"I would the great would grow like thee.
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity."--TENNYSON.
"Not to be unhappy is unhappynesse,
And misery not t'have known miserie;
For the best way unto discretion is
The way that leades us by adversitie;
And men are better shew'd what is amisse,
By th'expert finger of calamitie,
Than they can be with all that fortune brings,
Who never shewes them the true face of things."--DANIEL.
"A lump of wo affliction is,
Yet thence I borrow lumps of bliss;
Though few can see a blessing in't,
It is my furnace and my mint."
--ERSKINE'S GOSPEL SONNETS.
"Crosses grow anchors, bear as thou shouldst so
Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too."--DONNE.
"Be the day weary, or be the day long,
At length it ringeth to Evensong."--ANCIENT COUPLET.
Practical wisdom is only to be learnt in the school of experience.
Precepts and instructions are useful so far as they go, but, without the
discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only. The
hard facts of existence have to be faced, to give that touch of truth to
character which can never be imparted by reading or tuition, but only by
contact with the broad instincts of common men and women.
To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon
its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to
bear the wear-and-tear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count
for much. The life that rejoices in solitude may be only rejoicing in
selfishness. Seclusion may indicate contempt for others; though more
usually it means indolence, cowardice, or self-indulgence. To every
human being belongs his fair share of manful toil and human duty; and it
cannot be shirked without loss to the individual himself, as well as
to the community to which he belongs. It is only by mixing in the
daily life of the world, and taking part in its affairs, that practical
knowledge can be acquired, and wisdom learnt. It is there that we find
our chief sphere of duty, that we learn the discipline of work, and that
we educate ourselves in that patience, diligence, and endurance
which shape and consolidate the character. There we encounter the
difficulties, trials, and temptations which, according as we deal with
them, give a colour to our entire after-life; and there, too, we become
subject to the great discipline of suffering, from which we learn far
more than from the safe seclusion of the study or the cloister.
Contact with others is also requisite to enable a man to know himself.
It is only by mixing freely in the world that one can form a proper
estimate of his own capacity. Without such experience, one is apt to
become conceited, puffed-up, and arrogant; at all events, he will remain
ignorant of himself, though he may heretofore have enjoyed no other
company.
Swift once said: "It is an uncontroverted truth, that no man ever made
an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who
mistook them." Many persons, however, are readier to take measure of the
capacity of others than of themselves. "Bring him to me," said a certain
Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speaking of Rousseau--"Bring him to me, that I
may see whether he has got anything in him!"--the probability being that
Rousseau, who knew himself better, was much more likely to take measure
of Tronchin than Tronchin was to take measure of him.
A due amount of self-knowledge is, therefore, necessary for those who
would BE anything or DO anything in the world. It is also one of the
first essentials to the formation of distinct personal convictions.
Frederic Perthes once said to a young friend: "You know only too well
what you CAN do; but till you have learned what you CANNOT do, you will
neither accomplish anything of moment, nor know inward peace."
Any one who would profit by experience will never be above asking for
help. He who thinks himself already too wise to learn of others, will
never succeed in doing anything either good or great. We have to keep
our minds and hearts open, and never be ashamed to learn, with the
assistance of those who are wiser and more experienced than ourselves.
The man made wise by experience endeavours to judge correctly of the
thugs which come under his observation, and form the subject of his
daily life. What we call common sense is, for the most part, but the
result of common experience wisely improved. Nor is great ability
necessary to acquire it, so much as patience, accuracy, and
watchfulness. Hazlitt thought the most sensible people to be met with
are intelligent men of business and of the world, who argue from what
they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what
things ought to be.
For the same reason, women often display more good sense than men,
having fewer pretensions, and judging of things naturally, by the
involuntary impression they make on the mind. Their intuitive powers are
quicker, their perceptions more acute, their sympathies more lively, and
their manners more adaptive to particular ends. Hence their greater tact
as displayed in the management of others, women of apparently slender
intellectual powers often contriving to control and regulate the
conduct of men of even the most impracticable nature. Pope paid a high
compliment to the tact and good sense of Mary, Queen of William III.,
when he described her as possessing, not a science, but [21what was worth
all else] prudence.
