates dissecting. Sir Charles Na- pier, it must be confessed, was a great soldier, thougti he hated fighting; and as for writing, some men have been the best writers who hated writing, and who would never have penned a line but under the pressure of necessity. There is John Foster ; what a great writer he was : and yet his biography tells us, in his own words, too, scores of times, how he shrunk away from the in- tense mental effort of composition ; how he abhorred it and dreaded it, though he did it so admirably well. There is Coleridge : how that great mind ran to waste, because Coleridge shrank from the painful labour of for- mal composition : and so Christahel must have remained unfinished, save for the eloquent labours of that greatest, wisest, most original, and least commonplace of men. Dr. Martin Farquhar Tupper : and so, instead of volumes of hoarded wisdom and wit, we have but the fading remembrances of hours of marvellous talk. I do not by any means intend to assert that there are not woi'se things than work, even than very hard work ; but I say that work, as work, is a bad thing. It may once have been otherwise,, but the curse is in it now. We do it because we must : it is our duty : we live by it ; it is the Creator's intention that we should ; it makes us enjoy leisure and recreation and rest ; it stands between us and tlie pure misery of idleness ; it is dignified and honoura- ble ; it is the soil and the atmosphere in which grow cheerfulness, hopefulness, health of body and mind. But still, if we could get all these good ends without it, we should be glad. We do not care for exertion for ita WORK AND PLAr. ]09 own saki. Even Mr, Kingsley does not love the north- east wiiid for itself, but because of the good things that come with it and from it. Work is not an and in itself. ' The end of work,' said Aristotle, ' is to enjoy leisure ; ' or, as 77ce Minstrel hath it, ' the end and the reAvard of toil is rest.' I do not wish to draw from too sacred a source the confirmation of these summer-day fancies ; but I think, as I write, of the descriptions which we find in a certain Volume of the happiness of another world. Has not many an over-wrought and wearied-out worker found comfort in an assurance of which I shall here speak no further, that ' there remaineth a rest to the people of God?' And so, my reader, if it be true that nobody, any- where, would (in his sober senses) work if he could help it, how especially true is that great principle on this beau- tiful July day ! It is truly a day on which to do nothing. I am here, far in the country, and when I this moment went to the window, and looked out upon a rich summer landscape, everything seemed asleep. The sky is sap- phire-blue, without a cloud ; the sun is pouring down a flood of splendour upon all things ; there is not a breath stirring, hardly the twitter of a bird. All the air is filled with the fragrance of the young clover. The landscape is richly wooded ; I never saw the trees more thickly covered with leaves, and now they are perfectly still. I am writing north of the Tweed, and the horizon is of blue hills, which some southrons would call mountains. The wheat-fields are beginning to have a little of the harvest-tinge, and they contrast beautifully with the deep green of the hedge-rows. The roses are almost over, but I can see plenty of honeysuckle in the hedges still, and a perfect blaze of it has covered one projecting branch of a 110 CONCERNING young oak. I am looking at a little well->liaven green (I sliall not call it a lawn, because it is not one); it has not been mown for nearly a fortnight, and it is pei-fectly Avhite with daisies. Beyond, at a very short distance, through the branches of many oaks, I can see a gable of tlie church, and a few large gravestones shining white among the green grass and leaves. I do not find al tliese things any great temptation now, for I have got interested in my work, and I like to write of tliem. But I found it uncommonly hard to sit down this morn- ing to my work. Indeed, I found it impossible, and thus it is that at five o'clock, p. m., I have got no further than the present line. I had quite resolved that this morning I would sit doggedly down to my essay, in which I have really (though tlie reader may find it liard to believe it) got something to say ; but when I walked out after break- fast, I felt tliat all nature was saying that this was not a day for work. Come forth and look at me, seemed the message breathed from her beautiful face. And then I thought of Wordsworth's ballad, which sets out so pleas« '112 an excuse for idleness : — o Books ! 'tis a dull and endless strife, Come, hear the woodland linnet I How sWeet his music! on my life There's more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher. She has a world of ready wealth, Our minds and hearts to bless, -- Spontaneous wisdom breatliod by health, Truth breathed by clieerfulness. WORK AND PLAY. Ill One impulse from a vernal wood, May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can ! Just at my gate, the man who keeps in order the roals of the parish was hard at work. How pleasant, I thouglit, to work araid the pure air and the svveet-smeUing clover! And how pleasant, too, to have work to do of such a na- ture that when you go to it every morning you can make quite sure that, barring accident, you will accomplish a certain amount before the sun shall set ; while as for the man whose work is that of the brain and the pen, he never can be certain in the morning how much his day'3 labour may amount to. He may sit down at his desk, spread out his paper, have his ink in the right place, and his favourite pen, and yet he may find that he cannot get on, that thoughts will not come, that his mind is utterly sterile, that he cannot see his way through his subject, or that if he can produce anything at all it is poor mis- erable stuff, whose poorness no one knows better than himself. And so, after hours of effort and discourage- ment, he may have to lay his work aside, having accom- plished nothing, having made no progress at all — wea- ried, stupified, disheartened, thinking himself a mere blockhead. Thus musing, I approached the roadman. I inquired how his wife and children were. I asked how he liked the new cottage he had lately moved into. Well, he said, but it was far from his work : he had walked eiyrht miles and a half that morning to his work ; he had to walk the same distance home again in the evening after labouring all day ; and for this his wages were thirteen ehillings a-week, with a deduction for such days as he might be ui);d)le to work. He did not mention all this 1 12 CONCEENING by way of complaint ; he was comfortably off, he said ; he should be thankful he was so much better oiF than many. He had got a little pony lately very cheap, which would carry himself and his tools to and from hia employment, and that would be very nice. In all likeli- hood, my friendly reader, the roadman would not have been so communicative to you ; but as for me, it is my duty and my happiness to be the sympathizing friend of every man, woman, and child in this parish, and it pleases me much to believe that there is no one throughout its little population who does not think of me and speak to me as a friend. I talked a little longer to the road- man about parish affairs. We mutually agreed in re- marking the incongruous colours of a pair of ponies which passed in a little phaeton, of which one was cream- coloured and the other dapple-grey. The phaeton came from a friend's house a little way off, and I wondered if it were going to the railway to bring some one who (I knew) was expected ; for in such simple matters do we simple country folk find something to maintain the inter- est of life. I need not go on to describe what other things I did ; how I looked with pleasure at a field of oats and another of potatoes in which I am concerned, and held several short conversations with passers-by ; but the result of the whole was a conviction that, after all, it was best to set to work at once, though well re- membering how much by indoor work in the country on such a day as this one is missing. And the thought of the roadman's seventeen miles of walking, in addi- tion to his day's work, was something of a reproof and a stimulus. And thus, determined at least to make a beginning, did I write this much Concerning Work and Play. WORK AXD PLAY. 113 i find a great want in all that is written on the sub- ject of recreation. People tell me that I need recrea- tion, that I cannot do without it, that mind and body alike demand it. I know all that, but they do not tell me how to recreate myself. They fight shy of all practical de- tails. Now it is just these I want. All working men must have play ; but what sort of play can we have? I envy schoolboys their facility of being amused, and of finding recreation which entirely changes the current of their thoughts. A boy flying his kite or whipping his top is pursued by no remembrance of the knotty line of Virgil which puzzled him a little while ago in school ; but when the o-rown-up man takes his sober afternoon walk — per- haps the only relaxation which he has during the day — he is thinking still of the book which he is writing and of the cares which he has left at home. Then, and all the worse for myself, I can feel no interest in flying a kite, or rigging and sailing a little ship, or making a mill- wheel and setting it going, or in marbles, or ball, or run- ning races, or playing at leap-frog. And even if they did feel interest in athletic sports, the lungs and sinews of most educated men of middle age would forbid their joining in them. I need not therefore suggest the doubt which would probably be cast upon a man's sanity were he found eagerly knuckling down (how stiff it would soon make him), or wildly chasing the flying football, or mak- ing a rush at a friend and taking a flying leap over his head. Now what recreation, I want to know, is open to the middle-aged man of literary tastes ? Shooting, cours- in glitter amid the orange groves, and aloes, and palms of Cintra : ' and after he had formed his paradise, wear^'ing of it, and al)andoning it, to move the gloomy moralizing of Childe Harold. One thinks of him, not yet content with his experience, spending twenty years upon the turrets and gardens of Fonlhill, that 'calliedral turned 118 CONCERNING COUNTRY HOUSES into a toyshop ; ' whose magnificence was yet but a faint and distant attempt to equal the picture drawn by the prodigal imagination of the author of Vathek. One thinks of Horace Walpole, amid the gim-crackery of Strawberry-hill ; of Sir Walter Scott, building year by year that ' romance in stone and lime,' and idealizing the bleakest and ugliest portion of the banks of the Tweed, till the neglected Clartyhole became the charming but costly Abbotsford. One thinks of Shenstone, devoting his life to making a little paradise of the Leasowes, where, as Johnson tells us in his grand resounding prose, he set himself ' to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters ; which he did with such judgment and fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful ; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers.' Nor must we forget how the bitter little Pope, by the taste with which he laid out his five acres at Twickenham, did much to banish the stiff Dutch style, and to encourage the modern fashion of landscape-gardening in imitation of nature, which was so successfully carried out by the well-known Capability Brown. It is putting too extreme a case, when we pass to that which in our boyish days we all thought the per- fection and delight of country residences, the island-cave of Robinson Crusoe : with its barricade of stakes which took root and grew into trees, and its impenetrable wilder- ness of wood, all planted by the exile's hand, which went down to the margin of the sea. It is coming nearer home, to pass to the French chateau ; the tower perched upon the rock above the Rhine ; and the German castle, which of course is somewhere in the Black Forest, fre- iiuented by robbers and haunted by ghosts. And we AND COUNTEY LIFE. 140 ascend to the sublime in human abodes, when we think of the magnificent Alhambra, looking down proudly upon Moorish Granada : that miracle of barbaric beauty, which Washington Irving has so finely described: with its countless courts and halls, its enchanted gateways, its graceful pillars of marble of different hues, and its foun- tains that once made cool music for the delight of Mos- lem pr JOB and peer. We pass, by an easy transition, to the literature of country-houses, of which there are two well-marked classes. We have the real and the ideal schools of the literature of country-houses and country life : or perhaps, as both are in a great degree ideal, we should rather call them the would-be real, and the avowedly romantic. We have the former charmingly exemplified in Bracebridge Hall; charmingly in the Spectator's account of Sir Roger de Coverley, amid his primitive tenantry ; with a little characteristic coarseness, in Swift's poem, beginning, I've often wished that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year, — which, by the way, is an imitation of that graceful Latin poet who delighted, so many centuries since, in his little Sabine farm. Then there are Miss Mitford's quiet, pleasing delineations* of English country life ; many de- lightful touches of it in Friends in Council and its sequel ; and Samuel Rogers, though essentially a man of the town, has given a very complete picture of cottage life in his little poem, which thus sets out, Mine be a cot beside the hill ; A beeliive's liiim shall soothe my ear: A willowy brook, that turns a mill, ■\Vith many a fall, shall linger near. 150 CONCERNING COUNTRY HOUSES We mention all these, not of course, as a thousandth part of what our literature contains of country-houses and life, but as a sample of that mode of treating these subjects "which we have termed the would-be real: and as specimens of the avowedly romantic way of describ- ing such things, we refer to Poe's gorgeous picture of the ' Domain of Arnheim,' where his affluent imagination has run riot, under the stimulus of fancied boundless wealth ; and the same author's ' Landor's Cottage,' a scene of sweet simplicity, which is somewhat spoiled by just the smallest infusion of the theatrical. The writings of Poe, with all their extraordinary characteristics, are so little known in this country, that we dare say our readers will feel obliged to us for a short account of the former piece. A certain man, named Ellison, suddenly came into the possession of a fortune of a hundred millions sterling, Poe, you see, being wretchedly poor, did not do things by halves. Ellison resolved that he would find occupation and happiness in making the finest place in the world ; and he made it. The approach to Arnheim was by the river. After intricate windings, pursued for some hours through wild chasms and rocks, the vessel suddenly en- tered a circular basin of water, of two hundred yards in diameter : this basin was surrounded by hills of consider- able height : — Their sides sloped from the water's edge at an angle of some forty- five degrees, and they were clothed from base to summit, not a per* ceptible point escaping, in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower- blossoms: scarcely a green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating colour. This basin was of great depth, but so trans- parent was the water that the bottom, .which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses, — that is to say, whenever the eye could permit itself nv( to ^ee, far down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the AND COUXTIiY LIFE. 151 mis. On these latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any iize. * * * As the eye traced upwards the myriad-tinted slope, .rom its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination amid he folds of overhanging cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to iancy a panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky. Here tlie visitor quits the vessel which has borne him BO far, and enters a light canoe of ivory, which is wafted by unseen machinery : — The -anoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is ap- proached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the right arise a chain of lofty hills, rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where the Lank dips into the water still prevails. There is not one token of the usual river dehr-is. To the left, the character of the scene is softer and more obvioubily artificial. Here the bank slopes upward from the stream in a \ery gentle ascent, fonning a broad sward of grass of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a briUianc}' of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest emer- ald. This plateau varies in breadth trom ten to three hundred yards ; reaching from the river bank to a wall, fifty feet high, which extends in an infinity of curves, but following the general direction of the river, until lost in the distance to the westward. This wall is gf one continuous rock, and has been formed by cutting perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of the stream's southerfi bank; but no trace of the labour has been sutiered to remain. The chiselled stone has the hue of ages, and is profusely hung and overspread with the i^■y, the coral honeysuckle, the eglantine, and the clematis. * * « * Floating gently onward, the voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently barred by a gigantic gate, or rather door, of burnished gold, elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the di- rect rays of the now sinking sun with an efl'ulgence that seems to wr-eathe the whole surrounding forest in flames. * * * The canoe approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and n'.usically untblded. The boat glides between them, and commences "i rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meanwhile the whole Paradise of Arn- heim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing melody: there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet odour: there is a dream- lo2 COXCERXIXG COUNTKY HOUSES like intermingling to the eye of tall, slender Eastern trees, — bosky Ehrubberies, — flocks of golden and crimson birds, — lily-fringed lakes, — meadows of violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses, — long iutertangled lines of silver streamlets, — and, upspringing confusedly from amid all, a mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture, sustaining itself as if by miracle in mid-air, — glittering in the red simlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, the Fairies, thi Jleiui, and the Gnomes.* This is certainly landscape-gardening on a grand scale: but the whole thing is a shade too immediately sugges- tive of the Arabian Nights. Why not, we are disposed to say, go the entire length of Aladdin's palace at once, and give us walls of alternate blocks of silver and gold ; gardens, whose trees bear fruits of diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire ; and a roc's egg hung up in the entrance-hall ? Fancy a man driving up in a post-chaise from the railway-station to a house like that ! Why, the only permissible way of arriving at its front-door would be on an enchanted horse, that has brought one from Bagdad through the air; and instead of a footman ia spruce livery coming out to take in one's portmanteau, I should look to be received by a porter with an elephant's head, or an afrit with bats' wings. I could not go up comfortably to my room to dress for dinner : and only fancy coming down to the drawing-room in a coat by S-ulz and dress boots by Hoby ! Rather should we wreathe our brow with flowers, endue a purple robe, the gift of Noureddin, and perfume our handkerchief with odours which had formed part of the last freight of Sin- bad the Sailor. If we made any remark, political or critical, which happened to be disagreeable to our host, * Works of Edgar Allan Foe. Vol. I. fp. 400-403. American Edition. AND COUXTRT LIFE. 153 of course he would immediately change us into an ape, and transport us a thousand leagues in a second to the Dry Mountains. But to return to the sober daylight in which ordinaiy mortals live, and to the sort of country in which a man may live whose fortune is less than a hundred millions, we have abundance of the literature of the country in one shape or another: poetry and poetic prose which profess to depict country life, and books of detail which profess to instruct us how to manage country concerns. We breathe a clear, cool atmosphere for which we are the better, when we turn over the pages of Tlie Seasons : that is a book which never will become stale. Cowper's poetry is redolent of the country: and thougli it is all nonsense to say that ' God made the country and man made the town,' yet The Winter Walk at Noon almost leads us to think so. You see the Cockney's fancy that the country is a paradise, always in holiday guise, in poor Keats's lines — for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled for a long age in the deep-delved earth ; Tasting of Flora, and the country green. Dance, and Proven<,al song, and sun-burnt mirth! And there are several books whose titles are sure to awaken pleasant thoughts in the mind of the lover of nature, who knows that, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's axiom, one green field is not just like any other green field, and who prefers a country lane to Fleet-street. There is Mr. Jesse's Country Life, which is mainly occu- pied in describing, with a minute and kindly accuracy, the ways and doings of bird, beast, and insect ; and thus callino' forth a feeling of intei'est in all our humble fcl- low-creatures ; for in the case of inferior animals the 154 CONCERNING COUNTRY HOUSES principle holds good, that all that is needed to make one like almost any of them is just to come to know them. And on this track one need do no more than name White's delightful Natural History of Selhorne. There is Mr. William Howitt's Boy's Country Booh, which sets out the sports and occupations of childhood and rural scenes, Avith a fulness of sympathy which makes us lament that its author should ever exchange these genial topics for the briars of polemical controversy. There is Mr. Willmott's Summer Time in the Country ; a disap- pointing book ; for notwithstanding the melody of its name, it is mainly a string of criticisms, good, bad, and indifferent : with a slight surrounding atmosphere, indeed, of country life ; but most of the production might have been written in Threadneedle-street. There is a pleas- ant and well-informed little anonymous volume, called The Flower Garden, which contains the substance of two articles originally published in the Quarterly Review; and every one knows Bacon's Essay of Gardens, in which the writer gives the reins to his fancy, and pictures out a little paradise of thirty acres in extent, including in it some specimen of all schools of landscape gardening. Mrs. Loudon's various publications have done much to foster a taste for gardening among ladies. An exceed- ingly pleasing and genial book, called The Manse Gar- den, which has had a large cii'culation in Scotland, is intended to stimulate the Scottish clergy to neatness and taste in the arrangement of their gardens and glebes. A handsome work entitled Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste, lately published, contains many practical instruc- tions for the decoration of the country home. And an elegantly illustrated volume, which appeared a few months ago, is given to Rhymes and Roundelays in AND COUNTRY LIFE. 155 Praise of a Country Life. Sir Joseph Paxton has not thought it unworthy of him to write a httle tract, called llie Cottager's Calendar of Garden Operations, the pur- pose of which is to show how much may be done in the most limited space in the way of growing vegetables for profit and flowers for ornament ; and in these days, when happily the social and sanitary elevation of the masses is beginning to attract something of the notice which it de- serves, I trust that reformers will not forget the power- ful influence of the garden, and a taste for gardening concerns, in elevating and purifying the working man's mind, and adding interest and beauty to the working man's home. And in truth, we shall never succeed in inducing working-men to spend their evenings at home rather than in the alehouse, till we have succeeded in rendering their own homes tidy, comfortable, and invit- ing to a degree that shall at least equal the neatly sanded floor and the well-scrubbed benches which they can enjoy for a few pence elsewhere. If there be any among my readers who have it in view to build a country house, I strongly recommend them to have it done by Mr. George Gilbert Scott, whose pleasantly written book on Secidar and Domestic Architecture, will be read with delight by many who are condemned to live in towns, or who must put up with 6uch a country home as their means permit, but who can luxuriate in imagining what kind of a house they would have if they could have exactly such a house as they wish. Mr. Scott is an out and out supporter of Gothic architecture as the best style for every possible building, large or small, in town or country, from the nobleman's palace to the labourer's cottage, from a cathedral or a lown-house to a barn or a pig-sty. But Mr. Scott gives 156 COXCERNIXG COUXTRY HOUSES a judicious view of Gothic architecture, as a style capa- ble of unlimited expansion and adaptation, having in its nature the power to accommodate itself to every require- ment of modern life and progress, and capable without surrendering its distinctive character, of modification, development, addition, and subtraction, to a degree which renders it the true architecture of the nineteenth century no less than of the thirteenth. It is doing Gothic archi- tecture great injustice to speak of it as the mediaeval architecture. Such a description vaguely suggests that it is a style especially suited to the requirements of life in the middle ages ; and, by consequence, not well adajJted to the exigencies of life at a period when life is very different from what it was in the middle ages. And the notion has been countenanced by the injudicious fashion in which houses were built at the beginning of the great reaction in favour of Gothic. When people grew wearied and disgusted at the ugly Grecian houses which disfigure so many fine old English parks, paltry and pitiful importations of a foreign style into a country which had an indigenous style incomparably superior in beauty, in comfort, in evei'y requisite of the country house, the reaction ran into excess ; and instead of build- ing Gothic houses, that is, instead of trying to produce buildings which should be noble and picturesque, and at the same time commodious and convenient to live in, architects built abbeys and castles ; and in those cases where they did not produce specimens of mere confec- tioner's Gothic, they produced buildings utterly unsuited to the exigencies and conditions of modern English life, however beautiful they might be. Now, nothing could be a more flagrant violation of the spirit of Gothic, than this scrupulous conformity to the letter of Gothic. Tba AND COUNTEY LIFE. 157 true Gothic architect must hold fitness and use in view as his priraar/ end ; and his skill is shown when upon these he superinduces beauty. A fortified castle, with moat*and drawbridge, arrow-slits, and donjon-keep, was a convenient and suitable building in an unsettled and lawless age. It is a most inconvenient and unsuitable )uilding in England in the nineteenth century ; and while we should prize and cherish the noble specimens of the Edwardian Castle which we possess, for their beauty and their associations, we ought to remember that if the architects who built them were living now, they would be the first to lay that style aside, as no longer suitable ; and they would show the true Gothic taste and spirit in devising dwellings as noble, as pic- turesque, as interesting, as thoroughly Gothic in charac- ter, but fitted for the present age, and the present age's modes of life. It was not because the Edwardian Castle was grand and beautiful, that the Edwardian architects built it as they did ; they built it as they did because that was the most suitable and convenient fashion ; and upou fitness and use they engrafted grandeur and beauty. And it is not by a slavish imitation of ancient details and forms that we shall succeed in producing, at the present day, what is justly entitled to be called Gothic architecture. It is rather by a free development and carrying out of old principles applied to new circum- stances and recpiirements. And it is the glory of Gothic, that you cannot make a new demand upon it for in- creased or altered accommodations and appliances, which may not, in the hand of a worthy architect, be complied with, not only without diminution of beauty, but even witli increase of beauty. It is beyond comparison the most squeezable of all styles ; and, provided the squeez- irS COXCERXIXG COUNTRY HOUSES ing be effected by a master's band, the style will look all the better for it. There is a floating belief, entirely without reason, that Gothic is exclusively an ecclesiastical fashion of building. Many people fancy that Gothic architecture Buits a church ; but is desecrated, or at least becoraea unsuitable, when applied to secular and domestic build- ings. There can be no doubt, indeed, that to every person who possesses any taste, it is a self-evident axiom that Gothic is the true church architecture : but in the age during which the noblest Gotliic churches were built, it was never fancied that churches must be built in one style, and secular buildings in a style essentially dissimilar. The belief which is entertained by the true lover of Gothic architecture is this : that Gothic is es- sentially the most beautiful architecture ; tliat, properly treated, it is the most commodious architecture; and that, therefore, the Gothic is the style in which all build- ings, sacred or secular, public or domestic, ought to be built ; with such modifications in the style of each sep- arate building as its special purpose and use shall sug~ gest. It must be admitted, however, that Gothic archi- tecture has one disadvantage as compared with that architecture which is exhibited in Baker-street, in the London suburban terraces, and in the Manchester cotton- mills. Gothic architecture costs more money ; but, in judicious hands, not so very much more. As to the capacity of Gothic architecture to accommo- date itself to houses of all classes, let the reader ponder the following words : It seem to be generally imagined that the merits of the Elizabe- than style are most displayed in its grand baronial residences, such as Burlei^^h or Hatfield. I think quite the contrary'. A style is best AND COUNTEY LIFE. 159 tested by reducing it to its humblest conditions; and the great glorj of this style is, not that it produced gorgeous and costly mansions for the nobles — but that it produced beautifully simple, yet perfectly architectural, cottages for the poor; appropriate and comfortable farai- houses; and pleasant-looking residences for the smaller country-gen- tlemen, and for the inhabitants of country to^viis and villages. Following up the same idea, Mr. Scott somewhere else eays What we want is a style which will stand this test — which will !:• pleasing in its most normal forms, yet be susceptible of every grada- tion of beauty, till it reach the noblest and most exalted objects to yrhich art can aspire. Let it be accepted as an indubitable axiom, that Gothic building is the best building for the town as well as for the country. But I am not called to enter upon that controversial ground ; for we are dealing with country houses, in regard to which I believe there is no difference of opinion among people of taste and sense. The coun- try house, as of course, must be Gothic. Tasteless blockheads will no doubt say that the Gothic house is alj frippery and gingerbread (as indeed houses of confec- tioner's Gothic very often are) : they will chuckle with delight whenever they hear that the rain has penetrat- ed where the roof of a bay-window joins the wall, or through some ill-contrived gutter in the irregular roof of the house : they will maintain, in the face of fact, that Gothic windows will not admit sufficient light, and can- not exclude draughts : and they will praise the unpre- tending square-built house, ' with no nonsense about it.' Let us leave such tasteless peoj)le to the contemplation of the monstrosities they love : when the question is one of grace or beauty, their opinion is (as Coleridge used to Bay) 'neither here nor there.' Granting (which we do not grant) that Gothic architecture is out of plac". iu the ICO COXCERXING COUNTRY HOUSES town, and congenial and suitable in the country, I do not know that we could pay to that style any higher tribute than to say that it is the most seemly and suitable to be placed in conjunction with the fairest scenes of nature. I do not think we could say better of any work of man, than that it bears with advantage to be set side by side with the noblest Avorks of God. Yet, though a Avorthy Gothic building looks beautiful anywhere, it has a spe- cial charm in a sweet country landscape. It seems just what was wanted to render the scene perfect. It is in harmony with the trees and flowers and hills around, and with the blue sky overhead. It is a perpetual pleasure to look at it. I do not believe that any mortal can find real enjoyment in standing and gazing at a huge square house, with a great wagon roof, and with square holes cut in a great level blank wall for windows. It may draw a certain grandeur from vast size : and it may pos- sess fine accessories, — be shadowed by noble trees, backed by wild or wooded hills, and shaded off into the fields and lawns by courtly terraces ; but the big square box is in itself ugly, and never can be any- thing but ugly. But how long and delightedly one can contemplate the worthy Gothic house of similar pre- tension — with its lights and shadows, its irregular sky- line, its great mullioned bay-windows and its graceful oriels perched aloft, its many gables, its wreathed chim- neys, its towers and pinnacles, its hall and chapel boldly shown on the external outline: — for the characteristic of Gothic is, that it frankly exhibits construction, and makes a beauty of the exhibition ; while the square-box archi- tecture aims at concealing construction, — producing the four walls, pierced with the regular rows of windows, quite irrespective of internal requirements, and then con- AND COUXTRY LIFE. 161 sidering how to fit in the requisite apartments, like the pieces of a child's dissected puzzle, into the square case made for them. Then Gothic admits, and indeed in- vites, the use of external colouring : and if that were only accomplished by the judicious employment of those bricks of different colours which have lately been brought to great perfection, the charm which the entire build- ing possesses to please the eye is indefinitely increased Only let it be remembered by every man who builds a Gothic country house, that it must be built with much taste and judgment. Gothic is an ambitious style ; and it is especially so in the present state of feeling in Eng- land with regard to it. We do not think of criticising a common square house. The taste is never called into play when we look at it. It is taken for granted, a pri- ori, that it must be ugly. Not so with a Gothic house. There is a pretension about that. The Gothic house invites us to look at it ; and, of course, to form an 0{)inion of it. And therefore, if it be ugly, it is offen- sively ugly. It aims high, and it must expect severity in case of failure. The square-box house comes forward humbly : it is a goose, and does not pretend to fly. And even a goose is respectable, while it keeps to its own line. But the ugly Gothic house is a goose that hath essayed the eagle's flight ; and if it come down ignomin- iously to the earth, it is deservedly laughed at. And so, let no man presume to build a country house without Becuring the services of a thoroughly good architect. And for myself I can say, that whenever I grow a rich man and build a Gothic house, the architect shall be Mr. Scott. Indeed a person of moderate means would be safe in seeking the advice of that accomplished gentle- man : for he would, it is evident, take pains to render U 162 CONCEENING COUNTRY HOUSES even a very small house a pleasing picture. He holds that a building of the smallest extent affords as decided it" not as abundar.t scope for fine taste and careful treat- ment, as the grandest baronial dwelling in Britain. A cottage may be quite as pretty and pleasing as a castle or a palace could be in their more ambitious style. Although Gothic architecture has an unlimi'ied capac- ity of adapting itself to all circumstances and exigencies, yet there is a freedom about a country site which suits it bravely. In the country the architect is not ham- pered by want of space ; he is not tied to a street-line beyond which he must not project, nor fettered by muni- cipal regulations as to the height or sky-outline of his building. He may spread over as much ground as he pleases. And the only restrictions by which he is con- fined are thus set out by Mr. Scott, in terms which will commend themselves to the common sense of all read- ers : — The grand principle of planninpf is, that even' room should be in its right position — both positively aud relatively to each other — to the approaches, views, and aspect; and that this should be so effected as not only to avoid disturbing architectural beauty, either within or without, but to be in the highest degree conducive to it. In treating of Buildings in the Country, Mr. Scott gives us some account of his ideal of houses suited to all ranks and degrees of men. Let us look at his picture of what a villa ought to be : — To begin, then, with the ordinary villa. Its characteristics shouhl be quiet cheerfulness and unpretending comfort ; it should, both within and without, be the very embodiment of innocent and simple enjoyment. No foolish affectation of rusticity, but the reality of everything which tends to the appreciation of country pleasures in \heir more refined form. The external design should so unite itself with the natural objects around, that they should appear necessary AND COUNTRY LIFE. 163 to one anofher, and that neither could be very different without the other suffering. The architecture should be quiet and simple; the material that most suited to the neighbourhood — neither too fomial and highly finished, nor yet too rustic. The interior should partake of the Slime general feeling. It should bear no resemblance to the formality of a town house; the rooms should be moderate in height, and not too rigidly regular in form; some of the ceilings should show their timbers wholly or in part ; some of the windows should, if it suits the position, open out upon the garden or into conservatories. la most situations the house should spread wide rather than run up high but circumstances may vary this : I ask my readers' attention to the paragraph which follows ; it contains .«ound social philosophy : — In this as in other classes of house-building, the servants' apart- ments should be well cared for. They should be allowed a fair share in the enjoyments provided for their masters. I have seen houses replete with comfort and surrounded with beauty, where, when you once get into the ser\^ants' rooms, you might as well be in a prison. This is morally \^Tong; let us give our dependents a share in our pleasures, and thej^ will serve us none the less efficiently for it. Every one can see how pleasant and cheerful a home a villa would be which should successfully embody Mr. Scott's views of what a villa ought to be. Such a dwell- ing would be quite within the reach of all who possess Buch a measure of income as in this country now-a-days will suffice to provide those things which are the necessa- ries of life to people brought up as ladies and gentlemen. And with what heart and vigour a man would set himself to laying out the little piece of land around his house — to making walks, planting clumps of evergreens, and per- haps leading a little brooklet through his domain — if the house, seen from every point, were such as to be a per- petual feast to the eye and the taste ! I heartily wish that tiie poorest clergyman in Britain had just such a parsonage as Mr. Scott has depicted, and the means of living in it without undue pinching and paring. 164 CONCERNING COUNTRY HOUSES Then, leaving the villa, Mr. Scott points out with great taste and moderation what the cottage should be. Judiciously, he does not aim at too much. It serves no good end to represent the beau ideal cottage as a build- ing so costly to erect and to maintain, that landlords of ordinary means get frightened at the mention of so ex- pensive a toy. Cottages may be built so as to be very tasteful and pleasing, while yet the expense of their erection is so moderate that labourers tolerably well off can afford to pay such a rent for them as shall render their erection by no means an unprofitable investment of money. Not, indeed, that a landlord who feels his responsibility as he ought, will ever desire to screw a profit out of his cottagers ; but it is well that it should be known that it need not entail any loss whatever to pro- vide for the working class in the country, dwellings in which the requirements of comfort and decency shall be fulfilled. The merest touch fi-om an artistic hand is often all that is needed to convert an ugly, though com- fortable, cottage into a pretty and comfortable one. A cottage built of flint, dressed and reticulated with brick, "with wood frames and mullions, and the gables of timber, will look exceedingly pleasing. Even of such inexpen- sive material as mud, thatched with reeds, a very pretty cottage may be built. The truth is, that nowhere is taste so much needed as in building with cheap materials. A good architect will produce a building which will form a pleasing picture, at as small a cost as it is possible to enclose a like space from the external air in the very ugliest way. Gracefulness of form adds nothing to the cost of material. And there is scope for the finest taste in disposing the very cheapest materials in the most effec- tive and graceful fashion. I have seen a church (built, AND COUNTEY LIFE. 165 indeed, by a first-rate architect) which was a. beautiful picture, both without and within, while yet it cost so little, that I should (if I were a betting naan) be content to lay any odds that no mortal could produce a building which would protect an equal number of people from the weather for less money, though with unlimited license as to ugliness. The material mud is one's ideal of the very shabbiest material for building which is within human reach. Hovel IS the word that naturally goes with mud. Yet Mr. Scott once built a large parsonage, which cost be- tween two and three thousand pounds, of mud, thatched with reeds. Warmth was the end in view. I have no doubt the parsonage proved a most picturesque and quaint aflfair ; and if I could find out where it is, I would go some distance to see it. Having given us his idea of what a country villa and a country cottage ought to be, Mr. Scott proceeds to set out his ideal of the home of the nobleman or great landed proprietor : — The proper expressions for a country mansion of the higher class — ie residence of a landed proprietor — beyond that degree of dignity fliited to the condition of the owner, are perhaps, first, a friendly, un- ■■"Drbidding air, giving the idea of a kind of patriarchal hospitality; a ook that seems to invite approach rather than repel it. Secondly, an lir wliich appears to connect it with the history of the country, .nad signilicance in tlie hearth no lon|j(;r 196 CONCERNING TIDINESS. SO cleanly swept, in the handle wanting from the chest of drawers, in little Jamie's torn jacket, which a few stitches would mend, but which I remember torn for these ten days past ! And remember, my reader, that to keep a poor man's cottage tidy, his wife must always have spirit and heart to work. If you choose, when you feel unstrung by some depression, to sit all day by the fire, the house will be kept tidy by the servants without your interference. And indeed the inmates of a house of the better sort are putting things out of order from morning till night, and would leave the house in a sad mess if the servants were not constantly following in their wake and setting things to rights again. But if the labourer's wife, anxious and weak and sick at heart as she may rise from her poor bed, do not yet wash and dress the little children, they will not be either washed or dressed at all ; if she do not kindle her fire, there will be no fire at all ; if she do not prepare her husband's breakfast, he must go out to his hard work without any ; if she do not make the beds and dust the chairs and tables and wash the linen, and do a host of other things, they will not be done at all. And then in the forenoon Mrs. Bouncer, the retired manufacturer's wife (Mr. Bouncer has just bought the estate), enters the cottage with an air of extreme condescension and patronage, and if everything about the cottage be not in tidy order, Mrs. Bouncer rebukes the poor down-hearted creature for laziness and netrlect. 1 should like to choke Mrs. Bouncer for her heartless insolence. I think some of the hatefullest phases of human nature are exhibited in the visits paid by newly rich folk to the dwellings of the poor. You, Mrs. Bouncer, and people like you, have no more right to I'uter a poor man's house and insult his wife than that COXCERXIXG TIDIXESS. 197 poor man has to enter your drawing-room and give you a piece of his mind upon matters in general and yourself in particular. We hear much now-a-days about the distinctive characteristics of ladies and gentlemen, as contrasted with those of people who are well-dressed and live in fine houses, but whom no house and no dress will ever make gentlemen and ladies. It seems to me that the very first and finest characteristic of all who are justly entitled to these names of honour, is a most deli- cate, scrupulous, chivalrous consideration for the feelings of the poor. Without that the cottage visitor will do no good to the cottager. If you, my lady friend, who are accustomed to visit the dwelhngs of the poor in your neighbourhood, convey by your entire demeanour the impi-ession that you are, socially and intellectually, com- ing a great way down-stairs in order to make yourself agreeable and intelligible to the people you find there, you had better have stayed at home. You will irritate, •you will rasp, you will embitter, you will excite a disposi- tion to let fly at your head. You may sometimes grati- fy your vanity and folly by meeting with a servile and crawling adulation, but it is a hypocritical adulation that grovels in your presence and shakes the fist at you after the door has closed on your retreating steps. Don't fan«;y I am exaggerating: I describe nothing which I ha'»e not myself seen and known. i like to think of the effect which tidiness has in equalizing the real content of the rich and poor. If oven you, my reader, find it pleasant to go into the humblest little dwelling where perfect neatness reigns, think what pleasure the inmates (perhaps the solitary inmate) of that dwelling must have in daily maintain- ing that speckless tidiness, and living in the midst of it. 198 CONCEEXIXG TIDIXESS. There is to me a perfect charm about a sanded floor, and about deal furniture scrubbed into the perfection of cleanliness. How nice the table and the chairs look ; how inviting that solitary big arm-chair by the little fire! The fireplace indeed consists of two blocks of stone washed over with pipeclay, and connected by half a dozen bars of iron ; but no register grate of polished steel ever pleased me bettei*. God has made us so that there is a racy enjoyment, a delightful smack, about extreme simplicity co-existing with extreme tidiness. I don't mean to say that I should prefer that sanded floor and those chairs of deal to a Turkey carpet and carved oak or walnut ; but I assert that there is a certain in- definable relish about the simpler furniture which the grander wants. In a handsome -apartment you don't think of looking at the upholstery in detail ; you remark whether the general effect be good or bad ; but in the little cottage you look with separate enjoyment on each separate simple contrivance. Do you think that a rich man, sitting in his sumptuous library, all oak and mo- rocco, glittering backs of splendid volumes, lounges and sofas of every degree, which he merely paid for, has half the enjoyment that Robinson Crusoe had when he looked round bis cave with its rude shelves and bulk- heads, its clumsy arm-chair and its rough pottery, all contrived and made by his own hands ? Now the poor cottager has a good deal of the Robinson Crusoe enjoy- ment ; something of the pleasure which Sandford and Merton felt when they had built and thatched their house and then sat within it, gravely proud and happy, whilst the pelting shower came down but could not reach them. When a man gets the length of considering the «irchitectural character of his house, the imposing eflfect CONCERXING TIDINESS. 199 which the great entrance-hall will have upon visitors, the vista of drawing-room retiring within drawing-room, he loses tLe relish which accompanies the original idea of a house as a something which is to keep us snug and warm from wind and rain and cold. So if you gain something by having a grand house, you lose something too, and something which is the more constantly and sensibly felt — you lose the joy of simple tidiness ; and your life grows so artificial, that many days you never think of your dwelling at all, nor remember what it looks like. I have not space to say anything of the importance of tidiness in the poor man's dwelling in a sanitary point of view. Untidiness there is the direct cause of disease and death. And it is the thing, too, which drives the husband and father to the ale-house. All this has been so often said, that it is needless to repeat it ; but there is another thing which is not so generally understood, and •which deserves to be mentioned. Let me then say to all landed proprietors, it depends very much upon you Avhether the poor man's home shall be tidy or not. Give a poor man a decent cottage, and he has some heart to keep tidiness about the door, and his wife has some heart to maintain tidiness within. Many of the dwell- ings which the rich provide for the poor are such that the poor inmates must just sit down in despair, feeling that it is vain to try to be tidy, either without doors or within. If the cottage floor is of clay, which becomes a ^ailip puddle in rainy weather ; if the roof be of very old thatch, full of insects, and open to the apartment below ; if you go down one or two steps below the level of the surrounding earth when you enter the house ; if there be no proper chimney, but merely a 200 CONCEENING TIDINESS. hole in the roof, to which the smoke seems not to find its way till it has visited every other nook ; if swarms of parasitic vermin have established theraseh js beyond expulsion through fifty years of neglect and filth ; if a dung-heap be by ancient usage established under the window ; * then how can a poor overwrought man or A'oman (and energy and activity die out in the atmos- phere of constant anxiety and care) find spirit to try to tidy a place like that ? They do not know where to begin the hopeless task. A little encouragement will do wonders to develop a spirit of tidiness. The love of order and neatness, and the capacity of enjoying order and neatness, are latent in all human hearts. A man ■who has lived for a dozen years in a filthy hovel, with- out once making a resolute endeavour to amend it, will, when you put him down in a neat pretty cottage, aston- ish you by the spirit of tidiness he will exhibit, and his wife will astonish you as much. They feel that now there is some use in trying. There was none before. The good that is in most of us needs to be encouraged and fostered. In few human beings is tidiness, or any other virtue, so energetic that it will force its way in spite of extreme opposition. Anything good usually sets out with timid, weakly beginnings ; and it may easily be crushed then. And the love of tidiness is crushed in many a poor man and woman by the kind of dwelling in which they are placed by their landlords. Let us thank God that better times are beginning; but times are still * Th* writer describes nothing which lie has not seen a hundred tiiiiis. He has seen a cottage, the approach to which was a narrow passage, about two feet in breadth, cut tlirough a large Qimg-heap which rose more than a yard on eitlier side of the narrow passage and whicli was piled up to a fathom's height against the cottap ivall. This was not in Ireland. COXCERNIXG TIDIXESS. 201 bad enough. I don't envy the man, commoner or peer, whom I see in his carriage-and-four, when I think how a score or two famiUes of his fellow-creatures upon his property are living in places where he would not put his horses or his dogs. I am conservatively enough in- clined ; but I sometimes think I could join in a Chartist rising. Experience has shown that healthy, cheerful, airy cottages for the poor, in which something like decency is possible, entail no pecuniary loss upon the philan- thropic proprietor who builds them. But even if they did, it is his bounden duty to provide such dwellings. If he do not, he is disloyal to his country, an enemy to his race, a traitor to the God who entrusted him with so much. And surely, in the judgment of all whose opin- ion is worth a rush, it is a finer thing to have the cot- tages on a man's estate places fit for human habitation, — with the climbing-roses covering them, the little gravel- walk to the door, the little potato-plot cultivated at after- hours, with windows that can open and doors that can shut ; with little children not pallid and lean, but plump and rosy (and fresh air has as much to do with that as abundant food has), — surely, I say, it is better a thou- sand times to have one's estate dotted with scenes such as that, than to have a dozen more paintings on one's walls, or a score of additional horses in one's stables. And now, having said so much in praise of tidiness, let me conclude by remarking that it is possible to carry even this virtue to excess. It is foolish to keep houses merely to be cleaned, as some Dutch housewives are said to do. Nor is it fit to clip the graceful forms of Nature into unnatural trimness and formality, as Dutih 202 CONCERNING TIDINESS. gardeners do. Among ourselves, however, I am not aware that there exists any tendency to either error : so it is needless to argue against either. The perfection of Dutch tidiness is to be found, I have said, at Broek, a few miles from Amsterdam. Here is some account of it froici Washington Irving's ever-pleasing pen : — What renders Broek so perfect an Elysium in the eyes of all true Hollanders, is the matchless height to which the spirit of cleanlinesa is carried there. It amounts almost to a religion among the inhabi- tants, who pass the greater part of their time rubbing and scrubbing, and painting and varnishing: each housewife vies with her neighbour iu devotion to the scrubbing-brush, as zealous Catholics do in their de- votion to the Cross. - I alighted outside the village, for no horse or vehicle is permitted to enter its precincts, lest it should cause defilement of the well-scoured pavements. Shaking the dust off my feet, then, I prepared to enter, with due reverence and circumspection, this sanctum sanctorum of Dutch cleanliness. I entered by a narrow street, paved with yellow bricks, laid edgewise, and so clean that one might eat from them. Indeed, they were actually worn deep, not by the tread of feet, but by the friction of the scrubbing-brush. The houses were built of wood, and all appeared to have beeu freshly painted, of green, yellow, and other bright colours. They were separated from each other by gardens and orchards, and stood at some little distance from the street, with wide areas or courtyards, paved in mosaic with variegated stones, polished by frequent rub- bing. The areas were divided from the streets by curiously wrought railings or balustrades of iron, surmounted with brass and copper balls, scoured into dazzling effulgence. The very trunks of the trees in front of the houses were by the same process made to look as if they had been varnished. The porches, doors, and window-frames of the houses were of exotic woods, curiously carved, and polished like costly furniture. The front doors are never opened, except on chris- tenings, marriages, and funerals; on all ordinary occasions, visitors buter by the back-doors. In former times, persons when admitted had to put on slippers, but this Oriental ceremony is no longer in- sisted on. We are assured by the same authority, that such ig the love of tidiness which prevails at Broek, that the CONCERNING TIDINESS. 203 good people there can imagine no greater felicity than to be ever surrounded by the very perfection of it. And it seems that the prediger, or preacher of the place, accom- modates his doctrine to the views of his hearers ; and in his weekly discourses, when he would describe that Happy Place where, as I trust, ray readers and I will one day meet the quiet burghers of Broek, he strongly insists that it is the very tidiest place in the universe : a place where all things (I trust he says within as well as around), are spotlessly pure and clean ; and where all disorder, confusion, and dirt are done with for ever I CHAPTER VII. HOW I MUSED IN THE RAILWAY TRAIN: BEING THOUGHTS ON RISING BY CANDLELIGHT; ON NERVOUS FEARS ; AND ON VAPOURING. lOT entirely awake, I am standing on the platform of a large railway terminus in a certain great city, at 7.20 a.m., on a foggy L-^£^',(^l^ moi'ning early in January. I am about to Bet out on a journey of a hundred miles by the 7.30 train, which is a slow one, stopping at all the stations. I am alone ; for more than human would thai friendship be which would bring out mortal man to see one off at such an hour in winter. It is a dreamy sort of scene ; I can hardly feel that it substantially exists. "Who has not sometimes, on a still autumn afternoon, suddenly stopped on a path winding through sere, motionless woods, and felt within himself, Now, I can hardly believe in all this ? You talk of the difficulty of realizing the unseen and spiritual : is it not sometimes, in certain mental moods, and in certain aspects of external nature, quite as diffi- cult to feel the substantial existence of things which we can see and touch ? Extreme stillness and loneliness, perhaps, are the usual conditions of this peculiar feeling. Sometimes most men have thought to themselves that it would be well for them if they could but have the evi- dence of sense to assure them of certain great realities RAILWAY MUSDsGS. 205 •wLich wliile we live in this world we never can touch or Bee ; but I think that many readers will agree with me when I say, that very often the evidence of sense comes no nearer to producing the solid conviction of reality than does that widely different evidence on which we believe the existence of all that is not material. You have climbed, alone, on an autumn day, to the top of a great hill ; a river runs at its base unheard ; a champaign country spreads beyond the river ; cornfields swept and bare ; hedge-rows dusky gi-een against the yellow ground; a little farmhouse here and there, over which the smoke stagnates in the breezeless air. It is heather that you are standing on. And as you stand there alone, and look away over that scene, you have felt as though sense, and the convictions of sense, were partially paralysed : you have been aware that you could not feci that the land- scape before you was solid reality. I am not talking to blockheads, who never thought or felt anytliing particu- larly ; of course they could not understand my meaning. But as for you, thoughtful reader, have you not some- times, in such a scene, thought to yourself, not without a certain startled pleasure, — Now, I realize it no more substantially that there spreads a landscape beyond that river, than that there spreads a country beyond the gi'ave ! There are many curious moods of mind, of which you will find no mention in books of metaphysics. The writers of works of mental philosophy keep ^y the bread and butter of the world of mind. And every one who knows by personal experience how great a part of the actual phases of thought and feeling lies beyond the reach of logical explanation, and can hardly be fixed and represented by any words, will rejoice when he meets 206 HOW I MUSED IN with any account of intellectual moods which he himself has often known, but which are not to be classified or explained. And people are shy about talking of such things. I felt indebted to a friend, a man of high talent and cultivation, whom I met on the street of a large city on a snowy winter day. The streets were covered with unmelted snow ; so were the housetops ; how black and dirty the walls looked, contrasting with the snow. Great (lakes were falling thickly, and making a curtain which at a few yards' distance shut out all objects more effect- ually than the thickest fog. ' It is a day,' said my friend, ' I don't believe in ; ' and then he went away. And I know he would not believe in the day, and he w^ould not feel that he was in a world of reality, till he had escaped from the eerie scene out of doors, and sat down by his library fire. But has not the mood found a more beautiful description in Coleridge's tragedy of Remorse f Opium, no doubt, may have increased such phases of mind in his case ; but they are well known by numbers who never tasted opium : — On a rude rock, A rock, methought, fast by a grove of firs, Whose thready leaves to the low-breathing gale, Made a soft sound most like the distant ocean, I staid, as though the hour of death were passed, And I were sitting in the world of spirits — for all things seemed imreal. And there can be no doubt that the long vaulted vistaa thiough a pine wood, the motionless trunks, dark and ghostly, and the surgy swell of the wind through the spines, are conditions very likely to bring on, if you are alone, this particular mental state. But to return to the railway station which suggested THE EAILWAY TEAIN. 207 all this ; It is a dreamy scene, and I look at it with sleepy eyes. There are not many people going by the train, though it is a long one. Daylight is an hour or more distant yet ; and the directors, either with the design of producing picturesque lights and shadows in their shed, or with the design of economizing gas, have resorted to the expedient of lighting only every second lamp. There are no lamps, too, in the can-iages ; and the blank abysses seen through the open doors remind one of the cells in some feudal dungeon. A little child would as- suredly howl if it were brought to this place this morn- ing. Away in the gloom, at the end of the train, the sombre engine that is to take us is hissing furiously, and throwing a lurid glare upon the ground underneath it. Nobody's wits have fully arrived. The clerk who gave me my ticket was yawning tremendously ; the porters on the platform are yawning ; the guard, who is standing two yards off, looking very neat and trimly dressed through the gloom, is yawning ; the stoker who was shovelling coke into the engine fire was yawning awfully as he did so. We are away through the fog, through the mist, over the black country which is slowly turning grey in the morning twilight. I have with me various newspapers ; but for an hour and more it will be impos- sible to see to read them. Two fellow-travellers, whoso forms I dimly trace, I hear expressing indignation that the railway company give no lamps in the carriages. I lean back and try to think. It is most depressing and miserable work, getting up by candlelight. It is impossible to shave Comfortably ; it is impossible to have a satisfactory bath ; it is impos- sible to find anything you want. Sleep, says Sancho Panza, covers a man all over like a mantle of comfort ; 208 HOW I MUSED IX but rising before daylight envelops the entire being in petty rairiery. An indescribable vacuity makes itself felt in the epigastric regions, and a leaden heaviness weighs upon heart and spirits. It must be a considerable item in the hard lot of domestic servants, to have to get up through all the winter months in the cold dark houi,e : let us be thankful to them througli whose humble labours and self-denial we find the cheerful fire blazing in the tidy breakfast parlour when we find our way down-stairs. That same apartment looked cheerless enough when the housemaid entered it two hours ago. It is sad when you are lying in bed of a morning, lazily conscious of that circling amplitude of comfort, to hear the chilly cry of the poor sweep outside ; or the tread of the factory hands shivering by in their thin garments towards the great cotton mill, glaring spectral out of its many windows, but at least with a cosy suggestion of warmth and liglit. Think of the baker, too, who rose in the dark of mid- night that those hot rolls might appear on your break- fast table ; and of the printer, intelligent, active, accurate to a degree that you careless folk who put no points in your letters have little idea of, whose labours have given you that damp sheet which in a little will feel so crisp and firm after it has been duly dried, and which will tell you all that is going on over all the world, down to the opera which closed at twelve, and the Parliamentary de- bate which was not over till half-past four. It is good occasionally to rise at five on a December morning, that you may feel how much you are indebted to some who do so for your sake all the winter through. No doubt they get accustomed to it : but so may you by doing it always. A great many people, living easy lives, have no idea of the discomfort of rising by candlelight. Prob« TIIE RAILWAY TRAIN. 2U9 ably they hardly ever did it: when they did it, they had a blazing fire and abundant light to dress by ; and even with these advantages, which essentially change the nature of the enterprise, they have not done it for very long. What an aggregate of misery is the result of that inveterate usage in the University of Glasgow, that the early lectures begin at 7.30 a. m. from November till May ! How utterly miserable the dark, dirty streets look, as the unhappy student splashes through mud and snioke to the black archway that admits to those groves of Academe ! And what a blear-eyed, unwashed, un- shaven, blinking, ill-natured, WTetched set it is that fills the benches of the lecture-room I The design of the au- thorities in maintaining that early hour has been much misunderstood. Philosophers have taught that the pro- fessors, in bringing out their unhappy students at that period, had it in view to turn to use an hour of the day which otherwise would have been wasted in bed, and thus set free an hour at a better season of the day. An- other school of metaphysicians, among whom may be reckoned the eminent authors, Brown, Jones, and Robin- son, have maintained with considerable force of argument that the authorities of the University, eager to advance those under their charge in health, wealth, and wisdom, have resorted to an observance which has for many ages been regarded as conducive to that end. Others, again, the most eminent among whom is Smith, have taken up the ground that the professors have fixed on the early hour for no reason in particular; but that, as the classes must meet at some hour of each day, they might just as well meet at that hour as at any other. All these theo- ries are erroneous. There is more in the system than meets the eye. It originated in Roman Catholic days; 14 210 HOW I MUSED IX and something of the philosophy of the stoic and of the faith of the anchorite is involved in it. Grim lessons of endurance ; dark hints of penance ; extensive disgust at matters in general, and a disposition to punch the head of humanity ; are mystically connected with the lec- tures at 7.30 A. M. in winter. It is quite different in sum- mor, when everything is bright and inviting ; if you aro up and forth by five or six o'clock any morning then, you teel ashamed as you look at the drawn blinds and the closed shutters of the house in the broad daylight. There is something curious in the contrast between the stillness and shut-up look of a country-house in the early summer- morning, and the blaze of light, the dew sparkling life- like on the grass, the birds singing, and all nature plainly awake though man is asleep. You feel that at 7.30 in June, Nature intends you to be astir ; but beheve it, ye learned doctors of Glasgow College, at 7.30 in Decem- ber, her intention is quite the reverse. And if you fly in Nature's face, and persist in getting up at unseasonable hours, she will take it out of you by making you horribly uncomfortable. There, is, indeed, one fashion in which rising by candle- light, under the most uncomfortable circumstances, may turn to a source of positive enjoyment. And the more dreary and wretched you feel, as you wearily drag your- self out of bed into the searching cold, the greater will that peculiar enjoyment be. Have you not, my reader, learned by your own experience that the machinery of the human mind and heart may be worked backwards, just as a steam-engine is reversed, so that a result may be produced which is exactly the opposite of the normal one ? The fundamental principle on which the working of the human constitution, as regards pleasure and pain, THE RAILWAY TRAIN. 21 J goes, may be stated in the following formula, which will not appear a truism except to those who have not brains to understand it — The more jolly tou are, the jollier you are. But by reversing the poles, or by w^erking the machine backward.'"-, many human beings, such as Indian fakirs, mediasval monks and hermits, Simeon Stylites, verj' early risers, very hard students, Childe Harold, men who fall in love and then go oiF to Australia without telling the young woman, and the like, bring themselves to this : — that their fundamental principle, as regards pleasure and pain, takes the following form — The more miserable you are, the jollier you ARE. Don't you know that all that is true ? A man may bring himself to this point, that it shall be to him a posi- tive satisfaction to think how much he is denying him- self, and how much he is taking out of himself. And all this satisfaction may be felt quite irrespective of any worthy end to be attained by all this pain, toil, endurance, self-denial. I believe indeed that the taste for suffering as a source of enjoyment is an acquired taste ; it takes some time to bring any human being to it. It is not nat- ural, in the obvious meaning of the word ; but assuredly it is natural in the sense that it founds on something which is of the essence of human nature. You must penetrate through the upper stratum of the heart, so to speak — that stratum which finds enjoyment in enjoyment — - and then you reach to a deeper scnsorium, one whose sensibility is as keen, one whose sensibility is longer in getting dulled — that sensorium which finds enjoy- ment in endurance. Nor have many years to pass over J8 before we come to feci that this peculiar sensibility^ 212 HOW I MUSED IX has been in some measure developed. If you, my friend, are now a man, it is probable (alas ! not certain) that you were once a boy. Perhaps you were a clever boy ; perhaps you were at the head of your class ; perhaps you were a hardworking boy. And now tell me, when on a fine summer evening you heard the shouts and merriment of your companions in the playground, while you were toiling ,way with your lexicon and your Livy, or turning a passage from Shakspeare into Greek iambics (a hardly- acquii'ed accomplishment, which has pi'oved so useful in after life), did you not feel a certain satisfaction — it was rather a sad one, but still a satisfaction — as you thought how pleasant it would be to be out in the beautiful sunshine, and yet felt resolved that out you would not go ? Well for you if your father and mother set themselves stoutly against this dangerous feeling ; well for you if you never overheard them relating with pride to their acquaintances what a laborious, self-denying, wonderful boy thou wast ! For the sad satisfaction which has been described is the self-same feeling which makes the poor Hindoo swing himself on a large hook stuck through his skin, and the fakir pleased when he finds that his arm, stretched out for twenty years, cannot now be drawn back. It is pre« cisely the feeling which led the saints of the middle ages to starve themselves till their palate grew insensible to the taste of food, or to flagellate themselves as badly as Le- gree did Uncle Tom, or to refrain wholly from the use of soap and water for forty years. It is a most dangerous thing to indulge in, this enjoyment arising from the prin- ciple of the greatest jollity from the greatest suiFering ; for although we ought to feel thankful that God has so or- dered things, that in a world where little that is good can be done except by painful exertion and resolute self-de- THE RAILWAY TRAIN'. 213 liial, a certain satisfaction is linked even with that exer- tion and self-denial in themselves, apart from the good results to which they lead ; it seems to me that we have no right to add needless bitterness to life that our morbid spirit may draw from it a morbid enjoyment. No doubt self-denial, and struggle against our nature for the right, is a noble thing : but I think that in the present day there is a tendency unduly to exalt both work and self- denial, as thouirh these thing's were excellent in them- selves apart from any excellent ends which follow from ihem. Work merely as work is not a good thing : it is a good thing because of the excellent things that come with it and of it. And so with self-denial, whether it appear in swino;ing on a hook or in risinnr at five on a winter morning. It is a noble thing if it is to do some good ; but very many people appear to think it a noble thing in itself, though it do no good whatever. The man de- serves canonization who swings on a hook to save his country ; but the man is affected with a morbid reversal of the constitution of human nature who swings on a hook because he finds a strange satisfaction in doing some- thing which is terribly painful and abhorrent. The true nobility of labour and self-denial is reflected back on them from a noble end : there is nothing fine in accumulating suffering upon ourselves merely because we hate it, but feel a certain secondary pleasure in resolutely submitting to what primarily we hate. There is nothing fine in go- ing into a monastery merely because you would much rather stay out. There is nothing fine in going off to America, and never asking a woman to be your wife, merely because you are very fond of her, and know that all this will be a fearful trial to go through. You will be ill truth ridiculous, though you may fancy yourself sub' 214 now I MUSED m lime, when you are sitting at tlie door of your log- lujt away in backwoods lonely as those loved by Daniel Boone, and sadly priding yourself on the terrible sacrifice you have made. That sacrifice would have been giand if it had been your solemn duty to make it ; it is silly, and it is selfish, if it be made for mere self-denial's sake. Now a great many people do not i-emember this. David Copperfield was pleased in thinking that he was taking so much out of himself. He was pleased in think- ing so, even though no earthly good came of his doing all that. His kind aunt was ruined, and he was deter- mined that he would deny himself in every way that he might not be a burden upon her ; and so when he was walking to any place he walked at a furious pace, and was glad to find himself growing fagged and out of breath, because surely it must be a good tiling to feel so jaded and miserable. It was self-sacrifice ; it was self-denial. And if to walk at five miles and a half an hour had had any tendency to restore his aunt's little fortune, it could not have been praised too much ; and the less David liked it, the more praise it would have deserved. And I venture to think that a good deal of the present talk about muscular Christianity is based upon this error, I' do not know that exertion of the muscles, as such, is necessarily a good or an essentially Christian thing. It is good because it promotes health of body and of mind ; but you find many books which appear to teach that it 13 a fine thing in itself to leap a horse over a five-barred gate, or to crumple up a silver jug, or to thrash a prize- fighter. It is very well to thrash the prize-fighter if it becomes necessary, but surely it would be better to es- cape the necessity of thrasliing the prize-fighter. Certain of the poems of Losigfellow, mucli admired and quoted THE RAILWAY TEAIX. 215 by young ladies, are instinct with the mischiovous notion that self-denial for mere self-denial's sake is a grand, heroic, and religious thing. The Psalm of Life is ex- tremely vague, and somewhat unintelligible. It is philo- gophically false to say that Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way. For, rightly understood, happiness not only is our aim, but is plainly intended to be such by our Creator. He made us to be happy : the whole bearing of revealed religion is to make us happy. Of course, the man who grasps at seltish enjoyment turns his back on happiness. Self-sacrifice and exertion, where needful, are the way to happiness ; and the main thing which we know of the Christian Heaven is, that it is a state of happiness. But Longfellow, talking in that fashion (no doubt sitting in a large easy chair by a warm fire in a snug study when he did so), wants to convey the utterly false notion, that there is something fine in doing what is disagreeable, merely for the sake of doing it. Now, that notion is Bhuddism, but it is not Christianity. Christianity says to us, Suffer, labour, endure up to martyi'dom, when duty calls you ; but never fancy that there is anything noble in throwing yourself in martyrdom's way. ' Thou shalt nol tempt the Lord thy God.' And as for Longfellow's conception of the fellow wlio went up the Alps, bellowing out Excelsior, it is nothing better than cliildish. Any ona whose mind is matured enough to discern that ChiUk Harold was a humbug, will see that the lad was a fool. Wiiat on earth was he to do when he got to the top of the Alps? Tlie poet does not even pretend to answei that question. He never pretends that the lad whose 216 HOW I MUSED IX brow was sad, and his eye like a faulchion, &c., had any* thing useful or excellent to accomplish when he reached the mountain-top at last. Longfellow wishes us to un- derstand that it was a noble thing to push onward and upward through the snow, merely because it is a vevy difficult and dangerous thing. He wishes us to under- stand that it was a noble thing to turn away from warm household fires to spectral glaciers, and to resist the invi- tations of the maiden, who, if the lad was a stranger iu those parts, as seems to be implied, must have been a remarkably free and easy style of young lady — merely because average human nature would have liked ex- tremely to get out of the storm to the bright fireside, and to have had a quiet chat with the maiden. I don't mean to say that about ten years ago I did not think that Excelsior was a wonderful poem, setting out a true and noble principle. A young person is captivated with the notion of self-sacrifice, with or without a reason for it ; but self-sacrifice, uncalled for and useless, is stark folly. It was very good of Curtius to jump into the large hole in the Forum ; no doubt he saved the Senate great ex- pense in filling it up, though probably it would have been easier to do so than to carry the Liverpool and Manches- ter Railway through Chatmoss. And we cannot think, even yet, of Leonidas and his three hundred at Ther- mopylae, without some stir of heart ; but would not the gallant Lacedaemonians liave been silly and not heroic, had not their self-sacrifice served a great end, by gaining for their countrymen certain precious days ? Even Dick- ens, though not much of a philosopher, is more philo- sophic than Longfellow. He wrote a little book one Christmas time. The Batlle of Life, whose plot turns en- tirely upcn an extraordinary act of self-sacrifice; and THE RAILWAY TRAIX. 217 which contains many sentences which sound like the cant of the day. Witness the following : — It is a world on which the sun never rises, but it looks upon a thousand bloodless battles, that are some set-off agaiust the miserifiO and wickedness of battle-fields. There are victories gained every da}', in struggling heai'ts, to -nhich ther.e fields of battle are as nothing. But although the book contains such sentences, which seem to teach that struggle and self-conquest are noble in themselves, apart from their aim or their necessity, the lesson taught by the entire story is the true and just one, that there is no nobler thing than self-sacrifice and self-conquest, when they are right, when they are needful, when a noble end is to be gained by them. As some dramatist or other says — That's truly great ! What think ye, 'twas set up The Greek and Roman names in such a lustre, But doing right, in stern despite of nature! Shutting their ears 'gainst all her little cries. When great, august, and godlike virtue called! The author, you see, very justly remarks that you are not called to fly in the face of danger, unless when there is good reason for it. And therefore, my friend, don't get up at seven o'clock on a winter morning, if you can possibly help it. If virtue calls, it will indeed be noble to rise by candlelight ; but not otherwise. If you are the engine-driver of an early train, if you are a factory-hand, if you are a Glasgow student of philosophy, get up at an unseasonable period, and accept the writer's sympathy and admiration. Poor fellow, you cannot help it ! But if you are a Glasgow professor, I have no veneration for tbiit needless act of self-denial. Tou need not get up so early unless you like. Yuu do the thing of your free 218 HOW I MUSED IN choice. And your heroism is only that of the Brahmin who swings on the hook, when nobody asks him to do so. Ha%'ing mused in this fashion, I look out of the cai*- riage window. The morning is breaking, cold and dis- mal. There is a thick white mist. We are flying on, across gray fields, by spectral houses and trees, showing indistinct through the uncertain light. It is light enough to read, by making an effort. I draw from my pocket a letter, which came late last night : it is from a friend, who is an eminent Editor. I do not thoose to remember the name of the periodical which he conducts. I have had time to do no more than glance over it ; and I have not yet arrived at its full meaning. I feel as Tony Lumpkin felt, who never had the least difficulty in reading the out- side of his letters, but who found it very hard work to de- cipher the inside. The cii'cumstance was the more annoy- ing, he justly observed, inasmuch as the inside of a letter generally contains the cream of the correspondence. When I receive a letter from my friend the Editor, I am able, by an intense application of attention for a few minutes, to make out its general drift and meaning. The difficulty in the way of grasping the entire sense does not arise from any obscurity of style, but wholly from the remarkable nature of the penmanship. And after gain- ing the general bearing of the document, I am well aware that there are many recesses and nooks of meaning which will not be reached but after repeated perusals. What appeared at first a flourish of the pen may gradually assume the form of an important clause of a sentence, materially modifying its force. What appears at present a blot may turn out to be anything whatever ; what at present looks like No may prove to have stood for Yes. THE RAILWAY TRAIN. 219 I think sympathetically of tha Avorthy father of Dr. Chalmers. When he received his weekly or fc rtnightly letter from his distinguished son, he carefully locked it up. By the time a little store had accumulated, his son came to pay him a visit ; and then he broke all the seals, and got the writer of the letters to read them. I read my letter over ; several shades of thought break upon pie, of whose existence in it I was previously unaware. That handwriting is like In Memoriam. Read it for the twentieth time, and you will find something new in it. I fold the letter up ; and I begin to think of a matter con- cerning which I have thought a good deal of late. Surely, I think to myself, there is a respect in which the more refined and cultivated portion of the human race in Britain is sufl^ering a rapid deterioration, and getting into a morbid state. I mean in the matter of nervous irrita- bility or excitability. Surely people are far more nervous now than they used to be some generations back. The mental cultivation and the mental wear which we have to go through, tends to make that strange and inexplicable portion of our physical constitution a very great deal too sensitive for the work and trial of daily life. A few days ago I drove a friend who had been paying us a visit over to our railway-station. He is a man of fifty, a remarkably able and accomplished man. Before the train started the guard came round to look at the tickets. My friend could not find his ; he searched his pockets everywhere, and although the entire evil consequence, had the ticket not turned up, could not possibly have been more than the payment a second time of four or five shillings, he got into a nervous tremor painful to see. He shook from head to foot ; his hand trembled so that lie could not prosecute his searcli jightly, and finally he 220 HOW I MUSED IN found the missing ticket, in a pocket which he had ah-eady searched half a dozen times. Now contrast the condition of this highly-civihzed man, thrown into a painful flurry and confusion at the demand of a railway ticket, with the impassive coolness of a savage, who would not move a iruscle if you hacked him in pieces. Is it not a dear price we pay for our superior cultivation, this morbid sensitiveness which makes us so keenly alive to influ- ences which are painful and distressing ? I have known very highly educated people who were positively trem- bling with anxiety and undefined fear every day before the post came in. Yet they had no reason to anticipate bad news ; they could conjure up indeed a hundred gloomy forebodings of evil, but no one knew better than themselves how vain and weak were their fears. Surely the knights of old must have been quite different. They had great stalwart bodies, and no minds to speak of. They had no doubt a high sense of honour — not a very enlightened sense — but their purely intellectual nature was hardly developed at all. They never read anything. There were not many knights or squires like Fitz Eu- stace, who Much had pored Upon a huge romantic tome, In the hall window of his home. Imprinted at the antique dome Of Caxton or De Worde. They never speculated upon any abstract subject : and nil hough in their long rides from place to place they might have had time for thinking, I suppose their atten- tion was engrossed by the necessity of having a sharp look-out around them for the appearance of a foe. And we all know tbat that kind of sharpness — the hunter's THE EAILWAY TEAIX. 221 sharpness, the guerilla's sharpness — may coexist with the densest stupidity in all matters beyond the little range that is familiar. The aboriginal Australian can trace fi.end or foe with the keenness almost of brute instinct: BO can the Red Indian, so can the Wild Bushman ; yet the intellectual and moral nature in all these races is not very many degrees above the elephant or the shepheid's dog. And stupidity is a great preservative against ner- vous excitability or anxiety. A dull man cannot think of the thousand sad possibilities which the quicker mind sees are brooding over human life. Nor does this friendly stupidity only dull the understanding ; it gives inertia, immobility, to the emotional nature. Compare a pure thoroughbred horse with a huge heavy cart-horse with- out a ti'ace of breeding. The thoroughbred is a beautiful creature indeed: but look at the startled eye, look at the quick ears, look at the blood coursing through those great veins so close to the surface, look how tremblingly alive the creature is to any sudden sight or sound. Why, there you have got the perfection of equine nature, but you have paid for it just the same price that you pay for the perfection of human nature — what a nervous creature you have there ! Then look at the cart-horse. It is clum.-;y in shape, ungraceful in movement, rough in skin, dull of eye ; in short, it is a great ugly brute. But what a placid equanimity there is about it ! How com- posed, liow immovable it looks, standing with its head hanging down, and its eyes half-closed. It is a low type of its race no doubt, but it enjoys the blessing which is enjoyed by the dull, stupid, unrefined woman or man ; it IS not nervous. Let something fall with a whack, it doeb not start as if it had been shot. Throw a little pebble at Its flank, "t turns round tranquilly to see what is the 222 HOW I MUSED IIT matter. Why, the thoroughbred would have been over tliat hedge at much less provocation. Tlie morbid nervousness of* the present day appears in several ways. It brings a man sometimes to that star- tled state that the sudden opening of a door, the clash cf the falling fire-irons, or any little accident, puts him in a flutter. How nervous the late Sir Robert Peel musi Lave been when, a few weeks before his death, he went to the Zoological Gardens, and when a monkey suddenly sprang upon his arm, the great and worthy man fainted ! Another phase of nervousness is when a man is brought to that state that the least noise, or cross-occurrence, seems to jar through the entire nervous system — to upset him, as we say ; when he cannot command his mental powers except in perfect stillness, or in the cham- ber and at the writing-table to which he is accustomed ; when, in short, he gets fidgety, easily worried, full of whims and fancies which must be indulged and considered, or he is quite out of sorts. Another phase of the same morbid condition is, when a human bein" is always oppressed with vague undefined fears that things are going wrong ; that his income will not meet the demands upon it, that his child's lungs are affected, that his mental powers are leaving him — a state of feeling which shades rapidly off into positive insanity. Indeed, when matters remain long in any of the fashions which have been described, I suppose the natural termination must be disease of the heart, or a shock of paralysis, or insanity in the form either of mania or idiocy. Numbers of commonplace people who could feel very acutely, but who could not tell what they felt, have been worried into fatal heart-disease by prolonged anxiety and misery. Every one knows how paralysis laid its hand upon Sir THE EAILWAY TRAIX. 223 Walter Scott, always great, lastly heroic. Protracted anxiety how to make the ends meet, with a large family and an uncertain income, drove Southey's first wife into the lunatic asylum : and there is hardly a more touching story than that of her fears and forebodings through ner- vous year after year. Not less sad was the end of her overwrought husband, in blank vacuity ; nor the like end of Thomas Moore. And perhaps the saddest instance of the result of an overdriven nervous system, in recent days, was the end of that rugged, honest, wonderful genius, Hugh Miller. Is it a reaction, a desperate rally against something that is felt to be a powerful invader, that makes it so much a point of honour with Englishmen at this day to retain, or appear to retain, a perfect immobility under all circumstances ? It is pretty and interesting for a lady, at all events for a young lady, to exhibit her nervous tremors ; a man sternly represses the exhibition of these. Stoic philosophy centuries since, and modern refinement in its last polish of manner, alike recognise the Red Indian's principle, that there is something manly, some- thing fine, in the repression of human feeling. Here is a respect in which the extreme of civilization and the extreme of barbarism closely approach one another. The Red Indian really did not care for anything ; the modern fine gentleman, the youthful exquisite, though really pretty nervous, wishes to convey by hij entire de- portment the impression, that he does not care for any- tliing. A man is to exhibit no strong emotion. It is unmanly. If he is glad, he must not look it. If he loses a great deal more money than he can afford on the Derby, he must take it coolly. Everything is to be taken coolly : and some indurated folk no doubt are truly as cool as they look. Let me have nothing to do with 224 • HOW I MUSED IIT such. Nil admirari is not a good maxim for a man The coolest individual who occurs to me at this momen, is Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust. He was not a pleasant character. That coolness is not human. It li essentially Satanic. But in many people in modern days the apparent coolness covers a most painful nervousness. Indeed, as a general rule, whenever any one does any- thing which is (socially speaking) outrageously daring, it is because he is nervous ; and struggling with the feel- ing, and striving to conceal the fact. A speaker who is too forward, who is jauntily free and easy, is certainly very nervous. And though I have said that perfect coolness in all circumstances is not amiable or desirable, still one cannot look but with interest, if not with sym- pathy, at Campbell's fine description of the Red Indian : He said, — and strained unto his heart the boy: Far dilferently, the mute Onej-da took His calumet of peace and cup of joy: As monumental bronze unchanjjed his look; A soul that pity touched, but never shook; Trained from his tree-rocked cradle to his bier The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook Impassive, — fearing but the shame of fear, — A Stoic of the woods, — a man without a tear ! The writings of Mr. Dickens furnish me with a com . panion picture adapted to modern times. I confess that, upon reflection, I doubt whether a considerable portion of the interest of Outalissi's peculiar manner may not be derived from distance in time and space. Indian immo- bility and stoical philosophy are not sublime in the ser- vants' hall of modern society : — 'I don't know anything,' said Britain, with a leaden eye arl an immovable visage. ' I don't care for anything. I don't make out anything. I don't believe anything. And I don't want anything.' * * The Batik of Life : atrislmas Books, p. 169. THE KAIL WAY TRAIN. 225 Nervous people should live in large towns. Tlie houses are so big and afford such impervious shadow, that the nervous man, very little when compared with them, does not feel himself pushed into painful promi- nence. It is a comfort, too, to see many other people going about. It carries the nervous man out of himself. It reminds him that multitudes more have their cares aa well as he. It dispels the uncomfortable feeling which grows on such people in the country, that everybody is thinking and talkinsr of them, — to see numbers of men and women, all quite occupied with their own concerns, and evidently never thinking of them at all. I have known one of these shrinking and evil-forbod- ing persons say, that he could not have lived in the coun- try (as he did), had not the district where his home was been very thickly wooded with large trees. It was a comfort to a man who wished to shrink out of sight and get quietly by, when the road along which he was walking wound into a thick wood. The trees were so big and so old, and they seemed to make a shelter from the outer world. In walking over a vast bare level down, a man is the most conspicuous figure in the landscape. There is nothing taller than himself, and he can be seen from miles away. Now, to be pushed into notice — to be made a conspicuous figure — is intensely painful to the nervous man. You and I, my reader, no doubt think such a state of feeling morbid, but it is probably a state to wliich cir- cumstances might bring most people. And we can quite well understand that wiien pressed by care, sorrow, or fear, there is something friendly in the shade of trees — in anything that dims tlic light, and hides from public view. You remember tlie poor fellow (a very silly fellow indeed, but very silly fellows can sufffr), who asked Little Dorrit 226 HOW I MUSED IN to marry him, and met a decided though a kind refusal He lived somewhere over in Southwark, in a street of poor houses, which had little hack-greens, but of course no trees in them. But the poor fellow felt the instinctive longing of the stricken heart for shadow ; and so, when his mother hung out the clothes from the wash on ropea crossing and re-crossing the little green, he used to go out and sit amid the flapping sheets, and say that ' he felt it like groves ! ' Was not that a testimony to the friendly congeniality of trees to the sad or timorous human beirg ? And when Cowper wearied to get away from a turbu- lent world to some quiet retreat, he did not wish that that retreat should be in an open country. No, he says — Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumour of oppression and deceit. Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more ! To the same effect did the same shrinking poet express Limself in lines equally familiar : — I was a stricken deer that left the herd Long since: with many an arrow deep infixed My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil deatli in distant shades. I suppose that if some heavy blow had fallen upon any of us, we should not choose the open field or the bare hillside as the place to which we should go to think about it. We should rather choose some low-lying, shel- tered, shaded spot. Great sorrow does not parade itself. It wishes to jret out of sijjht. As to the question how this nervousness may be got rid of, it '.3 difficult to know what to think. It is in great THE RAILWAr TRAIN. 22? measure a physical condition, and not under the control of the will. Some people would treat it physically^ send the nervous man to the water-cure, — put hira in training like a prize-fighter or a pedestrian, and the like. These are excellent things ; still I have greater confi- dence in mental remedies. Give the evil-foreboding man plenty to do ; push him out of his quiet course of life into the turmoil which he shrinks away from, and the turmoil will lose its fears. Work is the healthy atmosphere for )t human being. The soul of man is a machine with this great peculiarity about it, — that we cannot stop it from motion when we will. Perhaps that is a defect. Many a man, through a weary sleepless night, has longed for the power to push some lever or catch into the swift- running engine that was whirring away within him, and bring it to a stand. However, it cannot be. And as the machine will go on, we must provide it with grist to grind, we must give it work to do, or it will knock itself in pieces ; or if not that, then get all warped and twisted, so that it never shall go without creaking, and straining, and trembling. And so", if you find a man or woman, young or old, vexed with ceaseless fears, worried with all kinds of odd ideas, doubts upon religious matters and the like, don't argue with them ; that is not the treatment tl>al is necessary in the meantime. There is something else to be done first. It would do no good to blister a horse's legs till the previous inflammation has gone down. It will do no good to present the soundest views to a ner- vous, idle man. Set him to hard work. Give him lots to do. And then that invisible machine, which has been turning off misery and delusion, will begin to turn off content and sound views of all things. After two or three week? of this healthful treatment you may proceed 228 HOW I MUSED IN to argue with your friend. In all likelihood you will find that argument will not be necessary. He has arrived at truth and sense already. There is a wonderfully close connexion between work and sound views ; between doing and knowing^. It is in life as it is in religion: ' If any man will do His will, he shall know of the dv)c- trine whether it be of God.' Looking out now, I see it has grown quite light, though the day is gloomy, and will be so to its close. The train is speeding round the base of a great hill. Far below ug a narrow little river is dashing on, all in foam. Its sound is faintly heard at this height. I said to myself, by way of winding up my musing upon nervousness : After all, is not this painful fact just an over-degree of that which makes us living beings ? Is it not just life too sensi- tively present in every atom of even the dull flesh ? There is that gray rock which we are passing ; how still and immovable it is ! All the stoicism of Greece, all the impassiveness of the mute Oneyda, all the indifference of the pococurante Englishman, how far they fall shoi't of that sublime stillness ! But it is still because it is sense- less. It looks as if it felt nothing, because it really feela nothing. I compare it with Lord Derby before he gets up to make a great speech ; fidgeting on his seat; watch- ing every movement and word of the man he is going to f-mash ; his wonderfully ready mind working with a whirr like wheel-work revolving unseen through its speed ; liv- ing intensely, in fact, in every fibre of his frame. Well, that is the finer thing, after all. The big cart-horse, already thought of, is something midway between the Premier and the granite. The stupid blockhead is cooler than the Premier, indeed ; but he is not so cool as the granite. If coolness be so fine a thing, of course the per- THE RAILWAY TKAIN". 229 fectii n of coolness must be the finest thing ; and that we find in the lifeless rock. What is life but that which makes us more sensitive than the rock : what is the hiwh- est tjpe of life but that which makes us most sensitive ? It is better to be the warm, trembling, foreboding human being, than to be Ben Nevis, knowing nothing, feeling nothing, fearing nothing, cold and lifeless. It is natural enough to pass from thinking of one human weakness to thinking of another; and certain remarks of a fellow-traveller, not addressed to me, sug- gest the inveterate tendency to vapouring and big talking which dwells in many men and women. Who is there who desires to appear to his fellow-creatures precisely what he is ? I have known such people and admired them, for they are comparatively few. Wliy does Mr. Smith, when some hundreds of miles from home, talk of his place in the country ? In the etymological sense of the words it certainly is a place in the country, for it is a seedy one-storied cottage without a tree near it, standing bleakly on a hillside. But a place in the country sug- gests to the mind long avenues, great shrubberies, exten- sive greenhouses, fine conservatories, lots of horses, abun- dance of servants; and that is the picture which IMr. Smith desires to call up before the mind's eye of those whom he addresses. Wlien Mr. Robinson talks with dignity about the political discussions which take place in iiis Servants' Jlall, the impression conveyed is that Robinson has a vast establishment of domestics. A vision rises of ancient retainers, of a dignified house- keeper, of a bishop-like butler, of Jeamses without num- ber, of unstinted October. A man of strong imagination nay even think of huntsmen, falconers, couriers — of a 230 HOW I MUSED IN" grand baronial menage, in fact. You would not think that Robinson's establishment consists of a cook, a house* maid, and a stable-boy. Very well for the fellow too; but why will he vapour ? When Mr. Jones told me the other day that something or other happened to him when he was going out ' to the stables to look at the horses,' I naturally thought, as one fond of horseflesh, that it would be a fine sight to see Jones's stables, as he called them, I thought of three handsome carriage-horses sixteen bands high, a pair of pretty ponies for his wife to drive, some hunters, beauties to look at and tremendous fellows to go. The words used might even have justified the supposition of two or three racehorses, and several lads with remarkably long jackets walking about the yard. ] was filled with fury when I learned that Jones's horses consisted of a large brougham-horse, broken-winded, and a spavined pony. I have known a man who had a couple of moorland farms habitually talk of his estate. One of the commonest and weakest ways of vapouring is by introducing into your conversation, very familiarly, the names of people of rank whom you know nothing earthly about. ' How sad it is,' said Mrs. Jenkins to me the other day, ' about the duchess being so ill ! Poor dear thing ! We are all in such great distress about her ! ' We all' meant, of course, the landed aristocracy of the district, of which Mrs. Jenkins had lately become a mem- ber, Jenkins having retired from the hardware line and bought a small tract of quagmire. Some time ago a man told me that he had been down to Oatmealshire to Bee his tenantry. Of course he was not aware that I knew that he was the owner of just one farm. ' This is my parish we have entered,' said a youth of clerical ap- pearance to me in a railway carriage. In one sense it THE RAILWAY TRAIN. 231 was ; but he would not have said so had he been aware that I knew he was the curate, not the rector. ' How can Brown and his wife get on ? ' a certain person observed to me ; ' they cannot possibly live : they will starve. Think of people getting married with not more than eight or nine hundred a year T How dignified the man thought he looked as he made the remark ! It was a fine thing to represent that he could not understand how human being,^ could do what he was well aware was done by multitudes of wiser people than himself. ' It is a cheap horse that of Wiggins's,' remarked Mr. Figgins ; ' it did not cost more than seventy or eighty pounds.' Poor silly Fig- gins fancies that all who hear him will conclude that his own broken-kneed hack (bought For £25) cost at least £loO. Oh, silly folk who talk big, and then think you are adding to your importance, don't you know that you are merely making fools of yourselves ? In nine cases out of ten the person to whom you are relating your exag- gerated story knows what the precise fact is. He is too polite to contradict you and to tell you the truth, but rely on it he knows it. No one believes the vapouring story told by another man ; no, not even the man who fancies that his own vapouring story is believed. Every one who knows anything of the world knows how, by an accompanying process of mental arithmetic, to make the deductions from the big story told, which will bring it down to something near the truth. Frequently has my friend Mr. Snooks told me of the crushing retort by which he shut up Jeffrey upon a memorable occasion. I can honestly declare that I never gave credence to a syl- lable of what he said. Repeatedly has my friend Mr. Longbow told me of his remarkable adventure in the Bay of Biscay, when a whale veiy nearly swallowed 232 now I MUSED m hira. Never once did I fail to listen with every mark of implicit belief to my friend's narrative, but do you think I believed it ? And more than once has Mrs. O'Callu- ghan assured me that the hothouses on her fawther's (isteet were three miles in length, and that each cluster of grapes grown on that favoured spot weighed above a liundred weight. With profound respect I gave ear to all she said; but, gentle daughter of Eiin, did you think I was as soft as I seemed ? You may just as well tell the truth at once, ye big talkers, for everybody will know it, at any rate. It is a sad pity when parents, by a long course of big talking and silly pretension, bring up their children with ideas of their own importance which make them appear ridiculous, and which are rudely dissipated on their enter- ing into life. The mother of poor Lollipop, when he went to Cambridge, told me that his genius was such that he was sure to be Senior Wrangler. And possibly he might have been if he had not been plucked. It is peculiarly irritating to be obliged to listen to a vapouring person pouring out a string of silly exagger- ated stories, all tending to show how great the vapouring person is. Politeness forbids your stating that you don't believe them. I have sometimes derived comfort under such an infliction from making a memorandum, mentally, nnd then, like Captain Cuttle, ' making a note ' on the earliest opportunity. By taking this course, instead of being iii'itated by each successive stretch, you are rather gratified by the number and the enormity of them. I hereby give notice to all ladies and gentlemen whose conscience tells them that they are accustomed to vapour, that it is not improbable that I have in my possession a written list of remarkable statements made by them. It THE KAIL WAY TEAIN. 233 IS possible that they would look rather blue if they were permitted to see it. Let me add, that it is not always vapouring to talk of one's self, even in terms which imply a compliment. It was not vapouring when Lord Tenterden, being Lord Chief Justice of England, standing by Canterbury Cathe- dral with his son by his side, pointed to a little barber'3 shop, and said to the boy, ' I never feel proud except when I remember that in that shop your grandfather eliaved for a penny!' It was not vapouring when Burke wrote, ' I was not rocked, and swaddled, and dandled into a legislator : Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me ! ' It was not vapouring when Milton wrote that he had in himself a conviction that ' by labour and intent study, which he took to be his portion in this life, he might leave to after ages something so written as that men should not easily let it die.' Nor was it vapouring, but a pleasing touch of nature, when the King of Siam begged our ambassador to assure Queen Victoria that a letter which he sent to her, in the English language, was composed and written entirely by himself. It is not vapouring, kindly reader, when upon your return home after two or three days' absence, your little son, aged four years, climbs upon your knee, and begs you to ask his mother if he has not been a very good boy when you were away ; nor when he shows you, with great pride, the medal which he has won a few years later. It is not vapouring when the gallant man who heroically jeoparded life and limb for the women's and children's sake at Lucknow, wears the Victoria Cross over his brave heart. Nor is it a ])iece of national vapouring, though it is, sure enough, an appeal to proud remera- brancHs. when England preserves religiously the stout 2.31 RAILWAY MUSINGS. old Victory, and points strangers to the spot where Nel- son fell and died. But a shrieking whistle jells in mj ear: ray musings are suddenly pulled up. The hundred miles are trav- ersed: the train is slackening its speed. It was half- past seven when we started : it is now about half-past eleven. "We draw alongside the platform : there are faces I know. I see a black head over the palisade : that is my horse. It would be vapouring to say that my carriage awaits me ; for though it has four wheels, it is drawn by no more than four legs. Drag out a portman- teau from under the seat, exchange a cap for a hat, open the door, jump out, bundle away home. And then, per- haps, I may tell some unknown friends who have the patience to read my essays, How I mused in the railway train. CHAPTER VIII. CONCERNmG THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF THE DWELLING. I HEN the great Emperor Napoleon was packed off to Elba, he had, as was usual with liim, a sharp eye to theatrical effect. Indeed that distinguished man, during the period of his great elevation as well as of his great down- fall, was subject, in a degree almost unexampled, to the tyranny of a principle which in the case of commonplace people finds expression in the representative inquiry, ' What will Mrs. Grundy say ? ' Whenever Napoleon was about to do anything particular, or was actually doing anything particular, he was always thinking to nimself, ' What will Mrs. Grundy say ? ' Of course hii Mrs. Grundy was a much bigger and much more impor- tant individual than your Mrs. Grundy, my reader. Tour Mrs. Grundy is the ill-natured, tattling old tabby who lives round the corner, and whose window you feel as much afraid to pass as if it were a battery command- ing the pavement, and as if the ugly old woman's baleful eyes were so many Lancaster guns. Or perhaps your Mrs. Grundy is the goodnatured friend (as described by Mr. Sheridan) who is always ready to tell you of anything '»ie has heard to your disadvantage, but who would not 5^36 THE MORAL IXFLUEXCES for the world repeat tc you any kind or pleasant remark, lest the vanity thereby fostered should injuriously affect your moral development. But Napoleon's Mrs. Grundy consisted of Great Britain and Ireland, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switz- erland, the United States ; in brief, to Napoleon, Mrs. Grundy meant Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. And really, when a man is asking himself what the whohj civilized world will think and say about what he ia doing, and when he feels quite sure that it will think and say something, it is excusable if in what he does he has an eye to what Mrs. Grundy will think and say. Accordingly, when the great Emperor was forced to exchange the imperial throne of France for the sover- eignty of that little speck in the Mediterranean, his first and most engrossing reflection on his journey to Elba was, what will Mrs. Grundy say ? And many thoughts not very pleasant to an ambitious man of unphilosophical temperament, would be suggested by the question. He would naturally think, Mrs. Grundy will be chuckling over my downfall. Mrs. Grundy will be saying that I, and all my aspirations and hopes, have been fearfully smashed. Mrs. Grundy will be saying, that it serves me right for my impudence. Mrs. Grundy will be sayina- (kindly) that it will do me a great deal of good. Ami- able and benevolent old lady ! Mrs. Grundy will be saying that I am now going away to my exile in very low spirits, feeling very bitter, very much disappointed, very thoroughly humbled, — going away (only Napoleon had not i-ead Swift) in the extremity of impotent fury to ' die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' Mrs. Grundy Avill be saying that when I get to Elba finally, I shall lead a poor life there ; kicking about the dogs and OF THE DWELLING. 237 cats, swearing at the servants, whacking the horses viciously, perhaps even throwing plates at the attendants' heads. Such, the Emperor would think, will be the say- ings of Mrs. Grundy. And the Emperor, not a man of resigned or philosophical temper, would know that in all this Mrs. Grundy would be nearly right. But at all events, says Napoleon to himself, she shall not have tlio satisfaction of thinking that she is so. I shall mortify Mrs. Grundy by making her think that I am perfectly jolly. I shall get her to believe that all this humiliation which she has heaped upon me is impotent to touch me where I can really feel. She shall think that she has not found the raw. And so, when Napoleon settled at Elba — stamped upon his coin, engraven upon his silver plate, emblazoned on his carriage panels, written upon his very china and crockery, — there blazed forth in Mrs. Grundy's view the defiant words, Zfbicunque felix ! Now, had Mrs, Grundy had much philosophic insight into human conduct and motives, she would have known that her purpose of humiliation and embitterment was attained, and that all her ill-set sayings had proved right. It was because in Elba the great exile was a bitterly dis- appointed man, that he so ostentatiously paraded before the world the assurance that he was ' happy anywhere.' It was because he thought so much of Mrs. Grundy, and attached so much importance to what she might say, that he hung out this flag of defiance. If he had really been as happy and as independent of outward circumstancea as he said he was, he would not have taken the trouble to say so. Had Napoleon said nothing about himself, but begun to grow cabbages and train flowers, and grow tat and.rosy, we should not have needed the motto. But if any man, Emperor or not, trumpet forth on the house- 238 THE MORAL INFLUENCES tops that he is uhicunque felix ; and if we find him walk- ing moodily by the sea-shore, with a knitted brow and absent air, and a very poor appetite, why, my reader, the answer to his statement may be conveyed, inarticulately, by a low and prolonged whistle ; or articulately, by an advice to address that statement to the marines. If there be a thing which I detest, it is a diffuse and rambling style. Let any writer always treat his subject in a manner terse and severely logical. My own model i.5 Tacitus, and the earlier writings of Bacon. Let a man Bay in a straightforward way what he has got to say ; and the more briefly the better. And above all, young writer, avoid that fashion which is set by the leading articles of the Times, of beginning your observations upon a subject with something which to the ordinary mind appears tc have nothing earthly to do with it. By carefully carry- ing out the advices here tendered to you, you may ulti- mately, after several years of practice, attain to a lim- ited success as an obscure third-rate essayist. Napoleon, then (to resume our argument after this lit- tle excursus), paraded before the world the declaration that it did not matter to him wliere he might be ; he would be ' happy anywhere.' What tremendous non- sense he talked ! Why, setting aside altogether such great causes of difference as an unhealthy climate, stupid society or no society at all, usefulness or uselessness, hon- our or degradation, — I do not hesitate to say that the Bccnery amid which a man lives, and the house in which he lives, have a vast deal to do with making him what he is. Tiie same man (to use an expression which is only seemingly Hibernian) is an entirely different man when put in a different place. Life is in itself a neutral thing, colourless and tasteless ; it takes its colour and its fla- OF THE DWELLING. 239 rour from the scenes amid which we lead it. It is like water, which external influences may make the dirtiest or cleanest, the bitterest or sweetest, of all things. Life, char- acter, feeling, are things very greatly dependent on exter- nal influences. In a larger sense than the common saying is usually understood, we are 'the creatures of circum- stances.' Only very stolid people are not affected by the scenes in which they live. I do not mean to say that an aj)preciable difference will be produced on a man's charac- ter by varied classes of scenery ; that is, that the same man will be appreciably different, morally, according as you place him for days on a rocky, stormy coast ; on a level sandy shore ; inland in a fertile wooded country ; inland among bleak wild hills ; among Scotch firs with their long bare poles ; horse-chestnuts blazing with their June blos- soms ; or thick full laurels, and yews, and hollies, thick to the ground, and shutting an external world out. I do not mean to say that ordinary people will feel any appreciable variation of the moral and spiritual atmosphere, traceable for its cause to such variety of scene. A man must be fashioned of very delicate clay, he must have a nervous system very sensitive, morbidly sensitive perhaps, if such things as these very decidedly determine what he shall be, morally and intellectually, for the time. Yet no doubt such matters have upon many human beings a real effect. If you live in a country house into whose grounds you enter through a battlemented gateway under a lofty arch ; if the great leaves of the massive oak and iron gate are swung back to admit you, as you pass from the road outside to the sequestered pleasance within, where the grass, the gravel, the evergreens, the flowers, the winding paths, the little pond, the noisy little brook that passes beneath the rustic bridge, are all cut off from 240 THE MORAL INFLUENCES tlie outer world bj a tall battlemented wall, too tall for leaping or looking over, — I think that, at first at least, you will have a different feeling all day, you will be a different man all day, for that arched gateway and that battlemented wall. You will not feel as if you had come in by a common five-bar gate, painted green, hung from freestone pillars, five or six feet high, and shaded with laurels. It is wonderful what an effect is produced tipon many minds by even a single external circum- stance such as that ; nor can I admit that there is any- thing morbid in the mind which is affected by such things. A very little thing, a solitary outward fact, may, by the influence of associations not necessarily personal, become idealized into something whose flavour reaches, like salt in cookery, perceptibly through all life. ' You may laugh as you please,' says one of the most thoughtful and de- lightful of English essayists, 'but life seems somewhat insupportable to me without a pond — a squarish pond, not over clean.' You and I do not know, my readers, what early recollections may have made such a little piece of water something whose presence shall appreci- ably affect the genial philosopher's feeling day by day, and hour by hour. The savour of its presence (I don't speak materially) may reach everywhere. And if there be anything which that writer is not, he is not morbid ; and he is not fanciful in the sense in which a fanciful per- son means a chronicler of morbid impressions. And we all remember the little child in Wordsworth's poem, who persisted in expressing a decided preference for one place in the country above another which appeared likely to have greater attractions ; and who, when pressed for his reasons, did, after much reflection, fix upon a single fact as the cause of his preference : — OF THE DWELLING. 241 At Kilve there was no weathercock; And that's the reason why. No one can tell how that weathercock may have ob- truded itself upon the little man's dreams, or how thor- oughly its presence may have permeated all his life. I know a little child, three years and a half old, whose en- lire life for many weeks appeared embittered by the pres- ence of a dinner-bell upon the hall-table of her home. She could not be induced to go near it; she trembled with terror when she heard it rung : it fulfilled for her the part of Mr. Thackeray's famous skeleton. And I am very sure that we have all of us dinner-bells and weather- cocks which haunt and worry us, and squarish ponds which give a savour to our life. And for any ordinary mortal to say that he is ubicunque felix is pure nonsense. Napoleon found it was nonsense even at Elba; and at 8t. Helena he found it yet more distinctly. No man can say truly that he is the same wherever he goes. That sub- lime elevation above outward circumstances is not attain- able by beings all of whom are half, and a great many of whom are a good deal more than half, material. We are all moral chameleons ; and we take the colour of the ob- jects among which we are placed. Here am I this morning, writing on busily. I am all alone in a quiet little study. The prevailing colour around me is green — the chairs, tables, couches, book- cases, are all of oak, rich in colour, and growing dark Ihrough age, but green predominates : window-curtains, table-co\ers, carpet, rug, covers of chairs and couches, are green. I look through the window, which is some distance off, right belbre me. The window is set in a frame of green leaves : it looks out on a quiet corner of the garden. There is a wall not far off green with ivy and 16 242 THE MORAL INFLUENCES other climbing plants ; there is a bi-ight little bit of turf like emerald, and a clump of evergreens varying ia shade. Over the wall I see a round green hill, crowned by oaks which autumn has not begun to make sere. How quiet everything is ! I am in a comparatively re- mote part of the house, and there is no sound of house- hold life ; no pattering of little feet ; no voices of ser- vants in discussion less logical and calm than mi"Iit b(5 desired. The timepiece above the fire-place ticks audi- bly ; the fire looks sleepy ; and I know that I may sit here all day if I please, no one interrupting me. No man worth speaking of will spend his ordinary day in idleness ; but it is pleasant to think that one may divide one's time and portion out one's day at one's own will and pleasure. Such a mode of life is still possible in this country : we do not all as yet need to live in a ceaseless hurry, ever drive, driving on till the worn-out machine breaks down. By and bye this life of unfeverish industry, and of work whose results are tangible only to people of cultivation, will no doubt cease ; and it will tend mate- rially to hasten that consummation when the views of the Times are carried out, and all the country clergy are re- /juired to keep a diary like a rural policeman, showing how each hour of their time is spent, and open to the in- spection of their employers. Now, in a quiet scene like this, where there is not even the little noise of a village near, though I can hear the murmur of a pretty large river, must not the ordinary human being be a very dif- ferent being from what he would be were he sitting in some gas-lighted counting-house in Manchester, turning over large vellum-bound volumes, adding long rows of figures, talking on sales and prices to a hundred and fifty people in the course of the day, looking out through the OF THE DWELLING. 243 window upon a foggy atmosphere, a muddy pavement, a crowded street, huge drays lumbering by with their great horses, with a general impression of noise, hurry, smoke, dirt, confusion, and no rest or peace ? It would be an interesting thing for some one equal to the task to go over Addison's papers in the Spectator, and try to make out the shade of difference in them which might be con- ceived as resulting from the influences of the place where they were severally written. It is generally understood that the well-known letters by which Addison distin- guished his essays referred to the places where they wei-e composed ; the letters in the Clio indicating Chel- sea, London, Islington, and the Office. Did the sensi- tive, shy genius feel that in the production dated from each scene there would be some trace of what Yan- kees call the surroundings amid which it was produced? No doubt a mind like Addison's, impassive as he was, would turn off' very different material according to the conditions in which the machine was working. As for Dick Steele, probably it made very little difference to him where he was : at the coffeehouse table, with noise and bustle all about him, he would write as quietly as though he had been quietly at home. He was indurated by long usage ; the hide of a hippopotamus is not sensi- tive to gentle influences which would be felt by your soft hand, my fair friend. But in the case of ordinary educated men there is no greater fallacy than that sug- gested by that vile old subject for Latin themes, that caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt. Ordinary people, in changing the caelum, undergo a great change of the animus too. A judicious man would be extremely afraid of marrying any girl in PIngland, and forthwith taking her out to India with him; for it would 244 THE MORAL INFLUENCES be quite certain that she would be a very different per* son there from what she had been here ; and how differ- ent and in what mode altered and varied only experience could show. So one might marry one woman in York- shire, and live with quite another at Boggley-wollah ; and in marriage it is at least desirable to know what it is you are getting. Every one knows people who are quite different people according as they are in town or coun- try. I know a man — an exceedingly clever and learned man — who in town is sharp, severe, hasty, a very little bitter, and just a shade ill-tempered, who on going to the country becomes instantly genial, frank, playful, kind, and jolly : you would not know him for the same man if his face and form changed only half as much as his intel- lectual and moral nature. Many men, when they go to the country, just as they put off frock-coats and stiff slocks, and put on loose shooting suits, big thick shoes, a loose soft handkerchief round their neck ; just as they pitch away the vile hard hat of city propriety that pinches, ci'amps, and cuts the hapless head, and replace it by the light yielding wideawake ; do mentally pass through a like process of relief: their whole spiritual being is looser, freer, less tied up. Such changes as that from town to country must, I should think, be felt by all educated people, and make an appreciable difference in the moral condition of all educated people. Few men would feel the same amid the purple moors round Ha- worth, and amid the soft English scenery that you see from Richmond Hill. Some individuals, indeed, whose mind is not merely torpid, may carry the same animus with them wherever thev "o ; but their animus must be a very bad one. Mr. Scrooge, before his change of nature, was no doubt quite independent of external circum- OF THE DWELLING. 243 Stances, and would no doubt have thought it proof of great weakness had he not been so. Nor was it a being of an amiable chai-acter in whose mouth MiUon has put the words, ' No matter where, so / be still the same ! And even in his mouth the sentiment was rather vapour- ing than true. But a dull, heavy, prosaic, miserly, cantankerous, cynical, suspicious, bitter old rascal would probably be much the same anywhere. Such a man's nature is indurated against all the influences of scenery, as much as the granite rock against sunshine and showers. I dare say there are few people who do not uncon- sciously admit the principle of which so much has been said. Few people can look at a pretty tasteful villa, all gables, turrets, bay windows, twisted chimneys, veran- dahs, and balconies, set in a pleasant little expanse of shrubbery, with some fine forest-trees, a green bit of open lawn, and some winding walks through clumps of evergreens, without tacitly concluding that the people who live there must lead a very different life from that which is led in a dull smoky street, and a blackened, gardenless, grassless, treeless house in town ; very dif- ferent even from the life of the people in the tasteless square stuccoed box, with a stiff' gravel walk going up to its door, a few hundred yards off. If you are hav- ing a day's sail in a steamer, along a pretty coast dotted with pleasant villages, you cannot repress some notion that the human beings whom you see loitering about there upon the rocks, in that pure air and genial idle- ness, are beings of a different order from those around you. You feel that to set foot on that pier, and to min- gle with that throng, would carry you away a thousand miles in a moment ; and make you as different from what you are a;^ though you had suddenly dropt from 246 THE MORAL INFLUENCES the sky into that quiet voluptuous valley of Typee, where Hermann Melville was so perfectly happy till he discovered that all the kindness of the natives was intended to make him the fatter and more j)alatable against that festival at which he was to be eaten. And no wonder that he felt comfortable, if that happy valk-y was indeed what he assures us it was : There were no cares, griefs, troubles, or vexations, in all Fj-poc There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity. There were no foreclosures of mortgages, no protested notes, no bills payable, no debts of honour, in Typee; no unreasonable tailors or shoemakers perversely bent on being paid, no duns of any descrip- tion, no assault and battery attorneys to foment discord, backing their clients up to a quaiTel, and then knocking their heads together; no poor relations everlastingly occupying the spare bedchamber, and diminishing the elbowroom at the family-table; no destitute widows, with their children starving on the cold charities of the world; no beggars, no debtors' prisons, no proud and hard-hearted nabobs in Tj-pee; or, to sum up all in one word, — no Money ! That root of all evil was not to be found in the valley. In this secluded abode of happiness there were no cross old women, no cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no love-sick maidens, no 6our old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no blubbering youngsters, and no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun, and high good humour. It is pleasant to read such a description. It is like being carried suddenly from the Royal Exchange on a crowded afternoon, to a gi'assy, shady bank by the side of a country river. Probably most of us have ti-av- elled by railway through a wild country ; and jrhen we stopped at some remote station among the hills, have wondered how the people there live, and thought bow different their life must be from ours. Nor is it a mere fancy tliat takes possession of us when we look at the pretty Elizabethan dwelling, the thought of which OF TIIL DWELLING. 247 carried us all the way to the South Pacific. If people are calm enough to be susceptible of external impres- sions, life really is very different there. I do not say it is necessarily happier ; but it is very different. Habit, indeed, equalizes the practical enjoyment of all lots, ex- cepting only those of extreme suffering and degrada- tion. Whatever level you get to in the scale of advan- tage, you soon get so accustomed to it that you do not mind much about it. When I used to study metaphys- ical philosophy, I remember that it appeared to me that this thought supplies by far the most serious of all objections to the doctrine (as taught by nature) of the Divine benevolence. It is a graver objection than the existence of positive eviL T/tat may be conceived to be in some way inevitable ; but why should it be that to get a thing instantly diminishes its value to half? I can think of a reason why ; and a good reason too : but it is not drawn from the domain of philosophy. A poor fellow, toiling weal ily along the dusty road, thinks how happy that man must be who is just now passing him, leaning back upon the cushions of that luxurious car- riage, swept along by that pair of smoking thorouglb breds. Of course the poor fellow is mistaken. Thf man in the carriage is no happier than he. And, in- deed, I can say conscientiously that the very saddest, most peevish, most irritable, and most discontented faces I have ever seen, I have seen looking out of extremely Iiandsome carriage-windows. Luxury destroys real en joymerit. There is more real enjoyment in riding in a wlieelbairow than in driving in a carriage and four. Who does not remember the keen relish of the rapid run in tint wheelbarrow of early youth, bumping and •'^ling about, and finally turning a corner at full speed 248 THE MORAL INFLUENCES and upsettiug ? "Who does not remember the dehght of the little springless carriage that threatened to dislocate and grind down the bones ? But it is indeed much to be lamented, that merely to get near the possession of any coveted thing instantly changes the entire look of it : it may still appear very good and desirable : but the romance is gone. When I\Ir. John Campbell, Student of Theology in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, N. B., was working away at his Hebrew, or drilling the lads to whom he acted as tutor, and living sparingly on a few pounds a year, he v;ould no doubt have thought it a tremendous thing if he had been told that he would yet be a peer — that he would be, first Lord Chief Justice and then Lord High Chancellor of England — and that he would, upon more than one great occasion, preside over the assembled aristocracy of Britain. But as he got on step by step the gradation took off the force of contrast : each successive step appeared natural enough, no doubt : and now, when he is fairly at the top of the tree, if that most amiable and able Judge should ever wish to realize his elevation, I suppose he can do so only by recurring in thought to the links of St. Andrews, and to the days when he drilled his pupils in Latin and Greek. Student of Divinity, newspaper reporter, utter barrister, King's Counsel, Solicitor-General, Member for Edinburgh, Attorney-General, Baron Campbell of St. Andrews, Chief Justice of England, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain — each successive point was natural enough when won, though the end made a great change from the Manse of Cupar. And when another Scotch clergyman's son, from a parish adjoining that of Lord Campbell's father, also went up to London about the same time, a poor struggling artist, he and all his family OF THE DWELLING. 249 would doubtless have thought it a grand elevation, h&,d they been told that he was to become one of the most distinguished members of the Royal Academy. There is something intensely aifecting in the letters which the minister of Cults (it was a very poor living) sent to his boy in London, saying that he could, by {)inch- ing, send him, if needful, four or five pounds. But be- fore Sir David became the great man he grew, old Mr. Wilkie was in his grave : ' his son came to honour, and he knew it not.' No doubt it was better as it was ; but if you or I, kindly reader, had had the ordering of things, the worthy man should have lived to see what would have gladdened his simple heart at last. Still, making every deduction for the levelling result of getting used to things, a great deal of the enjoyment of life, high or low, depends on the scenery amid which one dwells, and the house in whicli one lives — 1 mean the house regarded even in a merely ajsthetic point of view. It needs no argument to prove that if one's abode is sub- ject to the grosser physical disadvantages of smoky chim- neys, damp walls, neighbouring bogs, incurable draughts, ratthng windows, unfitting doors, and the like, the result upon the temper and the views of the man thus afflicted will not be a pleasing one. A constant succession of little contemptible worries tends to foster a querulous, grumbling disposition, which renders a human being dis- agreeable to himself and intolerable to' his friends. Iteal, great misfortunes and trials may serve to ennoble the character ; but ever-recurring petty ainioyances pro- duce a littleness and irritability of mind. And while great misfortune at once engages our sympathy, petty annoyances ill boi'ne make the suflerer a laughing-stock. There is something dignified in Napoleon smashed at 250 THE MORAL INFLUENCES Waterloo : there is nothing fine about Napoleon at St Helena, swearing at his ill-made soup, and cursing up and down stairs at his insufficient allowance of clean shirts. But I am not now talking of abodes pressed by physical inconveniences. It is somewhat of a trui-\ra to say a man cannot be comfortable when he is uncomfort- able ; and that is the sum of what is to be said on that head. I mean now that one's home, sesthetically regarded, has much influence upon our enjoyment of life. It is a great matter towards making the best of this world (and possibly, too, of the next), that our dwelling shall be a pretty one, a pleasant one, and placed amid pleasant scenes. It is a constant pleasure to Jive in such a home ; and it is a still greater pleasure to make it. I do not think I have ever seen happier people, or people who appeared more thoroughly enviable, than people who have been building a pretty residence in the country. Of course they must be building it for themselves to have the full satisfaction of it ; also it must not be too large ; and finally, it must not be bigger nor grander than they can afford. The last-named point is essential. A duke inherits his castle — he did not build it ; and it is too large and splendid for the peculiar feeling which I am describing. It has its own peculiar charms : the charm of vastness of dwelling and domain ; the charm of hoary age and historic memories, and of connexion with departed ancestors, and of associations which the mil- lions of the parvenu cannot buy. But it lacks the especial charm which Scott felt when he was building Abbotsford ; and which lesser men feel when sitting on a stone on a summer morning, and watching the walls going up, listening to tlie clinking of the chisel, planning out the few acres of ground, and idealizing the life which ia OF THE DWELLING. 251 lo be led there ; seeing with half-closed eyes that muddy wheel-cut expanse all green and trim ; and little Jamie running about the walk which will be there in after-days ; and little Lucy diligently planting weeds in the corner ■where her garden will be. Here, surely, we think, tho last days or years may peacefully go by ; and here may we, though somewhat scarred in the battle of life, and somewhat worn with its cares, find a quiet haven at last. To me it is always pleasant reading when I fall in with books about planning and building such homes as these. At the mention of the Cottage, and even of the Villa (though I don't like that latter word, it sounds vulgar and cockneyfied and affected; but I fear we must accept it, for there is no other which conveys the idea of the modest yet elegant country-house for people of refine- ment, but not of great means), there rises up before the mind's-eye, as if by an enchanter's wand, a whole life of quiet enjoyment. Surely, life in the cottage or the country-house might be made a very pleasing, pure, and happy thing. In that unbreathed air, amid those beauti- ful scenes, surrounded by the gentle processes and teach- ings of nature, it is but that outward nature and human life should, on some fair summer day, be wrought into a happy conformity ; and we should need no other heaven. Take the outward creation at her best, and for all the thorns and thistles of the Fall, she would do ye( ! I find a great pleasure in reading books of practical architecture : and I have lately found out one by an American architect, one Mr. Calvert Vaux, which car- ries one into fresh fields. It is a large handsome volume, luxurious in the size of its type, and admirable for the excellence of its abundant illustrations. I have more to say of its contents by-aiid-bye, and shall here say only, 252 THE MOEAL INFLUENCES that to read such a book with pleasure, the reader must have some little imagination and a good deal of sympa- thy, so as not to rest on mere architects' designs and builders' specifications, but to picture out and enter into the quiet life which these suggest. Everything depends upon that. Therein lies the salt of such a book. The enjoyment of all things beyond eating and drinking arises out of our idealizing them. Do you think that a child who will spend an hour delightedly in galloping round the garden on his horse, which horse is a stick, regards that stick as a mere bit of wood ? No : that stick is to him instinct wdth imaginings of a pony's pattering feet and shaggy mane, and erect little ears. It is not so long since the writer was accustomed to ride on horseback in that inexpensive fashion, but what he can remember all that the stick was ; and remember too how sometimes fancy would Hag, the idealizing power would break down, and from being a horse the stick became merely a stick, a dull, wearisome, stupid thing. And of what little things imagination, thus elevating and enchanting them, can make how much! You remember the poor little solitary girl, in the wretched kitchen of Sally Brass, in the Old Curiosity Shop. Never was there life more bare of anything like enjoyment than the life which tliat poor creature led. Think, you folk who grumble at your lot, of a life whose features are sketched by such lines as a dark cellar, utter solitude, black beetles, cold potatoes, cuffs and kicks. Yet the idealizing power could convey some faint tmge of enjoyment even into the cellar of House of Brass. The poor little thing, when she made the acquaintance of Mr. Richard Swiveller, inquired of him had he ever tasted orange-peel wine. How was it made, he asked. The recipe was simple : OF TUF D-\V^ELLING. 253 take a tumbler of cold water, put a little bit of orange- peel into it, and the beverage is ready for use. It has not much taste, added the little solitary, unless you make believe very much. Sound and deep little philosopher ! We must apply the same prescription to life, and all by which life is surrounded. You are not to accept thora 13 bare prosaic facts : you must make believe very much. Scott made believe very much at Abbotsford ; we all make believe very much at Christmas-tirae. Likewise at sight of the first snowdrop in springs after we have begun to grow old ; also when hawthorn blossoms and lilacs come again. And what a bare, cold, savourless life is sketched by the memorable lines which set before us the entire character of a man who could not make believe : — In vam, through every changing year, Did nature lead him as before ; A primrose by a river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, — And it was nothing more ! Let me recommend to the man with a taste for such subjects, Mr. Sanderson's Rural Architecture, a neat little manual of a hundred pages, with a number of drawings and ground-plans of labourers' cottages, pi'etty little villas, village schools, and farm-steadings. And any reader may call it his upon payment of one shilling. To the man who has learned to make believe, there will be more than a shilling's worth of enjoyment in the frontis- piece, which is a plain but pretty Gothic cottage, sur- rounded with trees, a little retired from the road, which is reached througl a neat rustic gatev/ay, and with the spire of a village church two hundred yards off, peeping through trees and backed by quiet fields rising into hills 254 THE MORAL INFLUENCES of no more than English height. A footpath winds through the field towards the clump of wood in which stands the church. The book is a sensible and well- informed one. Its author tells us, but not till the seven- tieth page of his hundred, that he is ' simply desirous of having an agreeable half-hour's chat with the reader who may take a fancy to indulge in the instructive pas time of building his own house, and who does not please to appear thoroughly ignorant of the matter he is about.' Mr. Sanderson appears from his book to have but a poor opinion of human nature. He is by no means a ' confidence-man.' The book is full of cautions as to the necessity of closely watching work-people lest they should cheat you, and do their work in a dishonest and insufficient manner. I lament to say that my own little experience leads me to think that these cautions are by no means unnecessary. I do not think that builders and carpenters are as bad as horsedealers, whose word no man in his senses should regard as of the worth of a pin ; but it is extremely advisable to keep a sharp eye upon them while their work is progressing. Work improperly done, or done with insufficient materials, will certainly cause much expense and annoyance at a future day; still, the constantly-recurring statements as to the likelihood of fraud, leave on one's mind an uncomfortable impression. Our race is not in a sound state. But perhaps it is too severe to judge that a decent-looking and well-to-do indi- vidual is a dishonest man, merely because he will at any time tell a lie to make a little money by it. There is a satisfaction in finding confirmation of one's own views in the writings of other men ; and so 1 quote with pleasure the following from Dr. Southwood Smith : — OF THE DWELLING. 255 A clean, fresh, and well-ordered house exercises over its inmates a moral, no less than a physical influence, and has a direct tendency to make the members of the family sober, peaceable, and considerate of the feelings and happiness of each other; nor is it difficult to trace a connexion between habitual feelings of this sort and the formation of habits of respect for property, for the laws in general, and even for those higher duties and obligations the observance of which no laws can enforce. Whereas, a filthy, squalid, unwholesome dwelling, in which none of the decencies common to society — even in the lowtist stage of civilization — are or can be observed, tends to make every dweller in such a hovel regardless of the feelings and happiness of each other, selfish, and sensuaL And the connexion is obvious be- tween the constant indulgence of appetites and passions of this class, and the formation of habits of idleness, dishonesty, debauchery, and violence. There is something very touching in a description in Household Words of the moral results of wretched dwell- ings, such as those in parts of Bethnal-green, in the east- ern region of London. Misery and anxiety have here crushed energy out ; the people are honest, but they are palsied by despair : — The people of this district are not criminal. A lady might walk unharmed at midnight through their wretched lanes. Crime demands a certain degree of energy; but if there were ever any harm in these well-disposed people, it has been tamed out of them by sheer want. They have been sinking for years. Ten years ago, or less, the men were politicians; now, they have sunk below that stage of discontent. They are generally very still and hopeless; cherishing each other; tender not only towards their own kin, but towards their neighbours; and they are subdued by sorrow to a manner strangely resembling the quiet and refined tone of the most polished circles. Very true to nature ! How well one caa understand the state of mind of a poor man quite cru.-hed and spirit- broken : poisoned by ceaseless anxiety ; with no heart to do anything ; many a time wishing that he might but creep into a quiet grave ; and mcanwliile trying to shrink out of sight and slip by unnoticed ! Despair nerves for 256 THE MORAL IXFLUEXCES a little while, but constant care saps, and poisons, and palsies. Nor does it do so in Bethnal-green alone, or only in dwellings which are undrained and unventilated, and which cannot exclude rain and cold. Elsewhere, aa many of my readers have perhaps learned for themselves, (t has shattered many a nervous system, unstrung many a once vigorous mind, crushed down many a once hope- ful spirit, and aged many a man who should have been young by his years. I suppose it is now coming to be acknowledged by all men of sense, that it is a Christian duty to care for our fellow-creatures' bodies as well as for their souls ; and that it is hateful cant and hypocrisy to pray for the re- moval of diseases which God by the revelations of Na- ture has taught us may be averted by the use of physical means, while these means have not been faithfully em- ployed. When cholera or typhus comes, let us white- wash blackened walls, flush obstructed sewers, clear away intermural pigsties, abolish cesspools, admit abundant air and light, and supply unstinted water : — and having done all we can, let us then pray for God's blessing upon what we have done, and for His protection from the plague which by these means we are seeking to hold away from us. Prayers and pains must go together alike in the physical and in the spiritual world. And I think it is now coming to be acknowledged by most rational beings, that Ijouses ought to be pretty as well as healthy i and that houses, even of the humblest class, may be pretty as well as healthy. liy the Creator's kind arrangement, beauty and use go together ; the prettiest house will be the healthiest, tlie most convenient, and the most com- fortable. And I am persuaded that great moral results OF THE DT^'ELLING. *^57 follow from people's houses being pretty as well fn healthy. Every one understands at once that a wretched hovel, dirty, ruinous, stifling, bug-infested, dunghill sur- rounded, will destroy any latent love of neatness and orderliness in a poor man ; will destroy the love of home, that preservative against temptation which ranks next ^fter religion in the heart, and send the poor man to the public-house, with all its ruinous temptations. But prob- ably it is less remembered than it ought to be, that the Lome of poor man or well-to-do man ought to be pleas- ing and inviting, as well as healthy. If not, he will not and cannot have the feeling towards it that it is de- sirable he should have. And all this is not less to be sought after in the case of people who are so well off that though their home afford no gratification of taste, and even lack the comfort which does not necessarily come with mere abundance, they are not likely to seek refuge at the ale-house, or to take to sottish or immoral courses of any kind. It makes an educated man domestic, it makes him a lover of neatness and accuracy, it makes him gentle and amiable (I mean in all but very extre^ne cases), to give him a pretty home. I wish it were gen- erally understood that it does not of necessity cost a shil- ling more to build a pretty house of a certain size, than to build a hideous one yielding the like accommodation. Taste costs nothing. If you have a given quantity of building materials to arrange in order, it is just as easy and just as cheap to arrange them in a tasteful and graceful order and collocation, as in a tasteless, irritating, offensive, and disgusting one. Elaborate ornament, of course, costs dear : but it does not need elaborate orna- ment to make a pleasing house which every man of taste will feel enjoyment in looking at. Simple gracefulness is 17 258 THE MORAL IXFLUEXCES all that is essentially needful in cottage and villa archi- tecture. And in this aesthetic age, when there is a gen eral demand for greater beauty in all physical appliances ; when we are getting rid of the vile old willow-oattern, when bedroom crockery must be of graceful form and em- bellishment, when grates and fenders, chairs and couches, window curtains and carpets, oilcloth for lobby flcors and paper for covering walls, must all be designed in con- formity with the dictates of an elevated taste, — it is not too much to hope that the day will come when every hu- man dwelling that shall be built shall be so built and so placed that it shall form a picture pleasant to all men to look at. It is not necessary to say that this implies a considerable change from the state of matters at present existing in most districts of this country. And I trust it is equally unnecessary to say what school of domestic architecture must predominate if the day we w^ish for is ever to come. I trust that all my readers (excepting of course the one impracticable man in each hundred, who always thinks differently from everybody else, and always thinks wrong) will agree with me in holding it as an axiom needing no argument to support it, that every building which ranks under the class of villa or cottage, must, if intended to be tasteful or pleasing, be built in some variety of that grand school which is commonly styled the Gothic. I know quite well that there are many persons in this world who would scout the idea that there is any neces- fiity or any use for people who are not rich, to make any provision for their ideal life, for their taste for the beau- tiful. I can picture to myself some utilitarian old hunks, eharp-nosed, shiivelled-faced, with contracted brow, nar- row Mitcllect, and no feeling or taste at all, who would be OF THE DWELLING. 259 ready (so far as he was able) to ridicule my assertion that it is desirable and possible to provide something to gratify taste and to elevate and refine feeling, in the as- pect and arrangement of even the humblest human dwell- ings. Beauty, some donkeys think, is the right and inheritance of the wealthy alone ; food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof to shelter from the weather, are all that working men should pretend to. And indeed, if the se- cret belief of such dull grovellers were told, it would be that all people with less than a good many hundreds a year are stepping out of their sphere and encroaching on the demesne of their betters, when they aim at making their dwelling such that it shall please the cultivated eye as well as keep off wind and wet. Such mortals cannot understand or sympathize with the gratification arising from the contem[)lation of objects which are graceful and beautiful ; and they think that if there be such a grati- fication at all, it is a piece of impudence in a poor man to aim at it. It is, they consider, a luxury to which he has no right ; it is as though a ploughman should think to have champagne on his simple dimier-table. I verily believe that there are numbers of wealthy men, espe- cially in the ranks of those who have made their own wealth, and who receive little education in youth, who think that the supply of animal necessities is all that any mortal (but themselves, perhaps) can need. I have known of such a man, who said with amazement of a youth whose health and life premature care was sap- ping, ' He is well-fed, and well-dressed, and well-lodged, and what the capital D more can the fellow want ? ' Why, if he had been a horse or a pig, he would have \vantexl nothing more ; but the possession of a rational "^•ul brings with it pressing wants which are not of a ma- 2 GO THE MORAL INFLUENCES terial nature, which are not to be supplied by material things, and which are not felt by pigs and horses. And the craving for surrounding objects of grace and beauty is one of these ; and it cannot be killed out but by many years of sordid money-making, or racking anxiety, or grinding want. The man whose whole being is given to finding food and raiment and sleep, is but a somewhat morp intelligent horse. We have something besides a body, whose needs must be supplied ; or if not sujiplied, then crushed out, and we be brought thus nearer to the condition of being mere soulless bodies. Mr. Vaux has some just remarks on the importance of a pleasant home to the young. It is indeed a wretched thing when, whether from selfish heedlessness or mistaken principle, the cravings of youthful imagination and feeling are sys- tematically ignored, and life toned down to the last and most prosaic level. Says Mr. Vaux — It is not for ourselves alone, but for the sake of our children, that we should love to build our homes, whether they be villas, cottages, or log-houses, beautifully and well. The young people are mostly at home : it is their storehouse for amusement, their opportunity for relaxation, their main resource ; and thus they are exposed to its in- fluence for good or evil unceasingly: their pliable, susceptible minds take in its whole expression with the fullest possible force, and with unerring accuracy. It is only by degrees that the young, hungry soul, born and bred in a hard, unlovely home, accepts the coarse fate to which not the poverty but the indifference of its parents condemns it. It is man}', many years before the irrepressible longing becomej utterly hopeless: perhaps it is never crushed out entirely; but it is so stupitied by slow degrees into despairing stagnation, if a perpetu- ally rfKjurring blank surrounds it, that it often seems to die, and to make no sign: the meagre, jojdess, torpid home atmosphere in which it is forced to vegetate absolutely starves it out; and thus the good intention that the all-wise Creator had in view, when instilling a desire for the beautiful into the life of the infant, is painfully frus- trated. It is frequently from this cause, and from this alone, that an impulsive, high-spirited, liglit-hearted boy will dwindle by degrees OF THE DWELLCnG. 2G1 into a sharp, shrewd, narrow-minded, and selfish youth; from thence again into a prudent, hard, and horny manhood ; and at last into a covetous, unloving, and unloved old age. The single explanation is all-sufficient: he never had a pleasant home.* I tru'^t ray readers will conclude from this brief speci- mer. of Mr. Vaux's quality, that if he be as thoroughly up in the practice of pleasant rural architecture as he is in the philosophy of it, he will be a very agreeable archi- tect indeed. And, in truth, he is so, and his book is a very pleasant one. It is a handsome royal octavo vol- ume of above three hundred pages ; it is prodigally illus- trated with excellent wood-engravings, which show the man who intends building a country-house an abundance of engaging examples from which to choose one. Nor are we shown merely a number of taking views in per- spective ; we have likewise the ground-plan of each floor, showing the size and height of each chamber ; and fur- ther we are furnished with a careful calculation of the probable expense of each cottage or villa. Nor does Mr. Vaux's care extend only to the house proper : he shows some good designs for rustic gateways and fences, and some pretty plans for laying out and planting the piece of shrubbery and lawn which surrounds the abode. Amer- ica, every one knows, is a country where a man must push if he wishes to get on ; he must not be held back by any false modesty ; and Mr. Vaux's book is not free from the suspicion of being a kind of advertisement of its author, who is described on the title-page as ' Calvert Vaux, Architect, late Downing and Vaux, of Newburgh, on the Hudson.' Then, on an otherwise blank page at the end of the volume, we iind in large capitals the signifi- cant inscription, which renders it impossible for any one * Villas and Cottages, pp. 115, 116. 2C2 THE MORAL INFLUENCES who reads the book to say tliat he does not know where to find Mr. Vaux when he wants him : — * Calvert Vaux, Architect, Appleton's Building, 348, Broadway.' American architecture appears to stand in sad need of improvement. Mr. Vaux tells us, no doubt very truly, that ' ugly buildings are the almost invariable rule.' Id that land of measureless forests there is a building ma- terial common, which is little used now in Britain — tc wit, wood. Still, wood will furnish the material for very graceful and picturesque houses, even when in the rude form of logs ; and the true bliglit of housebuilding in America was less the poverty and the hurry of the early colonists, than their puritan hatred and contempt of art, and of everything beautiful. Further,-the democratic spirit could not tolerate the notion of anything being suf- fered to flourish which, as was wrongly thought, was to minister to the delight of only a select few. American houses are for the most part square boxes, with no character at all. They are generally painted white, with bright green blinds : the effect is staring and ugly. In America, a perfectly straight line is esteemed Ihe line of beauty, and a cube the most graceful of forms. Two large gridirons, laid across one another, exhibit the gr'^'ind-plan of the large towns. Two smaller gridirons represent the villages. Mr. Vaux is strong for the use of graceful curves, and for laying out roads with some resard to the formation of the gfound, and the natural features of interest. But a man of taste must meet many mortifications in a country where the following barbarity could be perpetrated : — OF THE DWELLING. 2G3 In a case that recently occurred near a conntrr town at some dis- tance from Xew York, a road was run through a very beautiful estate, one agreeable feature of which was a pretty though small pond, that, even iu the dryest seasons, was always full of water, and would have formed an agreeable adjunct to a country seat. A single straight pencil line on the plan doubtless marked out the direction of the road; and as this line happened to go straight through the pond, straight through the pond was the road accordingly carried, the owner of the estate per- Bona ly superintending the operation, and thus spoiling his sheet of water, diminishing the value of his lands, and incurring expense by the cost of filling-in without any advantage whatever; for a winding load so laid out as to skirt the pond would have been fiir more attract- ive and agreeable than the harsh, straight line that is now scored like a railway track clear through the tmdulating surface of the property; and such barbarisms are of constant occurrence. No doubt they are, and they are of frequent recurrence nearer home. I have known places where, if you are anxious to get a body of men to make any improvement upon a church or school-house, it is necessary that you sliould support your plan solely by considerations of util- ity. Even to suggest the increase of beauty which would result would be quite certain to knock the entire scheme on the head. Some features of American house-building follow from the country and climate. Such are the verandahs, and the hooded windows which form part of the design of every villa and every cottage represented in Mr. Vaux's book. The climate makes these desirable, and even es- senliaL Such, too, is the abundance of houses built of wood, several designs for such houses being of consider- able pretension. And only a hurried and hasty people, with little notion of building for posterity, would accept Jhe statement, that in building witii brick, eight inchea thick are quite enough for the walls of any country-house, however lai'ge. The wry slightest bi'ick walls run up in England are, I believe, at least twelve inches thick. The 2G4r THE MORAL INFLUENCES raatei'ials for roofing are very different from those to which we are accustomed. Slates are little used, having to be brought from England ; tin is not uncommon. Thick canvas is thought to make a good roof when the surface is not great ; zinc is a good deal employed ; but the favourite roofing material is shingle, which makes a "oof pleasing to American eyes. It is agreeably varied in surface, and assumes by age a soft pleasant, neutral tint that harmonizes with any colour that may be used in the building. I am not much captivated by Mr. Vaux's description of the representative American drawing-room, which, it appears, is entitled the best parlour : — The walls are hardfinished white, the woodwork is white, and a white marble niantlepiece is fitted over a fireplace which is never used. The floor is covered with a carpet of excellent quality, and of a large and decidedly sprawling pattern, made up of scrolls and flow- ers in gay and vivid colours. A round table with a cloth on it, and a thin la^'er of books in smart bindings, occupies the centre of the room, and furnishes about accommodation enough for one rather small per- son to sit and write a note at. A gilt minor finds a place between the windows. A sofa occupies irrevocably a well-defined space against the wall, but it is just too short to lie down on, and too high and slippery with its spring convex seat to sit on with any comfort. It is also cleverly managed that points or knobs (of course ornamen- tal and fi-ench-polished) shall occur at all those places towards which a wearied head would naturally tend, if leaning back to snatch a few moments' repose from fatigue. There is also a row of black-walnut chairs, with horse-hair ( ! ) seats, all ranged against the white wall. A couscle- table, too, under the mirror, with a white marble fop and thin gilt brackets. I think there is a piano. There is certainly a tri- angular stand for knickknacks, china, &p., and this, with some chim- ney ornaments, completes the furniture, which is all arranged accord- ing to stiff, immutable law. The windows and Venetian blinds are tightly closed, the door is tightly shut, and the best room is in conse- quence always ready — for what? For daily use? Oh, no; it is in OF THE DWELLING. 265 every way too good for that. For weekly use? Not even for that; but for company use. And thus the choice room, with the pretty view, is sacrificed to keep up a conventional show of tinery which pleases no one, and is a great, though unacknowledged, bore to the pro- prietors. I am not sure that we in this country have much right to laugh at the folly which maintains such chilly and com- fortless apartments. Even so uninhabited and useless in many a drawing-room which I could name on this side of the Atlantic. "What an embodiment of all that is stitT, repellent, and uneasy, are the drawing-rooms of most widow ladies of limited means ! My space does not permit another extract from Mr. Vaux, in which he explains his ideal of the way in which a cottage parlour should be arranged and furnished. Very pleasantly he sketches an unpretending picture, in which snugness and elegance, the utile and the dulce, are happily and inex- pensively combined. But even here Mr. Vaux feels himself pulled up by a vision of a hard-headed and close- fisted old Yankee, listening with indignation, and burst- ing out with ' This will never do ! ' "We talk about houses, ray friend ; we look at houses ; but how little the stranger knows of what they are! Search from cellar to garret some old country house, in which successive generations of boys and girls have grown up, but be sure that the least part of it is that which you can see, and not the most accurate inventory that ever was drawn up by appraiser will include half its belongings. There are old memories crowding about every corner of that home unknown to us : and to minds and hearts far away in India and Australia everything about it is sublimed, saddened, transfigured into something different iiom what it is to you and me. You know for yourself, 266 MORAL INFLUENCES OF THE DWELLING. my reader, whether there be not something not present elsewhere about the window where you sat when a child and learned your lessons, the table once surrounded by many merry young faces which will not surround it again in this world, the fireside where your father sat, the chamber where your sister died. Very little indeed can sense do towards showing us the Home ; or towards showing Us any scene which has been associated with human life and feeling and embalmed in human mem- ories. The same few hundred yards along the seashore, which are nothing to one man but so much ribbed sea- sand and so much murmuring water, may be to another something to quicken the heart's beating and bring the blood to the cheek. The same green path through the spring-clad trees, with the primroses growing beneath them, which lives in one memory year after year with its fresh vividness undiminished, may be in another merely a vague recollection, recalled with diflBculty or not at all. Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart) Our eyes see all around in gloom or glow, — Hues of their owa, firesh borrowed from the heart CHAPTER IX. CONCERNING HURRY AND LEISURE. J, H what a blessing it is to have time to ''^- breathe, and think, and look around one ! I mean, of course, that all this is a blessing •(J) to the man who has been overdriven : who has been living for many days in a breathless hurry, pushing and driving on, trying to get through his work, yet never seeing the end of it, not knowing to what task he ought to turn first, so many are pressing upon him altogether. Some folk, I am informed, like to live in a fever of excitement, and in a ceaseless crowd of occu- pations : but such folk form the minority of the race. Most human beings will agree in the assertion that it is a horrible feeling to be in a hurry. It wastes the tissues of the body ; it fevers the fine mechanism of the brain ; it renders it impossible for one to enjoy the scenes of nature. Trees, fields, sunsets, rivers, breezes, and the like, must all be enjoyed at leisure, if enjoyed at all. There is not the slightest use in a man's paying a hurried visit to the country. He may as well go there blindfold, as go in a hurry. lie will never see the country. He will have a perception, no doubt, of hedgerows and grass, of green lanes and silent cottages, perhaps of great hills and rocks, of various items which eo towards makina the country ; but the country it.-elf he will never see. 268 CONCEEXING HUEKY That feverish atmosphere which he carries with him will distort and transform even individual objects ; but it will utterly exclude the view of the whole. A circling Lon- don fog could not do so more completely. For quiet is the great characteristic and the great charm of country scenes ; and you cannot see or feel quiet when you are not quiet yourself. A man flying through this peaceful valley m an express train at the rate of fifty miles an hour might just as reasonably fancy that to us, its inhab- itants, the trees and hedges seem always dancing, rush- ing, and circling about, as they seem to him in looking from the window of the flying carriage ; as imagine that, when he comes for a day or two's visit, he sees these landscapes as they are in themselves, and as they look to their ordinary inhabitants. The quick pulse of London keeps with him : he cannot, for a long time, feel sensi- bly an influence so little startling, as faintly flavoured, as that of our simple country life. We have all be- held some country scenes, pleasing, but not very strik- ing, while driving hastily to catch a train for which we feared we should be late ; and afterwards, when we came to know them well, how different they looked ! I have been in a hurry. I have been tremendously busy. I have got through an amazing amount of work in the last few weeks, as I ascertain by looking over the recent pages of my diary. You can never be sure whether you have been working hard or not, except by consulting your diary. Sometimes you have an op- pressed and worn-out feeling of having been overdriven, of having done a vast deal during many days past ; when lo ! you turn to the uncompromising record, you test the accuracy of your feeling by that unimpeachable stand- ard ; and you find that, after all, you have accomplished AND LEISURE. 269 very little. The discovery is mortifying, but it does you good ; and besides other results, it enables you to see how very idh; and useless people, who keep no diary, may easily bring themselves to believe that they are among the hard- est-wrought of mortals. They know they feel weary ; they know they have been in a bustle and worry ; they think they have been in it much longer than is the fact. For it is curious how readily we believe that any strong- ly-felt state of mind or outward condition — strongly felt at the present moment — has been lasting for a very long time. You have been in very low spirits : you fancy now that you have been so for a great portion of your life, or at any rate for weeks past : you turn to your diary, — why, eight-and-forty hours ago you were as merry as a cricket during the pleasant drive with Smith, or the cheerful evening that you spent with Snarling. I can well imagine that when some heavy misfortune befalls a man, he soon begins to feel as if it had befallen him a long, long time ago : he can hardly remember days which were not darkened by it : it seems to have been the condition of his being almost since his birth. And BO, if you have been toiling very hard for three days — your pen in your hand almost from morning to night perhaps — rely upon it that at the end of those days, save for the uncompromising diary that keeps you right, you would have in your mind a general impression that you had been labouring desperately for a very long period — ibr many days, for several weeks, for a month or two. After heavy rain has fallen for four or five days, all per- sons who do not keep diaries invariably think that it has rained for a fortnight. If keen frost lasts in winter for a fortnight, all persons witliout diaries have a vague be- lief that there has been frost for a month or six weeks. 270 CONCERXIXG HUERY You resolve to read Mr. "Wordj's valuable History of the Entire Human Race throughout the whole of Time (I take for granted you are a young person) : you go at it every evening for a week. At the end of that period you have a vague uneasy impression, that you have been soaked in a sea of platitudes, or weighed down by an incubus of words, for about a hundred years. For even such is life. Every human being, then, who is desirous of knowing for certain whether he is doing much work or little, ought to preserve a record of what he does. And such a rec- ord, I believe, will in most cases serve to humble him who keeps it, and to spur on to more and harder work. It will seldom flatter vanity, or encourage a tendency to rest on the oars, as thougli enough had been done. You must have laboured very hard and very constantly indeed, if it looks much in black and white. And how much work may be expressed by a very ^avf words in the diary ! Think of Elihu Burrit's ' forged fourteen hours, then Hebrew Bible three hours.' Think of Sir Walter's short memorial of his eight pages before break- fast, — and what large and closely written pages they were ! And how much stretch of such minds as they have got — how many quick and laborious processes of the mental machinery — are briefly embalmed in tlie diaries of humbler and smaller men, in such entries as * after breakfast, walk in garden with children for ten minutes ; then Sermon on 10 pp. ; working hard from 10 till 1 P. M. ; then left off with bad headache, and very wear^'^ ? ' The truth is, you can't represent work by any record of it. As yet, there is no way known of pho- tographing the mind's exertion, and thus preserving an accurate memorial of it. You might as well expect to find in such a general phase as a stormy sea the delinea- AND LEISURE. 271 tion of the countless shapes and transformations of the waves throughout several hours in several miles of ocean, as think to see in Sir Walter Scott's eight pages before breakfast an adequate repi"esentation of the hard, varied wearing-out work that went to turn them off. And so it is, that the diary which records the work of a very hard- wrought man, may very likely appear to careless, unsyia^ pathizing readers, to express not such a very laboiio life after all. Who has not felt this, in reading the biog. raphy of that amiable, able, indefatigable, and ovei- wrought man. Dr. Kitto ? He worked himself to death by labour at his desk : but only the reader who has learned by personal experience to feel for him, is likely to see how he did it. But besides swch reasons as these, there are strong arguments why every man should keep a diary. I can- not imagine how many reflective men do not. How nar- row and small a thing their actual life must be ! They live merely in the present ; and the present is only a shifting point, a constantly progressing mathematical line, which parts the future from the past. If a man keeps no diary, the path crumbles away behind him as his feet leave it ; and days gone by are little more than a blank, broken by a few distorted shadows. His life is all con- fined within the limits of to-day. Wlio does not know how imperfect a thing memory is ? It not merely for- gets ; it misleads. Things in memory do not merely fade away, preserving as they fade their own lineamenta BO long as they can be seen : they change their aspect, they change their place, they turn to something quite dif- ferent from the fact. In the picture of the past, which memory unaided by any written record sets before ua, Uie j)erspective is entirely wrong. How capriciously 272 COXCERXING HURRY some events seem quite recent, which tlie diarj show? are really far away ; and how unaccountably many things look far away, which in truth are not left many weeks behind us ! A man might almost as well not have lived at all as entirely forget that he has lived, and entirely forget what he did on those departed days. But I think that almost every person would feel a great interest in looking back, day by day, upon what he did and thought upon that day twelvemonths, that day three or five years. The trouble of writing the diary is very small. A few lines, a few words, written at the time, suffice, when you look at them, to brijig all (what Yankees call) the sur- roundings of that season before you. Many little things come up again which you know quite well you never would have thought of again but for your glance at those words, and still which you feel you would be sorry to have forgotten. There must be a richness about the life of a person who keeps a diary, unknown to other men. And a million more little links and ties must bind him to the members of his family circle, and to all among whom he lives. Life, to him, looking back, is not a bare line, string- ing together his personal identity ; it is surrounded, inter- twined, entangled, with thousands and thousands of slight incidents, which give it beauty, kindliness, reality. Some folk's life is like an oak walking-stick, straight and var- nished ; useful, but hard and bare. Other men's life (and such may yours and mine, kindly reader, ever be), is like that oak when it was not a stick but a branch, and waved, leaf-enveloped, and with lots of httle twigs growing out of it, upon the summer tree. And yet more precious than the power of the diary to call up again a host of little circum- stances and facts, is its power to bring back the inde- Bcribable but keenly-felt atmospliere of those departed AND LEISURE. 273 days. Tlie old time comes over you. It is not merely a collection, an aggregate of facts, that comes back ; it is something far more excellent than that : it is the soul of days long ago; it is the dear Aidd lang syne itself! The perfume of hawthorn-hedges faded is thei^e ; the breath of breezes that fanned our gray hair when it made sunny curls, often smoothed down by hands that are gone ; the sunshine on the grass where these old fin- gers made daisy chains ; and snatches of mucic, com- pared with which anything you hear at the Opera is extremely poor. Therefore keep your diary, my friend. Begin at ten years old, if you have not yet attained that age. It will be a curious link between the altered sea- sons of your life ; there will be something very touching about even the changes which will pass upon your hand- writing. You will look back at it occasionally, and shed several tears of which you have not the least reason to be ashamed. No doubt when you look back, you will find many very silly things in it ; well, you did not think them silly at the time ; and possibly you may be humbler, wiser, and more sympathetic, for the fact that your diary will convince you (if you are a sensible person now), that probably you yourself, a i'ew years or a great many years since, were the greatest fool you ever knew. Pos- sibly at some future time you may look back with simi- lar feelings on your present self: so you will see that it is very fit that meanwhile you should avoid self-confi- d( uce and cultivate humility ; that you should not be bumptious in any way ; and that you should bear, with great patience and kindliness, the follies of the young. Therefore, my reader, write up your diary daily. You may do so at either of two times : 1st. After breakfa-^t, whenever you sit down to your work, and before you b(;- 18 274 COXCERXING HURRY gin your work ; 2ncl. After you have done your indoor3 work, whicli ought not to be later than two P. M., and before you go out to your external duties. Some good men, as Dr. Arnold, have in addition to this brought up their history to the present period before retiring for the night. This is a good plan ; it preserves the record of the day as it appears to us in two different moods : the record is therefore more likely to be a true one, uncol- oured by any temporary mental state. Write down briefly what you have been doing. Never mind that the events are very little. Of course they mu^t be ; but you remember what Pope said of little things. State what work you did. Record the progress of matters in the garden. Mention where you took your walk, or ride, or drive. State anything particular concerning the horses, cows, dogs, and pigs. Preserve some memorial of the progress of the children. Relate the occasion on which you made a kite or a water-wheel for any of them ; also the stories you told them, and the hymns you heaid them repeat. You may preserve some mention of their inore remarkable and old-fashioned sayings. Forsitan et olim hcec meminisse juvabit : all these things may bring back more plainly a little life when it has ceased ; and get before you a rosy little face and a curly little head when they have mouldered into clay. Or if you go, as you would rather have it, before them, why, when one of your boys is Archbishop of Canterbuiy and the other Lord Chancellor, they may turn over the faded leaves, and be the better for reading those early records, and not impossibly think some kindly thoughts of their gover- nor who is far away. Record when the first snowdrop came, and the earliest primrose. Of course you will mention the books you read, and those (if any) which AND LEISURE. 275 you write. Pi-eserve some memorial, in short, of every- thing that interests you and yours ; and look back each day, after you have written the i'ew lines of your little chronicle, to see what you were about that day the pre- ceding year. No one who in this simple spirit keeps a diary, can possibly be a bad, unfeeling, or cruel man. No scapegrace or blackguard could keep a diary such as that which has been described. I am not forgetting that various blackguards, and extremely dirty ones, have kept diaries, but they have been diaries to match their own character. Even in reading Byron's diary, you can see that he was not so much a very bad fellow, as a very silly fellow, who thought it a grand thing to be esteemed very bad. When, by the way, will the day come when young men will cease to regard it as the perfection of youthful humanity to be a reckless, swaggering fellow, who never knows how much money he has or spends, who darkly hints that he has done many wicked things which he never did, who makes it a boast that he never reads anything, and thus who affects to be even a more ignorant numskull than he actually is ? When will young men cease to be ashamed of doing right, and to boast of doing wrong (which they never did) ? ' Thank God,' said poor Milksop to me the otlier day, 'although I have done a great many bad things, I never did, &c. &c. &c' The silly fellow fancied that I shoulJ think a vast deal of one who had gone through so much, and sown such a large crop of wild oats. I looked at him with much pity. Ah ! tliought I to myself, there are fellows wlio actually do the things you absurdly pre- tend to have done ; but if you had been one of those I should not have shaken liands with you five minutes since. AVith great difficulty did I refrain from patting 276 CONCEENIXG IIUERY his empty head, and saying, ' Oh, poor Milksop, you are a tremendous fool ! ' It is indeed to be admitted that by keeping a diary you are providing what is quite sure in days to come to be an occasional cause of sadness. Probably it will never conduce to cheerfulness to look back over those leaves. Well, you will be much the better for being sad occasionally. There are other things in this life than to put things in a ludicrous light, and laugh at them. That, too, is excellent in its time and place : but even Douglas Jerrold sickened of the forced fun of Punch, and thought this world had better ends than jesting. Don't let your diary fall behind : write it up day by day : or you will shrink from going back to it and con- tinuing it, as Sir Walter Scott tells us he did. You will feel a double unhappiness in tliinking you are neglecting something you ought to do, and in knowing that to repair your omission demands an exertion attended with especial pain and sorrow. Avoid at all events that discomfort of diary-keeping, by scrupulous regularity: there are others which you cannot avoid, if you keep a diary at all, and occasionally look back upon it. It must tend to make thoughtful people sad, to be reminded of things concerning which we feel that we cannot think of them ; that they have gone wrong, and cannot now be set right ; that the evil is irremediable, and must just remain, and fret and worry whenever thought of; and life go on under that condition. It is like making up one's mind to live on under some incurable disease, not to bo alleviated, not to be remedied, only if possible to be forgotten. Ordinary people have all some of these things : tangles in their life and affairs that cannot be unravelled and must be left alone : sorrowful thing3 AND LEISURE. 277 which they think cannot be helped. I think it highly inexpedient to give way to such a feeling ; it ought to be resisted as far as it possibly can. The very worst thing that you can do with a skeleton is to lock the closet door upon it, and try to think no more of it. No : open the door : let in air and light : bring the skeleton out, and sort it manfully up : perhaps it may prove to be only the skeleton of a cat, or even no skeleton at all. There is many a house, and many a family, in which there is a skeleton, which is made the distressing night- mare it is, mainly by trying to ignore it. There is some fretting disagreement, some painful estrangement, made a thousand times worse by ill-judged endeavours to go on just as if it were not there. If you wish to get rid of it, you must recognise its existence, and treat it with frankness, and seek manfully to set it right. It is won- derful how few evils are remediless, if you fairly face them, and honestly try to remove them. Therefore, I say it earnestly, don't lock your skeleton-chamber door. If the skeleton be there, I defy you to forget that it is. And even if it could bring you present quiet, it is no healthful draught, the water of Lethe. Drugged rest is unrefreshful, and has painful dreams. And further ; don't let your diary turn to a small skeleton, as it is sure to do if it has fallen much into arrear. There will be a peculiar soreness in thinking that it is in arrear ; yet you will shrink painfully from the idea of taking to it again and bringing it up. Better to begin a fresh volume. There is one thing to be especially avoided. Do not on any account, upon some evening when you are pensive, down-hearted, and alone, go to the old volumes, and turn over the yellow pages wilh their faded ink. Nevei recur to volumes telling the story of years long 278 COXCEENIXG HUKEY ago, except at very cheerful times in very hopeful moods : — unless, indeed, you desire to feel, as did fSir Walter, the connexion between the clauses of the scrip- tural statement, that Aldthophel set his house in order and hanged himself. In that setting in ordei-, what old, buried associations rise up again : what sudden pang shoot through the heart, what a weight comes down upoi it, as we open drawers long locked, and come upon the relics of our early selves, and schemes and hopes ! Well, your old diary, of even five or ten years since (espe- cially if you have as yet hardly reached middle age), is like a repertory in which the essence of all sad things is preserved. Bad as is the drawer or the shelf which holds the letters sent you from home when you were a schoolboy : sharp as is the sight of lliat lock of hair of your brother, whose grave is baked by the suns of Ilin- dostan ; riling (not to say more) as is the view of that faded ribbon or those withered flowers which you still keep, though Jessie has long since married Mr. Beest, w\\o has ten thousand a-year : they are not so bad, so sharp, so i-iling, as is the old diary, wherein the spirit of many disappointments, toils, partings, and cares, is dis- tilled and preserved. So don't look too frequently into your old diaries, or they will make you glum. Don't let them be your usual reading. It is a poor use of the past, to let its remembrances unfit you for the duti'js of the present. I have been in a hurry, I have said ; but I am not so now. Probably the intelligent reader of the preceding pages may surmise as much. I am enjoying three days of delightful leisure. I did nothing yesterday : I am doing nothing to-day : I shall do nothing to-morrow. This *s June : let me feel that it is "ion. These are enjoyments that last, and that cannot be had save in leisure. They are calqi and innocent ; they do not at all quicken the pulse, or fever the brain ; it is a good sign of a man if he feels them as enjoyments ; it shows that he has not indu- rated his moral palate by appliances highly spiced with the cayenne of excitement, all of which border on vice, and most of which imply it. Let it be remembered, in the praise of leisure, that only in leisure will the human mind yield many of its best products. Calm views, sound thoughts, healthful feelings, do not originate in a hurry or a fever. I do not forget the wild geniuses who wrote some of the finest English tragedies — men like Christopher Marlowe, Ford, Massinger, Dekker, and Otway. No doubt they lived in a whirl of wild excitement, yet they turned off many fine and immortal thoughts. But their thought was essentially morbid, and their feeling hectic : all their views of life and things were unsound. And the beauty with which their writings are fiushed all over, is like the beauty that dwells in the brow too transparent, the cheek too rosy, and the eye too bright, of a fair girl dying of dedine. It is entirely a hot-house thing, and away from the bracing atmosphere of reality and truth. Its sweet- ness palls, its beauty frightens ; its fierce passio.i and its wild despair are the things in which it is at home. I do not believe the stories which are told about Jeffrey scrib- blinj: off his articles while dressing for a ball, or after re- AND LEISURE. 289 turning from one at four in the morning : the fact is, nothing good for much was ever produced in that jaunty, hasty fashion, which is suggested by such a phrase as scribbled off. Good ideas flash in a moment on the mind : but they are very crude then ; and they must be mel- lowed and matured by time and in leisure. It is pure nonsense to say that the Poetry of the Anti-jacobin was produced by a lot of young men sitting over their wine, very much excited, and talking very loud, and two or three at a time. Some happy impromptu hits may have been elicited by that mental friction ; but, rely upon it, the Needy Knife- Grinder, and the song whose chorus is Niversity of Gottingen, were composed when their author was entirely alone, and had plenty of time for thinking. Brougham is an exception to all rules : he certainly did write his Discourse of Natural Theology while rent asunder by all the multifarious engagements of a Lord Chancellor ; but, after all, a great deal that Broughanf* has done exhibits merely the smartness of a sort of intellectual legerdemain ; and that celebrated Discourse, so far as I remember it, is remarkably poor stuff. I am now talking not of great geniuses, but of ordinary men of education, when I maintain that to the labourer whose work is mental, and especially to the man whose work it is to write, leisure is a pure necessary of intellectual existence. There must be long seasons of quiescence between the occasional efforts of production. An electric eel cannot always be giving off shocks. The bhock is powerful, but short, and then long time is needful 1o rally for another. A field, however good its soil, will not grow wheat year after year. Such a crop exhausts the soil : it is a strain to produce it ; and after it the field must lie fallow for a while, — it must have leisure, in la 290 CONCERNING HURRY short. So is it with the mind. Who does not know thai various literary electric eels, by repeating their shocks too frequently, have come at last to give off an electric result which is but the faintest and washiest echo of the thrilling and startling ones of earlier days? Festus was a strong and unmistakable shock ; TJie Angel World was much weaker ; The Mystic was extremely weak ; and The Age was twaddle. Wliy did the author let himself down in such a fashion ? The writer of Festus was a grand, mysterious image in many youthful minds : dark, wonderful, not quite comprehensible. The writer of The Age is a smart but silly little fellow, whom we could readily slap upon the back and tell him he had rather made a fool of himself. And who does not feel how weak the successive shocks of Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Dickens are growing ? The former, especially, strikes out nothing new. Anything good in his recent produc- tions is just the old thing, with the colours a good deal washed out, and with salt which has lost its savour. Poor stuff comes of constantly cutting and cropping. The po- tatoes of the mind grow small ; the intellectual wheat comes to have no ears ; the moral turnips are infected with the finger and toe disease. The mind is a reservoir which can be emptied in a much shorter time than it is possible to fill it. It fills through an infinity of little tabes, many so small as to act by capillary attraction. Bu.' in writing a book, or even an article, it empties as through a twelve-inch pipe. It is to me quite wonderful that most ot the sermons one hears are so good as they are, consider- ing the unintermittent stream in which most preachers are compelled to produce them. I have sometimes thougiit, in listening to the discourse of a really thoughtful and able clergyman — If you, my friend, had to write a ser- AND LEISURE. 291 DQon once a month instead of once a week, how very ad« mu-able it would be! Some stuj^id people are afraid of confessing that they ever have leisure. They wish to palm off upon the human race the delusion that they, the stupid people, are always hard at work. They are afraid of being thought idle unless they maintain this fiction. I have known clergymen who would not on any account take any recreation in their own parishes, lest they should be deemed lazy. They would not fish, they would not ride, they would not garden, they would never be seen leaning upon a gate, and far less carving their name upon a tree. What absurd folly ! They might just as well have pretended that they did without sleep, or without food, as without leisure. You cannot alvvays drive the machine at its full speed. I know, indeed, that the machine may be so driven for two or three years at the beginning of a man's professional life; and that it is possible for a man to go on for such a period with hardly any appreciable leisure at all. But it knocks up the machine : it wears it out : and after an attack or two of nervous fever, we learn what we should have known from the beginning, that a far larger amount of tangible work will be accomplished by regular exertion of moderate degree and continuance, than by going ahead in the feverish and unrestful fashion in which really earnest men are so ready to begin their task. It seems, indeed, to be the rule rather than the ex- ception, that clergymen should break down in strength and spirits in about three years after entering the church. Some die : but happily a larger number get well again, and foi- the rcinaiudci- of their days work at 292 CONCEENIXG HURRY a more reasonable rate. As for the sermons written in that feverish stage of life, what crude and extravagant things they are : stirring and striking, perhaps, but hec- tic and forced, and entirely devoid of the repose, reality, and daylight feeling of actual life and fact. Yet how- many good, injudicious people, are ever ready to expect of the new curate or rector an amount of work which man cannot do ; and to express their disappointment if that work is not done ! It is so very easy to map out a task which you are not to do yourself: and you feel so little wearied by the toils of other men ! As for you, my young friend, beginning your parochial life, don't be ill-pleased with the kindly-meant advice of one who speaks from the experience of a good many years, and who has himself known all that you feel, and foolishly done all that you are now disposed to do. Consider for how many hours of the day you can labour, without injury to body or mind : labour faithfully for those hours, and for no more. Never mind about what may be sa d by Miss Limejuice and Mr. Snarling. They will find fault at any rate ; and you will mind less about their fault-finding, if you have an unimpaired digestion, and unaiFected lungs, and an unenlarged heart. Don't pre- tend that you are always working : it would be a sin against God and Nature if you were. Say frankly, There is a certain amount of work that I can do ; and that I will do : but I must have my hours of leisure. 1 must have them for the sake of my parishioners as well as for my own ; for leisure is an essential part of that mental discipline which will enable my mind to grow and turn off sound instruction for their benefit. Leisure is a necessary part of true life ; and if I am to live at all, I must have it. Surely it is a thousand times better AND LEISUKE. 293 candidly and manfully to take up that ground, than to take recreation on the sly, as though you were ashamed of being found out in it, and to disguise your leisure as though it weie a sin. I heartily despise the clergyman who reads ^dam Bede secretly in his study, and when any one comes in, pops the volume into his waste-paper basket. An' innocent thing is wrong to you if you think it wrong, remember. I am sorry for the man who is quite ashamed if any one finds him chasing his little chil- dren about the green before his house, or standing look- ing at a bank of primroses or a bed of violets, or a high wall covered with ivy. Don't give in to that feeling for one second. You are doing right in doing all that ; and no one but an ignorant, stupid, malicious, little-minded, vulgar, contemptible blockhead will think you are doing wrong. On a sunny day, you are not idle if you sit down and look for an hour at the ivied wall, or at an apple-tree in blossom, or at the river gliding by. You are not idle if you walk about your garden, noticing the progress and enjoying the beauty and fragrance of each individual rose-tree on such a charming June day as this. You are not idle if you sit down upon a garden Beat, and take your little boy upon your knee, and talk with him about the many little matters which give interest to his little life. You are doinw somethinfr which may help to establish a bond between you closer than that of blood ; and the estranging interests of after years may need it all. And you do not know, even as regards the work (if of composition) at which you are busy, what good ideas and impulses may come of the quiet time of looking at the ivy, or the blossoms, or the stream, or your child's sunny curls. Such things often start thoughts which might seem a hundred miles away 294 CONCERNING HURRY from them. That they do so, is a fact to whicli the experience of numbers of busy and thoughtful men can testify. Various thick skulls may think the statement mystical and incomprehensible : for the sake of such let me confirm it by high authority. Is it not curious, by the way, that in talking to some men and women, if ytu state a view a little beyond their mark, you will find them doubting and disbelieving it so long as they regard it as resting uj)on your own authority ; but if you can quote anything that sounds like it from any printed book, or even newspaper, no matter how little worthy the author of the article or book may be, you will find the view received with respect, if not with credence ? The mere fact of its having been printed, gives any opinion whatsoever much weight with some folk. And your opinion is esteemed as if of gVeater value, if you can only show that any human being agreed with you in entertaining it. So, my friend, if Mr. Snarling thinks it a delusion that you may gain some thoughts and feelings of value, in the passive contemjjlation of nature, inform him that the following lines were written by one Words- worth, a stamp-distributor in Cumberland, regarded by many competent judges as a very wise man : — Why, William, on that old grey stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone. And dream j'our time away ? One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, When life was svreet, I knew not why. To me my good friend Matthew spake, And thus I made reply: The eye, — it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still: A.ND LEISURE. 295 Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will. Nor less I deem that there are Powers, Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours, lu a wise passiveness. Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum. Of things for ever speaking. That nothing of itself will come. But we nmst still be seeking? Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old grey stone. And dream my time away ! Such an opinion is sound and just. Not that I believe that instead of sending a lad to Eton and Oxford, it would be expedient to make hira sit down on a grey stone, by the side of any lake or river, and wait till wisdom came to him through the gentle teaching of nature. The instruction to be thus obtained must be supplementary to a good education, college and pro- fessional, obtained in the usual way ; and it must be sought in intervals of leisure, intercalated in a busy and energetic life. But thus intervening, and coming to sup- plement other training, I believe it will serve ends of the most valuable kind, and elicit from the mind the very best material which is there to be elicited. Some people say they work best under pressure : De Quincey, in a recent volume, declares that the conviction that he must produce a certain amount of writing in a limited time has often seemed to open new cells in his brain, rich in excellent thought ; and I have known preachers (very poor ones) declare that their best sermons were written 296 CONCERNING HURRY after dinner- on Saturday. As for the sermons, the best were bad ; as for De Quincey, he is a wonderful man. Let us have elbow-room, say I, when we have to write anything ! Let there be plenty of time, as well as plenty of space. Who could write if cramped up in that cham- ber of torture, called Little Ease, in which a man could leither sit, stand, nor lie, but in a constrained fashion? And just as bad is it to be cramped up into three days, when to stretch one's self demands at least six. Do you think Wordsworth could have written against time ? Or that In Memoriam was penned in a hurry ? Said Miss Limejuice, I saw Mr. Swetter, the new rector, to-day. Ah ! she added, with a malicious smile, I fear he is growing idle already, though he has not been in the parish six months. I saw him, at a t[uarter before two precisely, standing at his gate with his hands in his pockets. I observed that he looked for three minutes over the gate into the clover-field he has got. And then Smith drove up in his drag, and stopped and got out ; and he and the rector entered into conversation, evi- dently about the horses, for I saw Mr. Swetter walk round them several times, and rub down their fore-legs. Now / think he should have been busy writing his sermon, or visiting his sick. Such, let me assure the incredulous reader, are the words which I have myself heard Miss Limejuice, and her mother, old Mrs. Snarl- ing Limejuice, utter more than once or twice. Knowing the rector well, and knowing how he portions out his day, let me explain to those candid individuals the state of facts. At ten o'clock precisely, having previously gone to the stable and walked round the garden, Mr. Swetter sat down at his desk in his study and worked AND LEISURE. 297 hard till one. At two he is to ride up the parish to se« various sick persons among the cottagers. But from cne to two he has laid his work aside, and tried to banish all thought of his work. During that period he has been running about the green with his httle boy, and even rolling upon the grass; and he has likewise strung together a number of daisies on a thread, which you might have seen round little Charlie's neck if you hat) looked sharply. He has been unbending his mind, you see, and enjoying leisure after his work. It is entirely true that he did look into the clover-field and enjoy the 4'agrance of it, which you probably regard as a piece of sinful self-indulgence. And his friend coming up, it ia likewise certain that he examined his horses (a new pair) with much interest and minuteness. Let me add, thai only contemptible humbugs will think the less of him for all this. The days are past in which the ideal clergyman was an emaciated eremite, who hardly knew a cow from a horse, and was quite incapable of sympathizing with his humbler parishioners in their little country cares- And some httle knowledge as to horses and cows, not to mention potatoes and turnips, is a most valuable attainmenl to the country parson. If his parishioners find that he ia entirely ignorant of those matters which they understand best, they will not unnaturally draw the conclusion that he knows nothing. While if they find that he is fairly acquainted with those tilings whicli they themselves un- derstand, they will conclude that he knows everything. Helplessness and ignorance appear contemptible to sim- ple folk, tliougli the helplessness should appear in the lack of power to manage a horse, and the ignorance in a man's not knowing the way in which potatoes are planted. To you, Miss Liin«juice, let me further say a word as to 298 COXCERXING HURRY your parish clergyman. Mr. Swetter, you probably do uot know, was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge. He chose his present mode of life, not merely because he felt a special leaning to the sacred profession, though he did feel that strongly ; but also because he saw that in the Church, and in the care of a quiet rural parish, he might hope to combine the faithful discharge of his duty with the enjoyment of leisure for thought ; he might be of use in his generation without being engaged to that degree that, like some great barristers, he should grow a stranger to his children. He concluded that it is one great happiness of a country parson's life, that he may work hard without working feverishly ; he may do his duty, yet not bring on an early paralytic stroke. Swetter might," if he had hked, have gone in for the Great Seal ; the man who was second to him wnll pi'obably get it ; but he did not choose. Do you not remember how Baron Alderson, who might well have aspired at being a Chief Justice or a Lord Chancellor, fairly decided that the prize was not worth the cost, and was content to turn aside from the worry of the bar into the comparative leisure of a puisne judgeship ? It was not worth his while, he rightly considered, to run the risk of working himself to death, or to live for years in a breathless hurry. No doubt the man who thus judges must be content to see otliers seize the great prizes of human affairs. Hot and trembling hands, for the most part, grasp these. And how many work breathlessly, and give up the tranquil enjoyment of life, yet never grasp them after all ! There is no period at which the feeling of leisure is a more delightful one, than during breakfast and after breakfast on a beautifu. summer morning in the couiitry AND LEISURE. 299 It is a slavish and painful thing to know that instantly you rise from the breakfast-table you must take to your work. And in that case your mind will be fretting and worrying away all the time that the hurried meal lasts. But it is delightful to be able to breakfast leisurely ; to read over your letters twice ; to skira the Times, just tc see if there is anything particular in it (the serious read- ing of it being deferred till later in the day) ; and then to go out and saunter about the garden, taking an inter- est in whatever operations may be going on there ; to walk down to the little bridge and sit on the parapet, and look over at the water foaming through below ; to give your dogs a swim ; to sketch out the rudimentary outline of a kite, to be completed in the evening; to stick up, amid shrieks of excitement and delight, a new col- oured picture in the nursery ; to go out to the stable and look about there; — and to do all this with the sense that there is no neglect, that you can easily overtake your day's work notwithstanding. For this end the country human being should breakfast early ; not later than nine o'clock. Breakfast will be over by half-past nine ; and the half hour till ten is as much as it is safe to give to leisure, without running the risk of dissipating the mind too much for steady application to work. After ten one does not feel comfortable in idling about, on a common working-day. You feel that you ought to be at your task ; and he who would enjoy country leisure must be- ware of fi-(;tting the fine mechanism of his moral percep- tions by doing anything which he thinks even in the least degree wrong. And here, after thinking of the preliminary half hour of leisure before you sit down to your work, let me ad- vise that when you fail ly go at your work, if of composi- 300 CONCERNING HURRY tion, you should go at it leisurely. I do not mean that you should work with half a will, with a wandering atten- tion, with a mind running away upon something else. What I mean is, that you should beware of flying at your task, and keeping at it, with such a stretch, that every fibre in your body and your mind is on the strain, is tense and tightened up ; so that when you stop, after your two or three hours at it, you feel quite shattered and exhausted. A great many men, especially those of a nervous and sanguine temperament, write at too high a pressure. They have a hundred and twenty pounds on the square inch. Every nerve is like the string of Robin Hood's bow. All this does no good. It does not appreci- ably affect the quality of the article manufactured, nor does it much accelerate the rate of production. But it wears a man out awfully. It sucks him like an orange. It leaves him a discharged Leyden jar, a torpedo en- tirely used up. You have got to walk ten miles. You do it at the rate of four miles an hour. You accomplish the distance in two hours and a half; and you come in, not extremely done up. But another day, with the same walk before you, you put on extra steam, and walk at four and a half miles an hour, perhaps at five. {Mem. : People who say they walk six miles an hour are talking nonsense. It cannot be done, unless by a trained pedes- trian.) You are on a painful stretch all the journey ; you save, after all, a very few minutes ; and you get to your journey's end entirely knocked up. Like an over- driven horse, you are off your feed ; and you can da nothing useful all the evening. I am well aware that the good advice contained in this paragraph will not have the least effect on those who read it. Fimgar inani munere. I know how little all this goes for with an individual AND LEISURE. 301 410W not far away. And, indeed, no one can say that because two men have produced the same result in work accomplished, therefore they have gone through the same amount of exertion. Nor am I now thinking of the vast differences between men in point of intellectual power. I am content to suppose that they shall be, intellect- ually, precisely on a level : yet one shall go at his work Avith a painful, heavy strain ; and another shall get through his lightly, airily, as if it were pastime. Oue shall leave off fresh and buoyant ; the other, jaded, lan- guid, aching all over. And in this respect, it is probable that if your natural constitution is not such as to enable you to work hard, yet leisurely, there is no use in advising you to take things easily. Ah, my poor friend, you can- not ! But at least you may restrict yourself from going at any task on end, and keeping yourself ever on the fret until it is fairly finished. Set yourself a fitting task for each day ; and on no account exceed it. There are men who have a morbid eagerness to get through any work on which they are engaged. They would almost wish to go right on through all the toils of life and be done with them ; and then, like Alexander, ' sit down and rest.' The prospect of anything yet to do, appears to render the enjoyment of present I'epose impossible. There can be no more unhealthCul state of mind. The day will never come when we shall have got through our work : and well for us that it never will. Why disturb the quiet of to-night, by thinking of the toils of to-morrow ? Tliere is deep wisdom, and accurate knowledge of hu- man nature, in the advice, given by the Soundest and Kindest of all advisers, and applicable in a hundred cases, to 'Take no thought for the morrow.' It appears to ni(3, that in these days of hurried life, a 302 CONCERNING HURRY great and valuable end is served bj a class of thii gs vvbicb all men of late have taken to abusing, — to wit, the extensive class of dull, heavy, uninteresting, good, sensible, pious sermons. They afford many educated men almost their only intervals of waking leisure. You are in a cool, quiet, solemn place : the sermon is going for ward: you have a general impression tliat you are listen ing to many good advices and important doctrines, and the entire result upon your mind is beneficial ; and at the same time there is nothing in the least striking or start- ling to destroy the sense of leisure, or to painfully arouse the attention and quicken tlie pulse. Neitiier is there a syllable that can jar on the most fastidious taste. All points and corners of thought are rounded off. The en- tire composition is in the highest degree gentlemanly, scholarly, correct; but you feel that it is quite impossible to attend to it. And you do not attend to it ; but at the same time, you do not quite turn your attention to any- thing else. Now, you remember how a dying lather, once upon a time, besought his prodigal son to spend an hour daily in solitary thought : and what a beneficial result followed. The dull sermon may serve an end as desirable. In church you are alone, in the sense of being isolated from all companions, or from the possibility of holding communication with anybody ; and the weari- some sermon, if utterly useless otherwise, is useful in giving a man time to think, in circumstances which will generally dispone him to think seriously. There is a restful feeling, too, for which you are the better. It is a fine thing to feel that church is a place where, if even for two hours only, you are quite free from worldly business and cares. You know that all these are waiting for you outside : but at least you are free from th .ir actual endur- AND LEISURE. 305 ance here. 1 am persuaded, and I am happy to entertain the persuasion, that men are often much the better for being present during the preacliing of sermons to which ihey pay r?,ry httle attention. Only some such belief as this could make one think, without much sorrow, of the thousands of discourses which are preached every Sun- day over Britain, and of the class of ears and memories to which they are given. You see that country congre- gation coming out of that ivy-covered church in that beautiful churchyard. Look at their faces, the plough- men, the dairy-maids, the di-ain-diggers, the stable-boys : what could they do towards taking in the gist of that well- reasoned, scholarly, elegant piece of composition which has occupied the last half-hour ? Why, they could not understand a sentence of it. Yet it has done them good. The general effect is wholesome. They have got a little push, they have felt themselves floating on a gentle current, going in the right direction. Only enthusiastic young divines expect the mass of their congregation to do all they exhort them to do. You must advise a man to do a thing a hundred times, probably, before you can get him to do it once. You know that a breeze, blowing at thirty-five miles an hour, does very well if it carries a large ship al:)ng in its own direction at the rate of eight. And even so, the practice of your hearers, though truly influenced by what you say to them, lags tremendously behind the rate of your preaching. Be content, n»y friend, if you can maintain a movement, sure though Blow, in the right way. And don't get angry with your rural Hock on Sundays, if you often see on their blank faces, while you are preaching, the evidence that tiiey are not taking in a word you say. And don't be entirely di-couraged. You may be doing them good for all that. 304 CONCERNING HURRY And if you do good at all, you know better than to grum- ble, though you may not be doing it in the fashion that you would like best. I have known men, accustomed to sit quiet, pensive, half-attentive, under the sermons of an easy-going but orthodox preacher, who felt quite indig- nant when they went to a church where their attention was kept on the stretch all the time the sermon lasted, whether they would or no. Tliey felt that this intrusive interest about the discourse, compelling them to attend, was of the nature of an assault, and of an unjustifiable in- fraction of the liberty of the subject. Their feeling was, ' What earthly right has that man to make us listen to Lis sermon, without getting our consent ? We go to church to rest : and lo ! he compels us to listen ! ' I do not forget, musing in the shade this beautiful sum- mer day, that there may be cases in which leisure is very much to be avoided. To some men, constant occupation is a thing that stands between them and utter wretched- ness. You remember the poor man, whose story is so touchingly told by Borrow in The Romany Rye, who lost his wife, his children, all his friends, by a rapid succes- sion of strokes ; and who declared that he would have gone mad if he had not resolutely set himself to the study of the Chinese language. Only constant labour of mind could ' keep the misery out of his head.' And years after- wards, if he paused from toil for even a few hours, the misery returned. The poor fisherman in The Antiquary was wrong in his philosophy, when Mr. Oldbuck tbund hini; with trembling hands, trying to repair his battered boiit tlie day after his son was buried. ' It's weel wi' you gentles,' he said, ' that can sit in the house wi' handker- chers at your een, when ye lose a freend ; but the like o' us maun to our wark again, if our liearts were beating as AND LEISURE. 305 hard as my hammer ! ' "We love the kindly sympathy that made Sir Walter write the words : but bitter as may be the effort with which the poor man takes to his lieartless task again, surely he will all the sooner get over Lis sorrow. And it is with gentles, who can ' sit in the house' as long as they like, that the great grief longest lingers. There is a wonderful efficacy in enforced work to tide one over every sort of trial. I saw not long since a number of pictures, admirably sketched, which had been sent to his family in England by an emigrant son in Canada, and which represented scenes in daily life there among the remote settlers. And I was very much struck with the sad expression which the faces of the emigrants always wore, whenever they were I'epresented in repose or inaction. I felt sure that those pensive faces set forth a sorrowful fact. Lying on a great bluff, looking down upon a lovely river ; or seated at the tent-door on a Sun- day, when his task was laid apart ; — however the back- woodsman was depicted, if not in energetic action, there was always a very sad look upon the rough foce. And it was a peculiar sadness — not like that which human beings would feel amid the scenes and friends of their youth : a look pensive, distant, full of remembrance, de- void of hope. You glanced at it, and you thought of Lord Eglintoun's truthful lines : — From the lone shieling on the misty island, Mountains divide us, and a world of seas: But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides: Fair these broad meads, these hoary woods are grand,— But we are exiles from our fathers' land 1 And you felt that much leisure will not suit there. Therefore, you stout backwoodsman, go at the huge ior 20 306 CONCEKXIXG HURRY est-tree : rain upon it the blows of jour axe, as long a^ you can stand ; watch the fragments as they fly ; and jump briskly out of the way as the reeling giant falls : — ■ tor all this brisk exertion will stand between you and remembrances that would unman you. There is nothing very philosophical in the plan, to ' dance sad thoughts fiway,' w^hich I remember as the chorus of some Cana- dian song. I doubt whether that peculiar specific wilj do much good. But you may worh sad thoughts away ; you may crowd morbid feelings out of your mind by stout daylight toils ; and remember that sad remem- brances, too long indulged, tend strongly to the maudlin. Even "Werter was little better than a fool ; and a con- temptible fool was Mr. Augustus Moddle. How many of man's best works take for granted that the majority of cultivated persons, capable of enjoying them, shall have leisure in which to do so. The archi- tect, the artist, the landscape-gardener, the poet, spend their pains in producing that which can never touch the hurried man. I really feel that I act unkindly by the man who did that elaborate picking-out in the paint- ing of a railway carriage, if I rush upon the platform at the last moment, pitch iu my luggage, sit down and take to the Ttmes, without ever having noticed whether the colour of the carriage is brown or blue. There seems a dumb pleading eloquence about even the accurate diag- onal arrangement of the little woollen tufts in the mo- rocco cushions, and the interlaced network above one's head, where umbrellas go, as though they said, ' We are made thus neatly to be looked at, but we cannot make you look at us unless you choose ; and half the peoi)l0 •vb/j come into the carriage are so hurried that they AXD LEISURE. 307 never notice us.' And when I have seen a fine church- spire, rich in graceful ornament, rising up by the side of a city street, where hurried crowds are always passing by, not one in a thousand ever casting a glance at the beautiful object, I have thought. Now surely you are not doing what your designer intended ! When he spent so much of time, and thought, and pains in planning and exe- cuting all those beauties of detail, surely he intended them to be looked at ; and not merely looked at in their general effect, but followed and traced into their lesser graces. But he wrongly fancied that men would have time for that ; he forgot that, except on the solitary artis- tic visitor, all he has done would be lost, through the nineteenth century's want of leisure. And you, architect of Melrose, when you designed that exquisite tracery, and decorated so perfectly that flying buttress, were you content to do so for the pleasure of knowing you did your work thoroughly and well ; or did you count on its pro- ducing on the minds of men in after-ages an impression which a prevailing hurry has prevented from being pro- duced, save perhaps in one case in a thousand ? And you, old monk, who spent half your life in wi-iting and illuminating that magnificent Missal ; was your work its own reward in the pleasure its execution gave you ; or did you actually fancy that mortal man would have time or patience — leisure, in short — to examine in detail all that you have done, and that interested you so much, and kept you eagerly engaged for so many hours together, on days the world has left four hundred years behind ? I declare it touches me to look at that laborious appeal to men with countless hours to spare : men, in short, hardly now to be found in Britain. No doubt, all this is the rJ" \ itovy : for how great a part of the highei- and finer 308 CONCERNING HURRY AND LEISURE. human work is done in the hope that it will produce an effect which it never will produce, and attract the inter- est of those who will never notice it ! Still, the ancient missal-writer pleased himself with the thought of the ad- miration of skilled observers in days to come ; and so the fancy served its purpose. Thus, at intervals through that bright summer day, did the writer muse at leisure in the shade ; and noto down the thoughts (such as they are) which you have here at length in this essay. The sun was still warm and cheerful when he quitted the lawn ; but somehow, looking back upon that day, the colours of the scene are paler than the fact, and the sunbeams feel comparatively chill. For memory cannot bring back things freshly as they lived, but only their faded images. Faces in the distant past look wan ; voices sound thin and distant ; the landscape round is uncertain and shadowy. Do you not feel somehow, when you look back on ages forty centu- ries ago, as if people then spoke in whispers and lived in twiUght ? CHAPTER X. CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, AND HOW TO MEET THEM. ^^UT now to my proper task. I have certain suggestions to offer Concerning the Worries of Life and How to Meet them. I ara quite aware tiiat the reader of a meta- pliysical turn, after he has read my essay, may be disposed to find fault with its title. The plan which is to be advocated for the treatment of the Worries of Life, can only in a modified sense be described as Meeting iliem. You cannot be said to face a thing on which you *^urn your back. You cannot accurately be described as meeting a man whom you walk away from. You do not, in strictness, regard a thing in any mode or fashion, which you do not regai"d at all. But, after intense reflection, I could devise no title that set out my subject BO well as the present : and so here it is. Perfection is not generally attainable in human doings. It is enough if things are so, that they will do. No doubt this is nc excuse for not making them as good as one can. But the fact is, as you get older, you seldom have time to write down any plausible excuse, before you see a crush- ing answer to it. Tiie man who has thought longest, comes back to the point at which the man stands who has hardly thought at all. He feels, more deeply year by 310 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, year, the truth of the grand axiom, that Much may he said on Both Sides. Now, my reader, you shall have, in a very brief space; the essence of my Theory as to the treatment of Human Worry. Let us picture to ourselves a man, living in a pleasant home, in the midst of a beautiful country. Pleasing BC<.*nes are all around him, wherever he can look. There are evergreens and grass : fields and hedgerows : hills and streams ; in the distance, the sea ; and somewhat nearer, the smoke of a little country town. Now, what would you think of this man, if he utterly refused to look at the cheerful and beautiful prospects which everj-- wliere invite his eye ; and spent the whole day gazing intently at the dunghill, and hanging over the pigsty ? And all this though his taste were not so peculiar as to lead him to take any pleasure in the contemplation of the pigsty or the dunghill ; all this, thougli he had a more than ordinary dislike to contemplate pigsties or dunghills? No doubt, you would say the man is a monomaniac. And yet, my reader, don't you know (possibly from your own experience) that in the moral world many men and women do a thing precisely analogous, without ever being suspected of insanity ? Don't you know that mul- titudes of human beings turn away from the many bless- ings of their lot, and dwell and brood upon its worries .'' Don't you know that multitudes persistently look away from the numerous pleasant things they might contem- plate, and look fixedly and almost constantly at painful and disagreeable things? You sit down, my friend, in your snug library, beside the evening fire. The blast without is hardly heard through the drawn curtains. Your wife is tiiere, and your two grown-up daughters. AKD HOW TO MEET TIIEM. 311 You feel thankful that after the bustle of the day, you have this quiet retreat where you may rest, and refit yourself for another day with its bustle. But the con- versation goes on. Nothing is talked of but the fail- ings of the servants and the idleness and impudence of your boys ; unless indeed it be the supercilious bow with which Mrs. Snooks that afternoon passed your wife, and the fact that the pleasant dinner-party at which you assisted the evening before at Mr. Smith's, has been ascertained to have been one of a second-chop character, his more honoured guests having dined on the previous day. Every petty disagreeable in your lot, in short, is brought out, turned ingeniously in every possible light, and aggravated and exaggerated to the highest degree. The natural and necessary result follows. An hour, or less, of this discipline brings all parties to a sulky and snappish frame of mind. And instead of the cheerful and thankful mood in which you were disposed to be when you sat down, you find that your whole moral nature is jarred and out of gear. And your wife, your daugh- ters, and yourself, pass into moody, sullen silence, over your books — books which you are not likely for this evening to much appreciate or enjoy. Now, I put it to every sensible reader, whether there be not a great deal too much of this kind of thing. Are there not families that never spend a quiet evening together, without embittering it by raking up every unpleasant subject in Hieir lot and history ? There are folk who, both in their own case and that of others, seem to find a strange satis- faction in sticking the thorn in the hand farther in : even in twisting the dagger in the heart. Their lot has its innumerable blessing'^, but they will not look at these. Let the view around in a hundred directions be ever sa 312 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LITE, charming, they cannot be got to turn their mental view in one of these. They persist in keeping nose and eyes at the moral pigsty. Oh, what a blessing it would be if we human beings could turn away our mind's eye at will, as we can our physical ! As we can turn away from an ugly view iu the material world, and look at a pleasing one ; if we could but do the like in the world of mind ! As you turn your back on a dunghill, or a foul stagnant ditch : if you could so turn your back on your servants' errors, on your children's faults, on the times when you made a fool of yourself, on the occasions when sad disappoint- ment came your way, — in short, upon those prospects which are painful to look back upon ! You go to bed, I may assume, every evening. How often, my friend, have you tossed about there, hour after hour, sleepless and fevered, stung by care, sorrow, worry : as your mem- ory persisted in bringing up again a thousand circum- stances which you could wish for ever forgot : as each sad hour and sad fact came up and stuck its little sting into your heart ! I do not suppose that you have led a specially wicked life ; I do not write for blackguards ; I suppose your life has been innocent on the whole, and your lot prosperous : — I assume no more than the aver- age of petty vexations, mortifications, and worries. You remember how that noble man. Sir Charles Napier, tells us in his Diary, that sometimes, when irritated by having discovered some more than usually infamous job or neglect, or stung by a keener than ordinary sense of the rascally injustice which pursued him through life, he tossed about all night in a half-frantic state, shouting, praying, and blaspheming. Now, whether you be a great man or a little man, when you lay your head on your \ ANT) HOW TO MEEl THEM. 313 thorny pillow, have you not longed oftentimes for the power of resolutely turning the mind's eye in another direction than that which it was so miserable a thing for you to contemplate ? We all know, of course, how some, when the mind grew into that persistent habit of looking in only one direction, of harbouring only one wretched thought, which is of the essence of madness, have thought, as they could not turn away the mind's eye at will, to blindfold the mind (so to speak) altogether : to make sure that it should see nothing at all. By opium, by strong drink, men have endeavoured to reduce the mind to pure stupefaction, as their sole chance of peace. And you know too, kindly reader, that even such means have sometimes failed of their sorrowful purpose ; and that men have madly flung off the burden of this life, as though thus they could fling off the burden of self and of remembrance. I have said that it would be an unspeakable blessing if we could as easily turn the eyes away from a moral as from a physical pigsty ; and in my belief we may, to a great degree, train ourselves to such a habit. You see, from what I have just said, that I do not think the thing is always or entirely to be done. The only way to for- get a thing is to cease to feel any interest in it ; and we cannot cheat ourselves into the belief that we feel no interest in a thing which we intensely desire to forget. But though the painful thing do not, at our will, quite die away into nothing, still we may habituate ourselves to look away from it. Only time can make our vexations and worries fade into nothing, though we are looking at them : even as only distance in space can make the pig- sty disaj)pear, if we retire from it still looking in its direction. But we may turn our back on the pigsty, and 314 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE SO cease to behold it though it be close at hand. And in like manner, we may get our mind so under control, that in ordinary cases it will answer the rein. We may acquire, by long-continued effort, the power to turn our back upon the worry — that is, in unmetaphoric lan- guage, to think of something else. I have often occasion to converse with poor people about their little worries, their cares and trials ; and from the ingenious way in which they put them, so as to make them look their very worst, it is sometimes easy to see that the poor man or woman has been brooding for long hours over the painful thing, turning it in all differ- ent ways, till the thing has been got into that precise point of view in which it looks its very ugliest. It is like one of those gutta-percha heads, squeezed into its most hide- ous grin. And I have thought, how long this poor soul must have persisted in looking at nothing but this dreary prospect before finding out so accurately the spot whence it looks most dreary. I might mention one or two amus- ing instances ; but I do not think it would be fair to give the facts, and I could not invent any parallel cases unless by being myself painfully worried. And we all know that, apart from other reasons, it is impolitic to look too long at a disagreeable object, for this reason — that all subjects, pleasing or painful, greaten on our view if we look at them long. They grow much bigger. You can hardly write a sermon (writing it as carefully and well as you can) without being persuaded before you have done with it, that the doctrine or duty you are seeking to enforce is one of the very highest possible importance. You feel this incomparably more strongly when you have finished your discourse than you did when you began it. So with an essay or an ai'ticle. Half AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 315 in jest, you choose your subject ; half earnestly, you sketched out your plan ; but as you carefully write it out, it begins to grow upon you that it would be well foi the human race would it but listen to your advice and act upon it. It is so also with our worries, so with all the ills of our lol, so especially with any treachery or injus- tice with which we may have been treated. You may brood over a little worry till, like the prophet's cloud, it passes from being of the size of a man's hand into some- thing that blackens all the sky, from the horizon to the zenith. You may dwell upon the cruelty and treachery with which you have been used, till the thought of them stings you almost to madness. Who but must feel for the abandoned wife, treated unquestionably with scan- dalous barbarity, who broods over her wrongs till she can think of nothing else, and can hardly speak or write without attacking her unworthy husband ? You may, in a moral sense, look at the pigsty or the open sewer till, wherever you look, you shall see nothing save open sew- ers and pigsties. You may dwell so long on your own care and sorrow, that you shall see only care and sorrow everywhere. Now, don't give in to that if you can help it. Some one has used you ill — cheated you, misrepre- sented you. An ugly old woman, partially deaf, and with a remarkably husky voice, has come to your house with- out any invitation, and notwithstanding the most frigid reception which civility will permit, persists in staying for ten days. You overhear Mr. Snarling informing a stranger that your essays in Fraser are mainly character- ized by conceit and ill-nature (Mr. Snarling, put on the cap). Your wife and you enter a drawing-room to make a forenoon visit. Miss Liuicjuice is staying at the house. 316 CONCEEXING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, Your friend, Mr. Smith, drove you down in his drag, which is a remarkably handsome turn-out. And entering the drawing-room somewhat faster than was expected, you surprise Miss Limejuice, still with a malignant grin on hei' extraordinarily ugly countenance, telegraphing across the room to the lady of the house to come and look at the carriage. In an instant the malignant jjrrin is exchanged for a fawning smile, but not so quickly but that you saw the malignant grin. A man has gone to law with you about a point which appears to you perfectly clear. Now, don't sit down and think over and over again these petty provocations. Exclude them from your mind. Most of them are really too contemptible to be thought of. The noble machinery of your mind, though you be only a commonplace good-hearted mortal, was made for something better than to grind that wretched grist. And as for greater injuries, don't think of them more than you can help. You will make yourself miserable. You will think the man who cheated or misrepresented you an in- carnate demon, while probably he is in the main not so bad, though possessed of an unhappy disposition to tell lies to the prejudice of his acquaintance. Remember that if you could see his conduct, and your own conduct, from his point of view, you might see that there is much lo be said even for him. No matter how wrong a man is, he may be able to persuade himself into the honest belief that he is in the right. You may kill an apostle, and think you are doing God service. You may vilify a curate, who is more popular than yourself; and in the process of vilification, you may quote much Scripture and shed many tears. Very, very few offenders see their offence in the precise light in which you do while you condemn it. So resolve that in any complicated case, iu AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 317 which mis^^pprehension is possible ; in all cases in which you cannofc convict a man of direct falsehood ; you shall give him credit for honesty of intention. And as to all these petty offences which have been named — as to most petty mortifications and disappointments — why, turn your back on them. Turn away from the contemplation of Mr. Snarling's criticism as you would turn away from a little stagnant puddle to look at fairer sights. Look in the opposite direction from all Miss Limejuice's doings and sayings, as you would look in the opposite direction from the sole untidy corner of the garden, where the rot- ten pea-sticks are. As for the graver sorrow, try and think of it no more. Learn its lesson indeed ; God sent it to teach you something and to train you somehow ; but then try and think of it no more. But there are mortals who are always raking up unpleasant subjects, because they have a real delight in them. Like the morbid anatomist, they would rather look at a diseased body than a healthy one. Well, in the case of their own lot, let such be indulged. At first, when you find them every time you see them, beginning again the tedious story of all their discomforts and wor- ries, you are disposed to pity them, tedious and uninter- esting though the story of their slights and grievances be. Do not throw away pity upon such. They are not suitable objects of charity. They have a real though perverted enjoyment in going over that weary narration. It makes them happy to tell at length how miserable they are. They would rather look at the pigsty than not. Let them. It is all quite riglit. But unhappily such people, not cor tent themselves to contemplate pigsties, generally are anxious to get their acquaintances to con- template their pigsties too , and as their acquaintances, in 318 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, most instances, would rather look at a clover-field than a pigsty, such people become companions of the most dis- agreeable sort. As you are sitting on a fine summer even- ing on the grass before your door, tranquil, content, full of thankful enjoyment, they are fond (so to speak) of sud- denly bringing in a scavenger's cart, and placing it before you, where it will blot out all the pleasant prospect They will not let you forget the silly thing you said oi did, the painful passage in your life on which you wisl to shut down the leaf for ever. They are always prob- ing the half-healed wound, sticking the knife into the sensitive place. If the view in a hundred directions is beautiful, they will, by instant affinity and necessity of nature, beg you to look at the dunghill, and place the dunghill before you for that purpose. I believe there are many able, sensitive men, who never had a fair chance in life. Their powers have been crippled, their views embittered, their whole natuz-e soured, by a constant dis- cipline of petty whips and scourges, and little pricking needles, applied (in some cases through pure stolidity and coarseness of nature) by an ill-mated wife. It is only by flying from their own fireside that they can escape the unceasing gadfly, with its petty, irritating, never-ending sting. They live in an atmosphere of pig- sty. They cannot lift their eyes but some ugly, petty, contemptible wrong is sure to be crammed upon their aching gaze. And it must be a very sweet and noble nature that years of this training will not embitter. It must be a very great mind that years of this training will fail to render inconceivablf petty and little. Oh! woful and miserable to meet a man of fifty or sixty, an educated man, who in this world -^f great interests and solemn an- Ucit)a*»vons, ^^au jud /-o subjects to talk of but the neglect AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 319 of his wealthy neighbour, the extortionate price he is charged for sugar, the carelessness of his man-servant, the flirtations of his maid-servants, the stiffness of Lord Dunderhead when he lately met that empty-pated peer. In what a petty world such a man lives ! Under what a low sky he walks : how muggy the atmosphere he breathes ! You remember Mr. Croaker, in Goldsmith's Goodna- tured Man. Whenever he saw a number of people cheer- ful and happy, he always contrived to throw a chill and damp over the circle by wishing, with a ghastly air, that they might all be as well that day six months. I have known many Croakers. I have known men who, if they saw a young fellow quite happy in his lot and his work, hopeful and hearty, would instantly try to suggest some- thing that might make him unhappy; that might pull him down to a congenial gloom. I have known persons who, if they had looked upon a gay circle of sweet, lively girls, rosy and smiling, would have enjoyed extremely to have (in a moral sense) suddenly brought into that fair circle a hearse and a coffin. And I have been filled with fiery indignation, when I knew that such persons, really acting from malignant spite and bitterness to see others happy, would probably have claimed to be acting from religious motives, and doing a Christian duty. The veiy foundation, and primary axiom, in some men's religious belief, is, that Almighty God is spitefully angry to see His creatures happy. Oh what a wicked, mischievous lie ! God is love. And we know it on the highest of all authorities, that the very first and grandest duty Ho claims of His creatures, is to love Him with heart and eoul and strength and mind ; not to shrink before Him, HV^ whipped slaves before a capricious, sulky tyrant ; but 320 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, fo love Him and trust to Him as lovin": children mic^ht gather at the kindest parent's knee. I anj content to look at a pigsty when needful : God intends that we sliould oftentimes look at such in the moral world ; but God intends that we should look at clover-fields and fra- grant flowers whenever we can do so without a derelic- ion of duty. I am quite sure that when the Blessed Redeemer went to the marriage atC£\,na of Galilee, he did not think it his duty to cast a gloom and a damp over the festive company there. Do not misunderstand me, my spiteful acquaintance. There is a time to mourn, as well as a time to dance ; and in this life we shall have quite enough of the former time, without seeking for su- pererogatory woes. I am not afraid, myself, to look upon the recent grave ; I would train my children to sit upon the daisied mound, pensive, but not afraid, as I told them that Christianity has turned the sepidchrum into the KOifjLqrijpiov, — the hurying-place into the sleeping-place ; as I told them how the Christian dead do but sleep for the Great Awaking. But I should not think it right to break in upon their innocent cheer by rushing in and telling them that their coffin would soon be coming, and that their grave was waiting in the chui-chyard. There are times enough and events enough which will tell them that. Don't let us have Mr. Croaker. And don't let us fancy that by making ourselves miserable, we are doing something pleasing to God. It is not His purpose that we should look at pigsties when we can honestly help it. No doubt, the erroneous belief that God wishes that we should, runs through all religions. India, Persia, Ara- bia, have known it, no less than Rome, England, Scot- land ; the fakir, the eremite, the monk, the Covenanter, have erred together here. Tlie Church of England, and AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 821 the Church of Scotland, are no more free from the ten- dency to it, than the Church of Rome; and the gi'ira Puritan, who thought it sinful to smile, was just as far wrong as the starved monastic and the fleshless Bralimiu. Every now and then, I preach a sermon against tliis notion ; not that people now-a-days will actually scourge and starve themselves; but that they carry with them an inveterate belief that it would be a fine thing if they did. Here is the conclusion of the last sermon ; various friendly readers of Fraser have sent me fancy specimens of bits of my discourses , let them compare their notion of them with the fact : — ■ It shows how all men, everyvhere, have been pressed by a common sense of guilt against God, which they thought to expiate by self- inflicted punishment. But we, my friends, know better than that. Jesus died for us; Jesus suffered for us; Eis sufferings took away our sins, our own sufferings, how great soever, never could; Christ's sacrifice was all-sufficient; and any penance on our part is just as needless as it would be unavailing. Take, then, brethren, without a scruple or a misgiving, the innocent enjoyment of life. Let your heart beat, gladly and tluinkfull3', by your quiet fireside; and never dream that there is anything of sinful self-indulgence in that pure delight with which you watch your children's sports, and hear their prattle. Look out upon green spring fields and blossoms, upon sum- mer woods and streams; gladden in the bright sunshine, as well as muse in the softening twilight; and never fancy that though these things cheer you amid the many cares of life, you are falling short of the ideal sketched by that kindly Teacher of self-denial who said, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily ! ' Having relieved my feelings by thus stating my reso- lute protest against what I think one of the most mis- chievous and wicked errors I ever knew, I proceed to say that although I think nothing can be more foolish than to be always looking at moral pigsties, still the ptin- •liple cannot be laid down without some restriction. Yuu 21 322 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, may, by indulging tlie disposition to look away from un* pleasant prospects, bring your mind to a morbid state: you may become so over-sensitive, that you shall shrink tway from the very thought of injustice, cruelty, or suf- fering. I do not suppose selfishness. I am not talking to selfish, heartless persons, who can look on with entire composure at sufi'ering of any sort, provided it do not touch themselves. I am quite content that such should endure all that may befall them, and more. The heart of Bome men is like an extremely tough beef-steak, which needs an immense deal of beating before it will grow ten- der. The analogy does not hold entirely ; for I believe the very toughest steak may be beaten till it grows ten- der ; or at least the beating will not make it tougher. Whereas the human heart is such, that while in generous natures it learns, by suffering, to feel for the suffering of others, in selfish and sordid natures it becomes only the more selfish and self-contained the more it is called to feel. But I am not speaking to selfish persons. I am thinking of generous, sensitive human beings, to whom the contemplation of injustice and cruelty and falsehood is as painful when these are pressing upon others, as when they are pressing upon themselves. I am thinking of men and women who feel their hearts quicken and their cheeks flush when they read the stupid and unjust verdicts of occasional (must I say frequent?) juries ; and the preposterous decisions of London police magistrates now and then. To such, I well believe, the daily read- ing of the law report in the Times is a painful worry ; it sets before one so sad a picture of human sin and folly ; and it shows so strongly that human laws labour most vainly to redress the greater part of the evils that press on human life. You remember how once Byron, at Ven- AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 323 ice, durst not open the Quarterly Review ; and sent it away after it bad been several days in his bouse, igno- rant even whether it contained any notice of him. Of course this was a purely selfish shrinking ; the poet knew that his nature would so wince under the dreaded attack, that he was afraid even to ascertain whether there were any attack at all. Have not you, my reader, from a Eaoibid though more generous sensitiveness, sometimes shrunk from opening the newspaper which day by day reported some iniquitous court-martial, some scandalous trial in the Ecclesiastical Court, revealing human deprav- ity in its foulest manifestation, and setting out and press- ing upon your view evils which were practically remedi- less ? And so, thinking of such things, I wish to qualify my great principle, that in the moral world it is wise and right to turn your back upon the pigsty, where practicable. I have thought of two limitations of this principle. The first limitation is this ; that however painful it may be to look at unpleasant things, we ought fairly to face them so long as there is any hope of remedying them. The second limitation is this ; that however painful it may be to look at unpleasant things, we ought not to train our- selves, by constantly refusing to look at them, to a mor- bidly shrinking habit of mind. Such a habit, by indul- gence, will grow upon us to that degree, that it will unfit us for the rude wear of life. And the moral nature, grown sensitive as the mimosa, will serve as a conductor to convey many a wretched and debilitating pang to the heart. Lat us think of these two limitations of my theory as to the fashion in which the worries of life should be met. Though it is wise, generally speaking, to look away from painful sights, it is not wise or right to do so while, 324 COXCERNIXG THE WORRIES OF LIFE, by facing them, we may hope to mend them. It is not good, like a certain priest and Levite of ancient times, to turn our back on the poor man Jying half dead by the way-side ; while it is still possible for a Good Samaritaa to pour in oil and wine. Plovvever unpleasing the sight, however painful the effort, let us look fairly at the worrj in our lot, till we have done our best to put it right It is not the act of wisdom, it is the doitig of indolence^ selfishness, and cowardice, to turn our back on tha> which we may remedy or even alleviate by facing it. It is only when no good can come of brooding over tht pigsty that I counsel the reader persistently to turn awa} from it. Many men try to forget some family vexa - tion, some neglected duty, some social or political gv\e\ • ance, when they ought manfully to look full at it, to se<; it in its true dimensions and colours, and to try to mend matters. They cannot truly forget the painful fact. Even when it is not distinctly remembered, a vague, dull, unhappy sense of something amiss will go with them everywhere — all the more unhappy because con- science will tell them they are doing wrong. It is so in small matters as well as great. Your bookcase is all in confusion ; the papers in your drawei's have got into a sad mess. It is easier, you think, to shut the doors, to lock the drawers, to go away and think of something else, than manfully to face the pigsty and sort it up. Possibly you may do so. If you are a nerveless, cow- ardly being, you will ; but you will not be comfortable though you have turned your back on the pigsty : » gnawing consciousness of the pigsty's existence will go with you wherever you go. Say your affairs have be- come embarrassed ; you are living beyond your means ; you are afraid to add up your accounts and ascertain AND HOW TO 3IEET THEM. 325 how you stand. Ah, my friend, many a poor man well knows the feeling ! Don't give in to it. Fairly face the fact : know the worst. Many a starving widow and orphan, many a pinched family reduced from opulence to sordid shifts, have suffered because the dead father would not while he lived face the truth in regard to his means and affairs ! Let not that selfish being quote my essay in support of the course he takes. However com- plicated and miserable the state of the facts may be — though the pigsty should be like the Augean stable — look fairly at it ; see it in its length and breadth ; cut off your dinner-parties, sell your horses, kick out the fellows who make a hotel of your house and an ordinary of your table ; bring your establishment to what your means can reach, to what will leave enough to insure your life. Don't let your miserable children have to think bitterly of you in your grave. And another re- spect, in which you ought to carry out the same reso- lute purpose to look the pigsty full in the face is, in regard to your religious views and belief. Don't turn your back upon your doctrinal doubts and difficulties. Go up to them and examine them. Perhaps tlie ghastly object which looks to you in the twilight like a sheeted ghost, may prove to be no more than a table- cloth hanging upon a hedge ; but if you were to pass it distantly without ascertaining what it is, you might carry the shuddering belief that you had seen a disembodied 6|)irit all your days. Some people (very wrongly, as I think) would have you turn the key upon your sceptical difficulties, and look away from the pigsty altogether. From a stupid though prevalent delusion as to the mean- ing of Faith, they have a vague impression that the less ground you have for your belief, and the more 326 CONCEENLNG TIIE WORRIES OF LIFE, objections you stoutly refuse to see, the more faith you have got. It is a poor theory, that of some worthy divines ; it amounts to just this : Christianity is true, and it is proved true by evidence ; but for any sake don't examine the evidence, for the more you examine it the less likely you are to believe it. I say, No ! Let us see your difficulties and objections ; only to define their will cut them down to half their present vague, misty dimensions. I am not afraid of them ; for though, after all is said, they continue to be difficulties, I shall show you that difficulties a hundredfold greater stand in the way of the contrary belief; and it is just by weighing opposing difficulties that you can in this world come to any belief, scientific, historical, moral, political. Let me say here that I heartily despise the man who professes a vague scepticism on the strength of difficulties which he has never taken the pains fairly to measure. It is hypocritical pretence when a man professes at the same instant to turn his back upon a prospect, and to be guided by what he discerns in that prospect. But there are men who would like to combine black with white, yes with no. There are men who are always anxious to combine the contradictory enterprises. How to do a thing and How at the same time not to do it. In brief, my limitation is this : Do not refuse to admit distressing thoughts, if any good is to come of admitting them ; do not turn your back on the ugly prospect, so long as there is a hope of mending it ; don't be like the wrecked sailor, who drinks himself into in- sensibility, while a hope of rescue remains ; don't refuse to worry yourself by thinking what is to become of your children after you are gone, if there be still time to devise some means of providing for them. Look fairly AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 327 at the blackest view, and go at it bravely if there be the faintest chance of making it brighter. And, in truth, a great many bad things prove to be not so bad when you fairly look at them. The day seems horribly rainy and stormy when you look out of your library-window ; but you wi'ap up and go out reso- lutely for a walk, and the day is not so bad. By the time your brisk five miles are finished, you think it rather a fine breezy day, healthful though boistei-ous. All remediable evils are made a great deal worse by turning your back on them. The skeleton in the closet rattles its bare bones abominably, when you lock the closet-door. Your disorderly drawer of letters and pa- pers was a bugbear for weeks, because you put off sort- ing it and tried to forget it. It made you unhappy — vaguely uneasy, as all neglected duties do ; yet you thought the trouble of putting it right would be so great that you would rather bear the little gnawing uneasiness. At length you could stand it no more. You determined some day to go at your task and do it. You did it. It was done speedily ; it was done easily. You felt a blessed sense of relief, and you wondered that you had made such a painful worry of a thing so simple. By the make of the universe every duty deferred grows in bulk and weight and painful pressure. It may here be said that when a worry cannot be forgotten, and yet cannot be mended, it is a good thing to try to define it. Measure its exact size. That is Bure to make it look smaller. I have great confidence in the power of the pen to give most people clearer ideas than they would have without it. You have a vague sense that in your lot there is a vast number of worries and annoyances. Just sit down, take a large 828 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, sheet of paper and a pen, and write out a list of all your annoyances and worries. You will be surprised to find how few they are, and how small they look. And if on another sheet of paper you make a list of all the blessings you enjoy, I believe that in most cases you will see reason to feel heartily ashamed of your previous state of discontent. Even should the catalogue of worries not be a brief one, still the killing thing — the vague sense of indefinite magnitude and number — will be gone. Almost all numbers diminish by accurately counting them. A clergyman may hon- estly beheve that there are five hundred people in his church ; but unless he be a person accustomed accu rately to estimate numbers, you will find on counting that his congregation does not exceed two hundred and fifty. When the Chartist petition was presented to Par- liament some years ago, it was said to bear the signa- tures of five or six millions of people. It looked such an immense mass that possibly its promoters were hon- est in promulgating that belief. But the names were counted, and they amounted to no more than a million and a half So, thoughtful reader, who fancy yourself torn by a howling pack of worries, count them. You will find them much fewer than you had thought ; and the only way to satisfactorily count them is by making a list of them in writing. Yet here there is a difiiculty too. The purpose for which I advise you to make such a list, is to assure yourself that your worries are really not so very many or so very great. But there is hardly any means in this woi-ld which may not be worked to the opposite of the contemplated end. And by writing out and dwelling on the list of your worries, you may make them worse. AND now TO MEET THEM. 329 You may diminish their number, but increase their in- tensity. You may set out the relations and tendencies of the vexations under which you suffer, of the ill usage of which you complain, till you whip yourself up to a point of violent indignation. In reading the life of Sir Charles Napier, I think one often sees cause to lament that the great man so chronicled and dwelt upon the petty injustices which he met with from petty men. And when a poor governess writes the story of her in- dignities, recording them with painful accuracy, and put- ting them in the most unpleasing light, one feels that it would have been better had she not taken up the pen. But indeed these are instances coming under the general principle set out some time since, that irremediable ries are. for the most part better forgotten. So much for the first limitation of my theory for the treatment of worries. The second, you remember, is, that we ought not to give in to the impulse to turn our back upon the ugly prospect to such a degree that any painful sight or thoiiglit shall be felt like a mortal sta-b. You may come to that point of morbid sensitiveness. And I believe that the greatest evil of an extremely retired country life is, that it tends to bring one to that painfully shrinking state. You may be afraid to read the Times, for the suffering caused you by the contem- plation of the irremediable sin and misery of which you read the daily record there. You may come to wish that you could creep away into some quiet corner, where the uproar of human guilt and wretchedness should never be heard again. You may come to sympathize heartily with the weary aspiration of the Psalmist, ' Oh that I had wings like a dove : then would 1 flee away and be at rest! ' Sometimes as you stand in your stable, 330 CONCERNIXG THE WOKEIES OF LIFE, smoothing down your horse's neck, you may think how quiet and silent a place it is, how free from worry, and wish you had never to go out of the stall. Or when you have been for two or three days ill in bed, the days going on and going down so strangely, you may have thought that you would stay there for the remainder of your life ; that you could not muster resolution to set yourself again to the daily worry. You people who cannot understand the state of feeling which I am trying to describe, be thankful for it : but do not doubt that such a state of leehng exists in many minds. Let me confess, for myself, that for several years past I have been afraid to read a good novel. It is intensely painful to contemplate and realize to one's mind the state of matters set out in most writings of the class. Apart from the question of not caring for that order of thought (and to me dissertation is much more interesting than narrative), don't you shrink from the sight of strug- gling virtue and triumphant vice, of ci'uelty, oppression, and successful falsehood ? Give us the story that has no exciting action ; that moves along without incident transcending the experience of ordinary human beings ; that shows us quiet, simple, innocent modes of life, free from the intrusion of the stormy and wicked world around. Don't you begin, as you grow older, to sympa- thize with that feeling of the poet Beattie, which when younger you laughed at, that Shakspeare's admixture of the gi'otesque in his serious plays was absolutely neces- sary to prevent the tragic part from pi'oducing an effect too painful for endurance ? The poet maintained that Shakspeare was aiming to save those who might witness his plays from a ' disordered head or a broken heart.* V"ou see there, doubtless, the working of a morbid ner AM) HOW TO MEET TIIEM. 331 vous system ; but there is a substratum of truth. Once upon a lime, when a man was worried by the evils of his lot, he could hope to escape from them by getting into the world of fiction. But now much fiction is such that you are worse there than ever. T do not think of the grand, romantic, and ti-emendously melodramatic inci- dents which one sometimes finds ; these do not greatly pain us, because we feel both characters and incidents to be so thoroughly unreal. I do not mind a bit when the hero of Monte Christo is flung into the sea in a sack from a cliff some hundreds of feet high ; that pains one no more than the straits and misfortunes of Munchau- sen. The wearing thing is to be carried into homely sceces, and shown life-like characters, bearing and strug- gling with the worries of life we know so well. We are reminded, only too vividly, of the hard strife of reduced gentility to keep up appearances, of the aging, life-wearing battle with constant care. It is as much wear of heart to look into that picture truthfully set before us by a man or woman of genius, as to look at the sad reality of this world of struggle, privation, and failure. It was just the sight of these that we wished to escape, and lo ! there they are again. So one shrinks from the sympathetic reading of a story too truthfully sad. I once read Vanity Fair. I would not read it again on any account, any more than one would will- ingly go through the delirium of a fever, or revive distinctly the circumstances of the occasion on which one acted like a fool. The story was admirable, incom- parable ; but it was too sadly true. We see quite enough of that sort of thing in actual life : let us not have it again when we seek relief from the realities of actual hfe. Once you get into a sunshiny atmosphere 332 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, when yuu began to read a work of fiction ; or if the light was lurid, it was manifestly the glare of some preparation . of sulphur in a scene-shifter's hand. But now, you are often in a doleful grey from the begin- ning of a story to its end. It is a great blessing when a man's nature or training is such that he is able to turn away entirely from his work when he desists from actual working, and to shut his eyes to the contemplation of any painful thing when its contemplation ceases to be necessary or useful. There is much in this of native idiosyncrasy, but a good deal may be done by discipline. You may to a certain ex- tent acquire the power to throw off from the mind the burden that is weighing upon it, at all times except the moment during which the burden has actually to be borne. I envy the man who stops his work and in- stantly forgets it till it is time to begin again. I envy the man who can lay down his pen while writing on some subject that demands all his mental stretch, and go out for a walk, and yet not through all his walk be wrestling with his subject still. Oh! if we could lay down the mind's load as we can lay down the body's ! If the mind could sit down and rest for a breathing space, as the body can in climbing a hill ! If, as we decidedly stop walking when we cease to walk, we could cease thinking when we intend to cease to think! It was doubtless a great secret of the work which Napo- leon did with so little apparent wear, that he could fall asleep whenever he chose. Yet even he could not at will look away from the pigsty : no doubt one suddenly pressed itself upon his view on that day when he was Bitting alone at dinner, and in a moment sprang up with a furious execration, and kicked over the table, smash- AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 333 ing his plates as drunken Scotch weavers sometimes do. Let us do our best to right the Avrong ; but when we have done our best, and go to something else, let us quite forget the wrong : it will do no good to remember it now. It is long-continued wear that kills. We can do and bear a vast deal if we have blinks of intermis- sion of bearing and doing. But the mind of some men is on the stretch from the moment they begin a task till they end it. Slightly and rapidly as you may run over this essay, it was never half-an-hour out of the writer's waking thoughts from the writing of the first line to the writing of the last. I have known those who, when busied with any work, legal, literary, theological, parochial, do- mestic, hardly ever consciously ceased from it ; but were, as Mr. Bailey has expressed it, * about it, lashing at it day and night.' The swell continued though the wind had gone down ; the wheels spun round though the steam was shut off. Let me say here (I say it for myself), that apart entirely from any consideration of the religious sanctions which hallow a certain day of the seven, it appears to me that its value is literally and really ines- timable to the overworked and worried man, if it be kept sacred, not merely from worldly work, but from the intrusion of worldly cares and thoughts. The thing can be done, my friend. As the last hour of Saturday strikes, the burden may fall from the mind : the pack of worries may be whipped off; and you may feel that you have entered on a purer, freer, happier life, which will last for four-and-twenty hours. I am a Scotchman, and a Scotch cleigyman, and I hold views regarding the Sunday with which I know that some of my most esteemed readers do not sympathize ; but I believe, for myself, that a strict resolution to {)reserve the Lord's day 334 CONCERNING THE WORRIES OF LIFE, sacred (in no Puritanical sense), would lengthen many a valuable life ; would preserve the spring of many a noble mind ; would hold off in some cases the approaches of imbecility or insanity. J do not forget, in urging the expediency of training the mind to turn away from worries which it will do no good to continue to look at, that anything evil or pain- ful has a peculiar power to attract and compel attention to it. A little bad thing bulks larger on the mind's view than a big good thing. It persistently pushes its ugly face upon our notice. You cannot forget that you have bad toothache, though it be only one little nerve that is in torment, and all the rest of the body is at ease. And some little deformity of person, some little worry in your domestic arrangements, keeps always intruding itself, and defying you to forget or overlook it. If the pigsty already referred to be placed in the middle of the pretty lawn before your door, it will blot out all the landscape : you will see nothing save the pigsty. Evil has the ad- vantage of good in many ways. It not merely deti'acts from good : it neutralizes it all. I think it is Paley who says that the evils of life supply no just argument against the divine benevolence ; inasmuch as when weighed against the blessings of life, the latter turn the scale. It is as if you gave a man five hundred a-year, and then took away from him one hundred : this would amount virtually to giv- ing him a clear four hundred a-year. It always struck me that the case put is not analogous to the fact. The four hundred a-year left would lose no part of their marketable value when the one hundred was taken away The fact is rather as if you gave a man a large jug of pure water, and then cast into it a few drops of black AXD HOW TO MEET THEM. 335 draught. That little infusion of senna would render the entire water nauseous. No doubt there might be fifty times as much pure water as vile senna : but the vile senna would spoil the whole. Even such is the influence of evil in this system of things. It does not simply diminish the quantity of good to be enjoyed : to a great degree it destroys the enjoyment of the whole of the good. Good carries weight in the race with evil. It has not a fair start, nor a fair field. Don't you know, reader, that it needs careful, constant training to give a child a good education ; and possibly you may not succeed in giving the good education after all : while no cai-e at all suffices to give a bad education ; and a bad education is generally successful. So in the physical world. No field runs to wheat. If a farmer wants a crop of good grain, he must woi'k hard to get it. But he has only to neglect his field and do nothing, and he will have weeds enough. The whole system of things in this world tends in favour of evil rather than of good. But happily, my friend, we know the reason why. And we know that a day is coming which will set these things right. I trust I have made sufficiently plain the precise error against which this essay is directed. The thing with which I find fault is that querulous, discontented, un- happy disposition which sits down and broods over disa- greeables and worries : not with the view of mending them, nor of bracing the moral nature by the sight of them : but simply for the sake of harping upon that te- dious string; — of making yourself miserable, and making all who come near you miserable too. There are people into whose houses you cannot go, without being sickened by the long catalogue of all their slights and worries. It is 336 COXCERNIXG THE "WORRIES OF LIFE a wretched and contemptible thing to be always hawking about one's griefs, in the hope of exciting commiseration. Let people be assured that their best friends will grow wearied of hearing of their worries : let people be as- sured that the pity which is accorded them will be in most cases mingled with something of contempt. There are men and women who have a wonderful scent for a grievance. If you are showing them your garden, and there be one untidy corner, they will go straight to that, and point it out with mournful elation, and forget aU the rest of the trim expanse. If there be one mortify- ing cii'cumstance in an otherwise successful and happy lot, they will be always reminding you of that. You ■write a book. Twenty favourable reviews of it appear, and two unfavourable : Mr. Snarling arrives after break- fast, sure as fate, with the two unfavourable reviews in his pocket. You are cheerful and contented with your lot and your house : Mr. Snarling never misses an oppor- tunity of pointing out to you the dulness of your situation, the inconvenience of your dwelling, the inferiority of the place you hold in life to what you might a priori have an- ticipated! You are quite light-hearted when Mr. Snarling enters ; but when he goes, you cannot help feeling a good deal depressed. The blackest side of things has been pressed on your notice during his stay. I do not think this is entirely the result of malice. It is ignorance of the right way to face little worries. The man has got a habit of looking only at the dunghill. "Would that he could learn better sense ! Let me here remark a certain confusion which exists in the minds of many. I have known persons who prided themselves on their ability to inflict pain on others. They AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 337 thought it a proof of power. And no doubt to scarify a man as Luther and Milton did, as Croker, Lockhai't, and Macau- lay did, is a proof of power. But sometimes people inflict pain on others simply by making themselves disgusting ; and to do this is no proof of power. No doubt you may severely pain a refined and cultivated man or woman by revolting vulgarity of language and manner. You may, Mrs. Bouncer, embitter your poor governess's life by your coarse, petty tyranny ; and you may infuriate your ser vants by talking at them before strangers at fable. But let me remind you that there is a dignified and an undig- nified way of inflicting pain. There are what may be called the Active and the Passive ways. You may inflict annoyance as a viper does ; or you may inflict annoyance as a dunghill does. Some men (sharp critics belong to this class) are like the viper. They actively give pain. You are afraid of them. Others, again, are like a dung- hill: They are merely passively offensive. You are dis- gusted at these. Now the viperish man may perhaps be proud of his power of stinging : but the dunghill man has no reason earthly to be proud of his power of stinking. It is just that he is an offensive object, and men would rather get out of his way. Yet I have heard a blockhead boast how he had driven away a refined gentleman from a certain club. No doubt he did. The gentleman could never go there without the blockhead offensivelv revolting him. Tiie blockhead told the story with pride. Other blockheads listened, and expressed their admira- tion of his cleverness. I looked in the blockhead's flxce, and inwardly said, Oh you human dunghill ! Think of a filthy sewer boasting, ' Ah, I can drive most pcoi)lQ away from me !'' To the dunghill class many men belong. Such, gen- 22 333 COXCEENING THE WOREIES OF LIFE, erally, are those who will never heartily say anything pleasant ; but who are always ready to drop hints of what they think will be disagreeable for you to hear. Such are the men who will walk round your garden, when you show it to them in the innocent pride of your heart : and after having accomplished the circuit, will shrug their shoulders, snuff the air, and say nothing. Such are the men who will call upon an old gentleman, and incidentally mention that they were present the other Sunday when his son preached his first sermon, but say no kindly word as to the figure made by the youthful divine. Such are the men who, when you show them your fine new church, will walk round it hurriedly, say carelessly, ' Very nice ; ' and begin to talk earnestly upon topics not connected with ecclesiastical architecture. And such, as a general rule, are all the envious race, who will never cordially praise anything done by others, and who turn green with envy and jealousy if they even hear others speak of a third party in words of cordial praise. Such men are for the most part under-bred, and always of third or fourth- rate talent. A really able man heartily speaks well of the talent that rivals or eclipses his own. He does so through the necessity of a noble and magnanimous nature. And a gentleman will generally do as much, through the influence of a training which makes the best of the best features in the character of man. It warms one's heart to hear a great and illustrious author speak of a young one who is struggling up the slope. But it is a sony thing to hear Mr. Snarling upon the same subjsct. I have sometimes wondered whether what is commonly called coolness in human beings is the result of a remark- able power of looking away from tilings which it is not AND now TO MEET TIIEM. aOS thought desirable to see ; or of a still more remarkable power of looking at disagreeable things and not minding. You remember somewhere in the Life of Sir Walter Scott, we are told of a certain joyous dinner-party at his house in Castle-street. Of all the gay party there was none so gay as a certain West Country baronet. Yet in his pocket he had a letter containing a challenge which he had accepted ; and next morning early he was off to the duel in which he was killed. Now, there must have been a woful worry gnawing at the clever man's heart, you would say. How did he take it so coolly ? Did he really forget for the time the risk that lay before him ? Or did he look fairly at it, yet not care ? He was a kind-hearted man as well as a brave one : surely he must have been able, through the jovial evening, to look quite away from the possibility of a distracted widow, and young children left fatherless. Sometimes this cool- ness appears in base and sordid forms : it is then the re- sult of obtuseness of nature, — of pure lack of discern- ment and feeling. People thus qualified are able with entire composure to do things which others could not do to save their lives. Such are the people who constitute a class which is an insufferable nuisance of civilized soci- ety, — the class of uninvited and unwelcome guests. I am thinking of people who will without any invitation push themselves and their baggage into the house of a mail who is almost a stranger to them ; and in spite of the fctudied presentation of the cold shoulder, and in spite of every civil hint that their presence is most unwelcome, nuike themselves quite at home for so long as it suits them to remain. I have heard of people who would come, to the number of three or four, to the house of a poor gen- tleman to whom every shilling was a consideration; and 310 CONCERXIXG THE WOERIES OF LIFE, without invitation remain for four, six, ten weeks at a stretch. I have heard of people who would not only come uninvited to stay at a small house, but bring with them some ugly individual whom its host had never seen : and possibly a mangy dog in addition. And such folk will with great freedom drink the wine, little used by that plain household, and hospitably press the ugly individual to drink it freely too. I declare there is something that approaches the sublime in the intensity of such folk's stolidity. They will not see that they are not wanted. They jauntily make themselves quite at home. If they get so many weeks' board and lodging, they don't care how unpleasantly it is given. They will write for your carriage to meet them at the railway station, as if they were ordering a hackney-coach. This subject, however, is too large to be taken up here : it must have an entire ■essay to itself. But probably my reader will agree with me in thinking that people may possess in an excessive degree the valuable power of looking away from what they don't wish to see. And yet — and yet — do you not feel that it is merely by turning our mind's eye away from many thoughts which are only too intrusive, that you can hope to enjoy much peace or quiet in such a world as this ? How could you feel any relish for the comforts of your own cheerful lot if you did not forget the wretchedness, anxiety, and M'ant which enter into the pinched and poverty-stricken lot of others ? You do not like, when you lay yourself down at night on your quiet bed, to think of the poor wretch in the condemned cell of the town five miles off who will meet his violent death to-morrow in the dismal drizzling dawn. Some, I verily believe, will not sympa- AND Plow TO MEET THEM. 341 iLize with the feeling. There are persons, I believe, who could go on quite comfortably with their dinner with a starvinj; besjrar standin"; outside the window and watch- ing each morsel they ate with famished eyes. Perhaps there are some who would enjoy their dinner all the bet- ter ; and to that class would belong (if indeed he be not a pure, dense, unmitigated, unimprovable blockhead, who did not understand or feel the force of what he said) that man who lately preached a sermon in which he stated that a great part of the happiness of heaven would con- sist in looking down complacently on the torments of hell, and enjoying the contrast ! What an idea must that man have had of the vile, heartless selfishness of a soul in bliss ! No. For myself, though holding humbly all that the Church believes and the Bible teaches, I say that if there be a mystery hard of explanation, it is how the happy spirit can be happy even There, though missing from its side those who in this life were dearest. You remember the sublime prayer of AquinaS' — ^a prayer for Satan him- self. You remember the gush of kindliness which made Burns express a like sorrow even for the dark Father of Evil : ' I'm wae to think upon your den, Even for your sake ! ' No. The day 7nay come when it will not grieve us to contemplate misery which is intolerable and irreme- diable ; but this will be because we shall then have gained such clear and right views of all things, that we shall see things as they appear to God, and then doubtless see that all lie does is right. But we may be well assured that it will not be the selfish satisfaction of contrasting our own happiness with that misery which will enable us to I'ontemplate it with complacency : it will be a humble submission of our own will to the One Will that is alwayii wise and right. Yet you remember, reader, how one of 342 COXCERNIXG THE WORRIERS OF LIFE, the profoundest and acutest of living theologians is fain to have recourse, in the case of this saddest of all sad thoughts, to the same relief which I have counselled for life's Httle worries — oh how little when we think of this ! Archbishop Whately, in treating of this great difficulty, suggests the idea that in a higher state the soul may have the power of as decidedly turning the thoughts away from a painful subject as we now have of turning the eyes away from a disagi*eeable sight. I thought of these things this afternoon in a gay and stirring scene. It was a frozen lake of considerable ex- tent, lying in a beautiful valley, at the foot of a majestic hill. The lake was covered with people, all in a state of high enjoynjent : scores of skaters were flying about, and there was a roaring of curling-stones like the distant thunder that was heard by Rip van Winkle. The sky was blue and sunshiny ; the air crisp and clear ; the cliffs, slopes, and fields around were fair with untrodden snow ; but still one could not quite exclude the recollec- tion that this brisk frost, so bracing and exhilarating .to us, is the cause of great suffering to multitudes. The frost causes most outdoor work to cease. No building, no fieldwork, can go forward, and so tho rost cuts off the bread from many hungry mouths ; and tireless rooms and thin garments are no defence against this bitter chill. Well, you would never be cheerful at all but for the uiessed gift of occasional forgetfulness ! Those who have seen things too accurately as they are, have always been sorrowful even when unsoured men. Here, you man (one of six or seven eager parties with chairs and gim- lets), put on my skates. Don't bore that hole in the heel of the boot too deep ; you may penetrate to something AND HOW TO MEET THEM. 343 more sensitive than leather. Screw in ; buckle the straps, but not too tight : and now we are on our feet, with the delightful sense of fi-eedom to fly about in any direction with almost the smooth swiftness of a bird. Come, my friend, let us be oif round the lake, with long strokes, steadily, and not too fast. We may not be quite like Sidney's Arcadian shepherd-boy, piping as if he never would grow old ; yet let us be like kindly skaters, forgetting, in the exhilarating exercise that quickens the pulse and flushes the cheek, that there are such things aa evil and worry in this world ! CHAPTER XL CONCERNING GIVING UP AND COMING DO^VN. OT so very much depends upon a beginning after all. The inexperienced writer racks his brain for something striking to set out with, lie is anxious to make a good impression at first. He fancies that unless you hook your reader by your first sentence, your reader will break away ; making up his mind that what you have got to say is not worth the reading. Now it cannot be doubted that a preacher, who is desirous of keeping his congregation in that dead silence and fixedness of attention which one sometunes sees in .church, must, as a general rule, produce that audi- ble hush by his first sentence if he is to produce it at all. If people in church are pei'mitted for even one minute at the beginning of the sei'mon to settle themselves, bodily and mentally, into the attitude of inattention, and of think- ing of something other than the preacher's words, the preacher will hardly catch them up again. He will hardly, by any amount of earnestness, eloquence, point- edness, or oddity, gain th;it universal and sympathetic interest of which he flung away his chance by some long, involved, indirect, and dull sentence at starting. But the writer is not tried by so exacting a standard. Most readers will glance over the first few pages of a book before throwing it aside as stupid. The writer may CONCERi:iNG GIVING UP AND COMING DOWN. 345 overcome the evil effect of a first sentence, or even a first paragraph, which may have been awkward, ugly, dull — yea silly. I could name several very popular works which set out in a most unpromising way. I par- ticularly dislike the first sentence of Adam Bede, but it \i redeemed by hundi-eds of noble ones. It is not certain that the express train which is to devour the four hun« dred miles between London and Edinburgh in ten hours, ijhall run its first hundred yards much faster than the lagging parliamentary. There can be no question that the man whom all first visitants of the House of Commons are most eager to see and hear is Mr. Disraeli. He is the lord of debate ; not unrivalled perhaps, but certainly unsurpassed. Yet everybody knows he made a very poor beginning. In short, my reader, if something that is really good is to follow, a bad outset may be excused. One readily believes what one wishes to believe ; and I wish to hold by this principle. For I have accumu- lated many thoughts Concerning Giving Up and Coming Down ; and I have got them lying upon this table, noted down on six long slips of paper. I vainly fancy that I have certain true and useful tilings to say ; but I have experienced extraordinary difficulty in deciding how I should begin to say them, I have sat this morning by the fireside for an hour, looking intently at the glowing coals ; but though I could think of many things to say about the middle of my essay, I could think of nothing satisfac- tory with which to begin it. But comfort came as the thought gradually developed itself, that it really mat- tered very little how the essay might be begun, provided it went on ; and, above all, ended. A dull beginning will probably be excused to the essayist more readily than to the writer whose sole pur[)0se is to amuse. The essayist 346 CONCERXIXG GIVING UP oleases himself with the belief that his readers are by several degrees more intelligent and thoughtful than the ordinary readers of ordinary novels ; and that many of them, if they find thoughts which are just and practical, will regard as a secondary matter the order in which these thoughts come. The sheep's head of northern cookery has not, at the first glance, an attractive aspect : nor is the nutriment it affords very symmetrically ar- ranged : but still, as Dr. John Brown has beautifully remarked, it supplies a deal ol fine confused feeding. I look at my six pieces of paper, closely written over in a very small hand. They seem to me as the sheep's head. There is feeding there, albeit somewhat confused. It matters not much where we shall begin. Come, my friendly reader, and partake of the homely fare. Tlie great lesson which the wise and true man is learning through life, is, how to come down without GIVING UP. Reckless and foolish people confuse these two things. It is far easier to give up than to come down, it is far less repugnant to our natural self-conceit. It befits much better our natural laziness. It enables us to fancy ourselves heroic, when in truth we are vain, slothful, and fretful. I have not words to express my belief on this matter so strongly as I feel it. Oh ! I ven- erate the man who with a heart unsoured has come down, and come down far, but who never will give up ! I fancy my reader wondering at my excitement, and doubtful of my meaning. Let me explain my terms. What is meant by giving up : what by coming down ? By coming down I understand this: Learning from the many mortifications, disappointments, and rebuffs which we must all meet as we go on through life, to think more humbly of ourselves, intellectually, morally, AND COMING DOWN. 347 socially, physically, aesthetically : yet, while thinking thus humbly of ourselves and our powers, to resolve that we shall continue to do our very best : and all this with a kindly heart and a contented mind. Such is my ideal of true and Christian coming down : and I regard as a true hero the man who does it rightly. It is a noble tiling for a man to say to himself, * I am not at all what I had vainly fancied myself: my mark is far, very far low er than I thought it had been : I had fancied myself a great genius, but I find I am only a man of decent ability : I had fancied myself a man of great weight in the county, but I find I have very little influence indeed : I had fan- cied that my stature was six feet four, but I find that I am only five feet two : I had fancied that in such a com- petition I never could be beaten, but in truth I have been sadly beaten : I had fancied [suffer me, reader, the sol- emn allusion] that my Master had entrusted me with ten talents, but I find I have no more than one. But I will accept the humble level which is mine by right, and with God's help I will do my very best there. I will not kick dogs nor curse servants : I will not try to detract from the standing of men who are cleverer, more eminent, or taller than myself: I will heax'tily wish them well. I will not grow soured, moping, and misanthropic. I know I am beaten and disappointed, but I will hold on manfully still, and never give up ! ' Such, kindly reader, is Chris- tian coming down ! And what is giving up? Of course, you understand my meaning now. Giving up means that when you are beaten and disappointed, and made to understand that your mark is lower than you had fancied, you will throw down your arms in despair, and resolve that you will try no more. As for you, brave man, if you don't get all }'ou 348 CONCERNING GIVING UP •want, you are resolved you shall have nothing. If you are not accepted as the cleverest and greatest man, you are resolved you shall be no man at all. And while the other is Christian coming down, tins is un-Christian, fool- ish, and wicked giving up. No doubt, it is an extremely natural thing. It is the first and readiest impulse of the undisciplined heart. It is in human nature to say, ' If 1 don't have all the pudding, I shall have none.' Thu grand way of expressing the same sentiment is, Aut Coe- sar aut nullus. Of course, the Latin words stir the youth- ful heart. You sympathize with tliem, I know, my reader under five-and-twenty. You will see through them some day. They are just the heroic way of saying, I shall give up, but I never shall come down ! They state a sentiment for babies, boys, and gii'ls, not for reasonable women and men. For babies, I say. Let me relate a parable. Yesterday I went into a cottage, where a child of two years old sat upon his mother's knee. The little man had in his hand a large slice of bread and buttei which his mother had just given him. By words not in- telligible to me, he conveyed to his mother the fact thai he desired that jam should be spread upon the slice of bread and butter. But his mother informed him that bread and butter must suffice, without the further luxury. The young human being (how thoroughly human) con- sidered for a moment ; and then dashed the bread ami butter to the further end of the room. There it w\as: Aul Coesar aut nullus ! The baby w^ould give up, but il would not come down ! Alexander the Great, look al yourself! Marius among the ruins of Carthage, what do you think you look like here ? By the time the youthful reader comes to understand that Byron's dark, mysterious heroes, however brilliantly set forth, are in conception. AND COMING DOWN. 313 pimply cliildish ; by the time he is able to appreciate Philip Van Artevelde (I mean Mr. Henry Taylor's no- ble tragedy) ; he will discern that various things which look heroic at the first glancG, will not worh in the long run. And that practical principle is irrational which will not work. And that sentiment which is irrational is not heroic. The truly heroic thing to say, as well as the ra- tional thing, is this : If I don't get all the pudding, I shall be content if I get what I deserve, or what God sends. If I am not Ccesar, there is no need that I should be nullus : I shall be content to be the highly respectable ]\Ir. Smith. Though I am not equal to Shakspeare, I may write a good play. Though inferior to Bishop Wil- berforce, I shall yet do my best to be a good preacher. It is a fine thing, a noble thing, as it appears to me, for a man to be content to labour hard and do his utmost, tliough well aware that the result will be no more than decent mediocrity, after all. It is a finer thing, and more truly heroic, to do your very best and only be second-rate, than even to resolve, like the man in the Iliad, — " 'A.ih> apiarivEiv, Kal vneipoxov c/x[i£vai aJU«v." There is a strain put upon the moral nature in contentedly and perseveringly doing this, greater than is put upon the intellectual by the successful effort to be best. And what would become of the world if all men went upon Homer's principle ; and rather than come down from its sublime (•ievation, would fling down their tools and give up? Sliall I, because I cannot preach like Mr. Melvill, cease to write sermons ? Or shall I, because I cannot counsel and charm like the author of Friends in Council, cease to write essays? You may rely upon it I shall not. I do not (bi-get who said, in words of praise concerning one S50 CONCERNING GIVING UP who haJ done what was absolutely but very little, ' Sho hath done what she could ! ' And what would become of me and my essays, if the reader, turning to them from the pages of Hazlitt or Charles Lamb, should say, ' I shall not come down ; and if I find I have to do so I shall give up?' What if the reader refused to accept the plain bread and butter which I can furnish, unless it should b< accompanied by that jam which I am not able to add ? Giving up, then, is the doing of mortified self-conceit, of sulky pettishness, of impatience, of recklessness, of des- peration. It says virtually to the great Disposer of events, ' Everything in this world must go exactly as I wish it, or I shall sit down and die.' It is of the nature of a moral strike. But coming down generally means coming to juster and sounder views of one's self and one's own importance and usefulness ; and if you come down gracefully, genially, and Christianly you work on dili- gently and cheerfully at that lower level. No doubt, to come down is a tremendous trial ; it is a sore mortifica- tion. But trials and mortifications, my reader, are useful things for you and me. The hasty man, when obliged to come down, is ready to conclude that he may as well give up. In some matters it is a harder thing to go the one mile and stop at the end of it, than to go the twain. It is much more .difficult to stop decidedly half-way down a very steep descent than to go all the way. If you are beaten in some competition, it is much easier to resolve recklessly that you will never try again, than to set man- fully to work, with humble views of yourself, and try once more. Wisdom comes down : folly gives up. AVis- dom, I say, comes down ; for I think there can be little doubt that most men, in order to think rightly of them- Belves, must come to think much more humbly of them- AND COMING DOWN. 351 Eelves tban tLey are naturally disposed to do. Few men estimate themselves too lowly. Even people who lack confidence in theraeslves are not without a great measure of latent self-esteem ; and, indeed, it is natural enougb that men should rate themselves too high, till experience compels them to come down. I am talking of even sen- sible and worthy men. They know they have worked hard ; they know that what they have done has cost them great pains ; they look with instinctive partiality at the results they have accomplished ; they are sure these re- sults are good, and they do not know how good till they learn by comparative trial. But when the comparative trial comes, there are few who do not meet their .match — few who do not find it needful to come down. Perhaps even Shakspeare felt he must come down a little when he looked into on-e or two of Christopher Marlowe's plays. Clever boys at school, and clever lads at college, natu- rally think their own little cii'cle of the cleverest boys or lads to contain some of the cleverest fellows in the world. They know how well they can do many things, and how hard they have worked to do them so well. Of course, they will have to come down, after longer experience of life. It is not that the set who ranked first among their young companions are not clever fellows ; but the world is wide and its population is big, and they will fall in with ^ cleverer fellows still. It is not that the head boy does not wj-ite Greek iambics well, but it will go hard but somewhere he will find some one who will write them better. They are rare exceptions in the race of mankind who, however good they may be, and however admirably they may do some one thing, will not some day meet their match — meet their superior, and so have painfully to come down. And, so far as my own experience has 352 CONCERNING GIVING UP gone, I have found that the very, very few, who never meet a taking down, who are first at school, then first at college, then first in life, seem by God's appointment to have been so happily framed that they could do without it ; that to think justly of themselves they did not need to come down ; that their modesty and humility equalled their merit ; and that (though not unconscious of their powers and their success) they remained, amid the in- cense of applause which would have intoxicated others, unaffected, genial, and unspoiled. People who lead a quiet country life amid their own belongings, seeing little of those of bigger men, insensibly form so excessive an estimate of their personal posses- sions as lays them open to the risk of many disagreeable takings down. You, solitary scholar in the country par- sonage, have lived for six months among your books till you have come to fancy them quite a great library. But you pay a visit to some wealthy man of literary tastes. You see his fine editions, his gorgeous bindings, his carved oak book -cases ; and when you return home you will have to contend with a temptation to be disgusted with your own little collection of books. Now, if you are a wise man, you will come down, but you wont give up ; you will admit to yourself that your library is not quite what you had grown to think it, but you will hold that it is a fair library after all. When you go and see tilt; grand acres of evergreens at some fine country house, do not return mortified at the prospect of your own little fehrubbery which looked so fine in the morning before you set out. When you have beheld Mr. Smith's fine thoroughbreds, resist the impulse to whack your own poor steed. Rather pat the poor thing's neck : gracefully come down. It was a fine thing, CatOj banished from AND COMING DOWN. 353 Rome, yet having his little senate at Utica. He had been compcUerl to come down, indeed, but he clung to the dear old institution ; he would not give up. I have enjoyed the spectacle of a lady, brought up in a noble baronial dwelling, living in a pi-etty little parsonage, and quite pleased and happy there ; not sulking, not fretting, not talking like an idiot of ' what she had been accus- tomed to,' but heartily reconciling herself to simplei things — coming down, in short, but never dreaming of giving up. So have I esteemed the clergyman like Syd- ney Smith, who had commanded the attention of crowded congregations of educated folk, of gentlemen and gentle- women, yet who works faithfully and cheerfully in a rural parish, and prepares his sermons diligently, with the honest desire to make them interesting and instruc- tive to a handful of simple country people. Of course, he knows that he has come down, but he does not dream of giving up. There is in human nature a curious tendency to think that if you are obliged to fall, or if you have fallen, a good deal, you may just as well go all the way ; and it would be hard to reckon the amount of misery and ruin which have resulted from this mistaken fancy, that if you have come down, you may give up at once. A poor man, possibly under some temptation that does not come once in ten years, gets tipsy ; walking along in that state he meets the parish clerjryman ; the clergyman's eye rests on him in sorrow and reproach. The poor man is heart- ily ashamed ; he is brought to a point at which he may turn the right way or the •wrong way. He has not read this essay, ard he takes the wrong. He thinks he has been so bad, he cannot be worse. He goes home and thrashes his wife ; he ceases attending chunjh ; he takes 23 So 4 CONCERNING GIVING UP bis childr.en from school : he begins to go to destruction. All this founds on his erroneously imagining that you cannot come down without giving up. But I believe that, in truth, as the general rule, the fatal and shameful deed on which a man must look back in bitterness, and sorrow all his life, was done after the point at which he grew reckless. It was because he had given up that he took the final desperate step ; he did not give up because he had taken it. The man did a really desperate deed be- cause he thought wrongly that he had done a desperate deed already, and could not now be any worse ; and sad as are intellectual and social coming down, and likely to result in giving up as these are, they are not half so sad nor half so perilous as moral coming down. It must in- deed be a miserable thing for man or woman to feel that they have done something which will shame all after-life — something which will never let them hold up their head again, something which will make them (to use the expressive language of Scripture) ' go softly all their days.' Well, let such come down ; let them learn to be humble and penitent ; but for any sake don't let them give up ! That is the great Tempter's last and worst suo-gestion. His suggestion to the fallen man or woman is. You are now so bad that you cannot be worse — you had better give up at once ; and Judas listened to it and went and hanged himself; and the poor Magdalen, fallen far, but with a deep abyss beneath her yet, steals at mid- lio-ht, to the dark arch and the dark river, with the bitter desperate resolution of Hood's exquisite poem, 'Any- where, anywhere, out of the world ! ' I remember an amusing exemplification of the natural tendency to think that having come down you must give up, in a play in which I once saw Keeley, in my play-going days. He AND COMING DOWN. 355 fancied that lie had (unintentionally) killed a man : his horror was extreme. Soon after, by another mischance, he killed (as he is led to believe) another man : his hor- ror is redoubled ; but now there mingles with it a reckless desperation. Having done such dreadful things, he con. eludes that he cannot be worse, whatever he may do. Having come so far down, he thinks he may as well give up ; and so the little fat man exclaims, with a fiendish laugh, ' Now I think I had better kill somebody else ! Ah, how true to nature ! The plump desperado was at the moment beyond remembering that the sound view of the case was, that if he had done so much mischief it was the more incumbent on him to do no more. The poor lad in a counting-Iiouse who wellnigh breaks his mother's heart by taking a little money not his own, need not break it outright by going entirely to ruin. Rather gather your- self up from your fall. Though the sky-scraping spars are ^one, we may rig a jury mast : — 'And from the wreck, far scattered o'er the rocks, Build us a little bark of hope once more.' "We are being taught all through life to come down in our anticipations, our self-estimation, our ambition. We aim high at first. Children expect to be kings, or at least to be always eating plum pudding and drinking cream. Clever boys expect to be great and famous men. They come gradually to soberer views and hopes. Our vanity and self-love and romance are cut in upon day by day : step -by step we come down, but, if we are wise, we never give up. "VVe hold en steadfixstly still ; we try to do our best. The painful discipline begins early. The other day I was at our sewing-school. A very little girl came ip -i'it'i great pride to show me her work. It was very 356 CONCERNING GIVING UP badly done, poor little thing. I tried to put the fact aa kindly as possible ; but of course I was obliged to say that the sewing was not quite so good as she would be able to do some day. I saw the eyes fill and the lips quiver ; there were mortification and disappointment in the little heart. I saw the temptation to be petted, to throw the A'ork aside — to give up. But better thoughts prevailed. She felt she must come down. She went away silently to her place and patiently tried to do better. Ah, thought I to myself, there is a lesson for you. Let me now think of intellectual giving up and com- ing down. I do not suppose that a thorough blockhead can ever know the pain of intellectual coming down. From his first schooldays he has been made to understand that he is a blockhead, and he does not think of entering him- self to run against clever men. A large dray-horse is saved the mortification of being beaten for the Derby ; for he does not propose to run for the Derby. The pain of intellectual coming down is felt by the really clever man, who is made to feel that he is not so clever as he had imagined ; that whereas he had fancied him- self a first-class man, he is no more than a third-class one ; or that, even though he be a man of good ability, and capable of doing his own work well, there are others who can do it much better than he. You would not like, my clever reader, to be told that not much is expected of you ; that no one supposes that you can write, ride, walk, or leap like Smith. There was some thing that touched one in that letter which Mr. R. II. Home wrote to the Times, explaining how he was going away to Austi-alia because his poetry was neglected and unappreciated. What slow, painful years of coming AND COMING DOWN. 357 down the poet must have gone through before he thus resolved to give up. I never read Orion ; and hvino among simple people, I never knew any one who had read the work. It may be a vvoi'k of great genius. But the poet insisted on giving up when, perhaps, the right thisig for him was to have come down. Perhaps he over-estimated himself and his poetry ; perhaps it met all the notice it deserved. The poet stated, in his published letter, that his writ- ings had been most favourably received by high-class critics ; but he was going away because the public treated him with entire neglect. Nobody read him, or cared for him, or talked about him. ' And what did the learned world say to your paradoxes?' asked good Dr. Primrose ; but his son's reply was, ' The learned world said nothing at all to my paradoxes.' Such ap- pears to have been the case with Mr. Home ; and so he grew misanthropic, and shook from his feet the dust of Britain. He gave up, in short ; but he refused to come down. And no doubt it is easier to go off to the wilder- ness at once than to conclude that you are only a mid- dling man after having long regarded yourself as a great genius. It must be a sad thing for an actor who came out as a new Kean, to gradually make up his mind that he is just a respectable, painstaking person, who never will diaw crowds and take the town by storm. Many struggles must the poor barrister know before he comes down from trying for the great seal, and aims at being a police magistrate. So with the painter ; and you remember how poor Ilaydon refused to come down, Hnd desperately gave up. It cannot be denied that, to tlie man of real talent, it is a most painful trial to intel- lectually come down ; and tliat trial is attended with a 358 COXCERNING GIVING UP strong temptation to give up. Really clever men not unfrequently have a quite preposterous estimate of their own abilities ; and many takings down are needful to drive them out of that. And men who are essentially middling men intellectually, sometimes have first-clasa ambition along with third-rate powers ; and these coming together make a most ill-matched pair of legs, which bear a human being very awkwardly along his path in life, and expose him to numberless mortifications. It is hard to feel any deep sympathy for such men, though their sufferings must be great. And, unhappily, such men, when compelled to come down, not unfrequently attempt by malicious ai-ts to pull down to their own level those to whose level they are unable to rise. I have sometimes fancied one could almost see the venomous vapours coming visibly from the mouth of a malignant, commonplace, ambitious man, when talking of one more able and more successful than himself Possibly social coming down is even more painful than intellectual. It is very sad to see, as we some- times do, the father of a family die, and his children in consequence lose their grade in society. I do not mean, merely to have to move to a smaller house, and put down their carriage ; for all that may be while social position remains unchanged. I mean, drop out of the acquaintance of their father's friends ; fall into the soci- e-ty of coarse, inferior people ; be addressed on a footing )f equality by persons with whom they have no feelings or thoughts in common ; be compelled to sordid shifts and menial work and frowsy chambers. Tiireadbare carpets and rickety chairs often indicate privation as extreme as shoeless feet and a coat out at elbows. We might probably smile at people who felt the painfulness AND COMNG DOWN. 359 of coming down, because obliged to pass from one set to another in the society of some little country town, wjiere the second circle is not unfrequently (to a stranger's view) very superior to the first in appearance, manners, and means. But there is one line which it must cost a parent real anguish to make up his mind that his chil- dien are to fall below after having been brought up above it: 1 mean the one essentially impassable line of society — the line which parts the educated, well-bred genlleraan from the man who is not such. There is something terrible about that giving up. And how such as have ever known it, cling to the upper side of the line of demarcation. "We have all seen how people work and pinch and screw to maintain a decent appear- ance before the world, while things were bare and scanty enough at home. And it is an honest and commendable pride that makes the poor widow, of small means but with the training and feeling of a lady, determine never to give up the notion that her daughters shall be ladie? too. It need not be said that such a determination is not at all inconsistent with the most stringent economy or the most resolute industry on her own or her girls' part. I did not sympathize with a letter which S. G. O. lately published in the Times, in which he urged that people with no more than three hundred a-year, should at once resolve to send their daugliters out as menial servants, instead of fighting for the position of ladies for Ihtm. I thought, and I think, tliat tJiat letter showed less than its author's usual genial feeling, less than his usual sound sense. Kind and judicious men will prob- ably l)i-Iieve that a good man's or woman's resistance to social coming down, and especially to social giving up, is deserving of all respect and sympathy. A poor clergy ^^0 CONCERXESTG GIVING UP man, or a poor military man, may have no more than three hundred a-year; but I heartily venerate his en- deavours to preserve his girls from the society of the ser- vants' hall and the delicate attentions of Jeames. Tho world may yet think differently, and manual or menial work may be recognized as not involving social giving up ; but meanwhile the step is a vast one, between the poorest governess and the plumpest housemaid. A painful form of social coming down falls to the lot of many women when they get married. I suppose young girls generally have in their mind a glorified ideal of the husband whom they are to find; wonderfully handsome, wonderfully clever, very kind and affection- ate, probably very rich and famous. Sad pressure must be put upon a worthy woman's heart before she can resolve to give up all romantic fancies, and marry purely for money. There must be sad pressure before a young girl can so far come down as to resolve to marry some man who is an old and ugly fool. Yet how many do ! No doubt, reader, you have sometimes seen couples who were paired, but not matched ; a beautiful young creat- ure tied to a foul old satyr. Was not your reflection, as you looked at the poor wife's face, ' Ah ! how wretchedly you must have come down.' And even when the husband is really a good old man, you cannot but think how different he is from the fair ideal of a girl's first fancy. Before making up her mind to such a partner as that, the young woman had a good deal to gi-;e up. And probably men, if of an imaginative turn, have, when they get married, to come down a good deal too. I do not suppose any thing about the clever man's wife but what is very good ; but surely, she is not always the sympathetic, admiring companion of his early AND COMIXG DOWN. 361 V^isions. Think of the great author, walking in the sum- mer fields, and saying to his wife, as he looked at the frisking lambs, that they seemed so innocent and happy that he did not wonder that in all ages the lamb has been taken as the emblem of happiness and innocence. Tliink of the revulsion in his mind when the thoughtful lady replied, after some reflection, ' Yes, lamb is very nice, especially with mint sauce ! ' The great man had no doubt already come down very much in his expecta- Hon of finding in his wife a sympathetic companion ; but after that, he would probably give up altogetlier. Still, it is possibly less painful for a clever man to find, as years go on, and life sobers into the prosaic, that he must come down sadly in his ideas of the happiness of •wedded life, than it is for such a man fairly to give up before marriage, making up his mind that in that mat- ter, as in most others, men must be content with what they can get, though it be very inferior to what they could wish. I feel a great disgust for what may be called sentimentality ; in practical life sentimental peo- ple, and people who talk sentimentally, are invariably fools ; still it appears to me that there is sober truth in the following lines, which I remember to have read pomewhere or other, though the truth be somewhat sickly and sentimentally expressed : — • And as the dove, to far PalmjTa flying, From where her native founts of Antioch gleam Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, siphing, Lightts sadly at the desert's bitter stream; ' So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, — Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unfiuafTed, — Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing Of what it would, descends aud sips the nearest draught.' 362 CONCERNING GIVING UP Most people find it painful to come down in the mat- ter of growing old. Most men and women cling, as long as may be, to the belief that they are still quite young, or at least not so very old. Let us respect the (jlinging to youth : there seems to me much that is good in it. It is an unconscious testimony to the depth and universality of the convictfon that, as time goes on, we are leaving behind us the more guileless, innocent, and impressionable season of our life. We feel little sym- pathy, indeed, for the silly old woman who affects the airs and graces of a girl of seventeen : who makes her daughters attire themselves like children when they are quite grown up ; and who renders herself ridiculous in low dresses and a capless head when her head is half bald and her shoulders like an uncooked plucked fowl. That is downright offensive and revoltinsr. And to see such an individual surrounded by a circle of young lads to whom she is talking in a buoyant and flirting manner, is as melancholy an exhibition of human folly as can anywhere be seen. But it is quite a different thing when man or woman, thoughtful, earnest, and pious, sits down and muses at the sight of the first grey hairs. Here is the slight shadow, we think, of a certain great event which is to come ; here is the earliest touch of a chill hand which must prevail at length. Here is man- ifest decay ; we have begun to die. And no worthy human being will pretend that this is other than a very solemn thought. And we look back as well as forward : how short a time since we were little children, and kind liands smoothed down the locks now growing scanty and grey ! You cannot recognize in the glass, when you see the careworn, anxious face, the smooth features of the careless child. You feel you must come down ; you AND COMING DOWN. 363 are young. no more! Yet you know by wliat shifts people seek in this respect to avoid coming down. We postpone, year after year, the point at whicli people cease to be young. We are pleased when we find peo- ple talking of men above thirty as young men. Once, indeed, Sir Robert Peel spoke of Lord Derby at forty- five as a man in " the buoyancy of youth." Many men of five-and-forty would feel a secret elation as they read the words thus employed. The present writer wants a good deal yet of being half-way ; yet he remembers how much obliged he felt to Mr. Dickens for describing Tom Pinch, in Martin Cfhuzzlewit (in an advertisement to be put in the Times), as ' a respectable young man, aged thirty-five.' You remember how Sir Bulwer Lyt- ton, as he has himself grown older, has made the heroes of his novels grow older pari passu. Many years ago his romantic heroes were lads of twenty ; now they are always sentimental men of fifty. And in all this we can trace a natural conviction of the intellect, as well as the natural disinclination in any respect to come down. For youth, with all its folly, is by common consent re- garded as a better thing than age, with all its experi- ence : and thus to grow old is regarded as coming down. And there is something very touching, something to be respected and sympathized with by all people in the vigour of life, in the fashion in which men who have come down so far as to admit that they have grown old, refuse to give up by admitting that they are past their work ; and, indeed, persist in maintaining, after fifty years in the church or thirty on the bench, that they are as stronjj as ever. Let us reverence the old man. Let us help him in his determination not to give up. Let us lighten his burden when we can do SD, and then 364 CONCERNING GIYING UP give him credit for bearing it all himself. If there bo one respect in which it is especially interesting and respectable when a man refuses to give up at any price, and indeed is most unwilling to come down, it is in regard of useful, honest labor in the service of God and man. Sometimes the unwillingness to come down in any degree is amusing, and almost provoking. I re- member once, coming down a long flight of steps from a railway station, I saw a venerable dignitary of the church, who had served it for more than sixty years, coming down with difficulty, and clinging to the railing. Now, what I ought to have done was, to remain out of his view, and see that he got safely down without mak- ing him aware that I was watching him. But I hastily went up to him and begged him to take my arm, as the stair was so slippery and steep. I think I see the indig- nation of the good man's look. * I assure you,' he re- plied, * my friend, I am quite as able to walk down the steps alone as you are ! ' Apart from the more dignified regrets which accompany the coming down of growing old, there are petty mortifi- cations which vain people will feel as they are obliged to come down in their views as to their personal appearance. As a man's hair falls off, as he grows unwieldily stout, as he comes to blow like a porpoise in ascending a hill, as his voice cracks when he tries to sing, he is obliged step by step to come down, 1 heartily despise the contemp- tible creature who refuses to come down when nature bids liim : who dyes his hai^ and his moustache, rouges his face, wears stays, and pads out his chest. Yet more dis- gusting is the made-up old reprobate when, padded, rouged, wild dyed, as already said, he mingles in a circle of fast young men, and disgu: fresh green blades of June. You may like bettor o look upon the wheat that is pro- CONCERXING GROWING. OLD. 427 gressing towards ripeness ; but the wheat which haa readied ripeness is not a faUing off. The' stalks will not bend now, without breaking ; you rub the heads, and the yellow chaff that wa-aps the grain, crumbles off in dust. But it is beyond a question that there you see wheat at its best. Still, not forgetting this, we must all feel it sad to see human beings as they grow old, retrograding in mate- rial comforts and advantages. It is a mournful thing to see : a man grow poorer as he is growing older, or losing position in any way. If it were in my power, I would make all barristers, above sixty, judges. They ought to be put in a situation of dignity and indepen- den'^e. You don't like to go into a court of justice, and there behold a thin, gray-headed counsel, somewhat shaken in nerve, looking rather frail, battling away with a full-blooded, confident, hopeful, impudent fellow, five- and-twenty years his junior. The youthful, big-whis- kered, roaring, and bullying advocate is sure to be held in much the greater estimation by attorney's clerks. The old gentleman's day is over; but with lessening practice and disappointed hopes he must drive on at the bar still. I wish I were a chief justice, that by special deference and kindliness of manner, I might daily soothe somewhat the feelings of that aging man. But it is especially in the case of the clergy that one sees the painful siglit of men growing poorer as they are grow- ing older. I think of the case of a clergyman who at his first start was rather fortunate : who gets a nice parish at six-and-twenty : I mean a parish which is a nice one for a man of six-and-twenty : and who never gets any other [)rererment, but in that parish grows old. J>»i'( we all know how pretty and elegant everything 428 CONCERNING GROWENG OLD. was about him at first : how trim and weeJIess were his garden and shrubbery: how rosy his carpets, how airy his window-curtains, how neat though slight all his fur- niture : how graceful, merry, and nicely dressed the young girl who was his wife : how (besides hosts of parochial improvements) he devised numberless little clJanges about hisdweUing: rustic bowers, moss-houses, green mounts, labyrinthine walks, fantastically trimmed yews, root-bridges over the little stream. But as his family increased, his income stood still. It was hard enough work to make the ends meet even at first, though young hearts are hopeful : but with six or seven children, with boys who must be sent to college, with girls who must be educated as ladies, with the prices of all things ever increasing, with multiplying bills from the shoemaker, tailor, dressmaker ; the poor parson grows yearly poorer. The rosy face of the young wife has now deep lines of care : the weekly sei-mon is dull and spiritless : the parcel of books comes no more : the carpets grow threadbare but are not replaced : the fur- niture becomes creaky and rickety : the garden-walks are weedy : the bai*k peels off the rustic verandah : the moss-house falls much over to one side : the friends, far away, grow out of all acquaintance. The parson himself, once so precise in dress, is shabby and untidy now and his wife's neat figure is gone : the servants are of inferior class, coarse and insolent : perhaps the burden of hopeless debt presses always with its dull, dead weight upon the poor clergyman's heart. There is lit- tle spring in him to pu>h off the invasion of fatigue and infection, and he is much exposed to both ; and should he be taken away, wlio shall care for the widow and the fatherless, losing at once their head, their home, CONCERNIXG GEOWIXG OLD. 429 their means of living ? Even you, non-clerical reader, know precisely what I describe : hundreds have seen it : and such will agree with me when I say that there is no sadder sight than that of a clergyman, with a wife and children, growing poor as he is growing old. Oh, that I had the fortune of John Jacob Astor, that I might found, once for all, a fund that should raise forever above penury and degradation the widows and the orphans of rectory, vicarage, parsonage, and manse ! And even when the old man has none depending upoa him for bread, to be provided from his lessening store, there is something inexpressibly touching and mournful in the spectacle of an old man who must pinch and screw. You do not mind a bit about a hopeful young lad having to live in humble lodgings up three pair of stairs ; or about such a one having a limited number of shirts, stockings, and boots, and needing to be very careful and saving as to his clothes; or about his having very homely shaving-things, or hair-brushes which are a good deal worn out. The young fellow can stand all that: it is all quite right : let him bear the yoke in his youth : he may look forward to better days. Nor does there seem in the nature of things any very sad inconsistency in the idea of a young lad carefully considering how long his boots or great coat will last, or with what minimum of . shirts he can mananre to get on. But I cannot bear the thought of a grey-headed old man, with shaky hand and weary limb, sitting down in his lonely lodging, and meditating on such things as these : counting his pocket- handkerchiefs, and suspecting that one is stolen : or looking ruefully at a boot wliich has been cut where ihe upper leatiier joins the sole. Let not the aged man be worried with such petty details ! Of course, my 430 CONCERNING GROWING OLD. reader, I know as well as you do, that very many aged people must think of. these things to the last. All I say is, that if I had the ordering of things, no man or woman above fifty should ever know the want of money. And whenever I find a four-leaved shamrock, that is the very first arrangement I shall make. Possibly I may extend the arrangement further, and provide that no honest married man or woman shall ever grow early old through wearing care. What a little end is some- times the grand object of a human being's strivings through many weeks and months ! I sat down the other day in a poor chamber, damp with much linen drying upon crossing lines. There dwells a solitary woman, an aged and infirm woman, who supports herself by washing. For months past her earnings have aver- agred three shillings a week. Out of that sum she must provide food and raiment ; she must keep in her poor fire, and she must pay a rent of nearly three pounds a year. ' It is hard work, sir,' she said : ' it costs me many a thought getting together the money to pay my rent.' And I could see well, that from the year's beginning to its end, the thing always uppermost in that poor old widow's waking thoughts, was the raising of that great incubus of a sum of money. A small . end, you would say, for the chief thoughts of an im- mortal being! Don't you feel, gay young reader, for that fellow-creature, to whom a week has been a suc- cess, if at its close she can put by a few halfpence towards meeting the term day? Would you not like to enrich her, to give her a light heart, by sending, her a half-sovereign ? If you would, you may send it to me. It is well, I have said, for a man who is growing old, CONCERNING GROWING OLD. 431 if he is able to persuade himself that though physically going down hill, he is yet in some respect progressing. For if he can persuade himself that he is pi-ogressiiig in any one thing, he will certainly believe that he is advancins on the whole. Still, it must be said, that the self-complacency of old gentlemen is sometimes amusing (where not irritating) to their juniors. The self-conctit of many old men is something quite amazing. They talk incessantly about themselves and their doings ; and, to hear them talk, you would imagine that every great social or political change of late years had been brought about mainly by their instrumentality. I have heard an elderly man of fair average ability, declare in sober earnest, that had he gone to the bar, he ' had no hesi- tation in saying' that he would have been chancellor or chief justice of England. I have witnessed" an elderly man whom the late Sir Robert Peel never saw or heard of, declare that Sir Robert had borrowed from him his idea of abolishing the Corn-laws. I have heard an elderly mercantile man, who had gone the previous day to look at a small property which was for sale, remark that he had no doubt that by this time all the country was aware of what he had been doing. With the ma- jority of elderly men, you can hardly err on the side of over-estimating the amount of their vanity. They will receive with satisfliction a degree of flattery which would at once lead a young man to suspect you were making a fool of him. There is no doubt that if a man be foolish at all, he always grows more foolish as he grows older. The most outrageous conceit of personal beauty, intel- lectual prowess, weight in the county, superiority in the regard of horses, wine, pictures, grapes, potatoes, poul- try, pigs, and all otijcr possessions, which I have ever 432 COXCERNmO GKOWIXG OLD. Been, has been in the case of old men. And I have known commonplace old women, to whom if you had ascribed queenly beauty and the intellect of Shakspeare, they would have thought you were doing them simple justice. The truth appears to be, not that the vanity of elderly folk is naturally bigger than that of their juniors, but that it is not mown down in that unsparing fashion to which the vanity of their juniors is subjected. If an old man tells you that the abolition of the slave- trade originated in his back-parlor, you may think him a vain, silly old fellow, but you do not tell him so. Whereas if a young person makes an exhibition of personal vani- ty, he is severely ridiculed. He is taught sharply that, however great may be his estimate of himself, it will not do to show it. ' Shut up, old fellow, and don't make a fool of yourself,' you say to a friend of your own age, should he begin to vapour. But when the aged pilgrim begins to boast, you feel bound to listen with apparent respect. And the result is, that the old gentleman fan- cies you believe all he tells you. Not unfrequently, when a man has grown old to that degree that all his powers of mind and body are con- siderably impaired, there is a curious and touching mood which comes before an almost sudden breaking-down into decrepitude. It is a mood in which the man be- comes convinced that he is not so very old ; that he has been mistaken in fancying that the autumn of life was so far advanced with him ; and that all he has to do ia order to be as active and vigorous as he ever was, is to make some great change of scene and circumstances : to go back, perhaps, to some place where he had lived many years before, and there, as Dr. Johnson expresses it, to ' recover youth in the fields where he once was CONCERNING GROWING OLD. 433 young. The aged clergyman thinks that if he were now to go to the parish he was offered forty years since, it would bring back those days again : he would be the man he was then. Of course, in most cases, such a feeling is like the leaping up of the flame before it goes out ; it is an impulse as natural and as unreasonable as iJiat which makes the dying man insist within an hour of bis death on being lifted from his bed and placed in his easy-chair, and then he will be all right. But some- times there really is in human feeling and life something analogous to the Martinmas summer in the year. Some- times after we had made up our mind that we had grown old, it flashes upon us that we are not old after all : there is a real rejuvenescence. Happy days pro- mote the feeling. You know that as autumn draws on, there come days on which it is summer or winter just as the weather chances to be fair or foul. And so there is a stage of life in which it depends mainly on a man's surroundings whether he shall be old or young. If un- successful, over-burdened, over-driven, lightly esteemed, with much depending upon him, and little aid or sym- pathy, a man may feel old at thirty-five. But if there still be a house where he is one of the hoys : if he be living among his kindred and those who have grown up along with him : if he be still unmarried : if he have not lived in many different places, or in any place very far away : if he have not known many different modes of life, or worked in many kinds of work : than at thirty-five he may feel very young. There are men who at that age have never known what it is to stand upon their own legs in life, and to act upon their