The whole of life may be regarded as a great school of experience, in
which men and women are the pupils. As in a school, many of the lessons
learnt there must needs be taken on trust. We may not understand them,
and may possibly think it hard that we have to learn them, especially
where the teachers are trials, sorrows, temptations, and difficulties;
and yet we must not only accept their lessons, but recognise them as
being divinely appointed.
To what extent have the pupils profited by their experience in the
school of life? What advantage have they taken of their opportunities
for learning? What have they gained in discipline of heart and
mind?--how much in growth of wisdom, courage, self-control? Have
they preserved their integrity amidst prosperity, and enjoyed life in
temperance and moderation? Or, has life been with them a mere feast of
selfishness, without care or thought for others? What have they learnt
from trial and adversity? Have they learnt patience, submission,
and trust in God?--or have they learnt nothing but impatience,
querulousness, and discontent?
The results of experience are, of course, only to be achieved by living;
and living is a question of time. The man of experience learns to rely
upon Time as his helper. "Time and I against any two," was a maxim
of Cardinal Mazarin. Time has been described as a beautifier and as a
consoler; but it is also a teacher. It is the food of experience, the
soil of wisdom. It may be the friend or the enemy of youth; and Time
will sit beside the old as a consoler or as a tormentor, according as it
has been used or misused, and the past life has been well or ill spent.
"Time," says George Herbert, "is the rider that breaks youth." To
the young, how bright the new world looks!--how full of novelty, of
enjoyment, of pleasure! But as years pass, we find the world to be a
place of sorrow as well as of joy. As we proceed through life, many dark
vistas open upon us--of toil, suffering, difficulty, perhaps misfortune
and failure. Happy they who can pass through and amidst such trials with
a firm mind and pure heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness, and
standing erect beneath even the heaviest burden!
A little youthful ardour is a great help in life, and is useful as an
energetic motive power. It is gradually cooled down by Time, no matter
how glowing it has been, while it is trained and subdued by experience.
But it is a healthy and hopeful indication of character,--to be
encouraged in a right direction, and not to be sneered down and
repressed. It is a sign of a vigorous unselfish nature, as egotism is
of a narrow and selfish one; and to begin life with egotism and
self-sufficiency is fatal to all breadth and vigour of character. Life,
in such a case, would be like a year in which there was no spring.
Without a generous seedtime, there will be an unflowering summer and an
unproductive harvest. And youth is the springtime of life, in which, if
there be not a fair share of enthusiasm, little will be attempted,
and still less done. It also considerably helps the working quality,
inspiring confidence and hope, and carrying one through the dry details
of business and duty with cheerfulness and joy.
"It is the due admixture of romance and reality," said Sir Henry
Lawrence, "that best carries a man through life... The quality of
romance or enthusiasm is to be valued as an energy imparted to the human
mind to prompt and sustain its noblest efforts." Sir Henry always urged
upon young men, not that they should repress enthusiasm, but sedulously
cultivate and direct the feeling, as one implanted for wise and noble
purposes. "When the two faculties of romance and reality," he said, "are
duly blended, reality pursues a straight rough path to a desirable and
practicable result; while romance beguiles the road by pointing out its
beauties--by bestowing a deep and practical conviction that, even in
this dark and material existence, there may be found a joy with which a
stranger intermeddleth not--a light that shineth more and more unto the
perfect day." [211]
It was characteristic of Joseph Lancaster, when a boy of only fourteen
years of age, after reading 'Clarkson on the Slave Trade,' to form the
resolution of leaving his home and going out to the West Indies to teach
the poor blacks to read the Bible. And he actually set out with a Bible
and 'Pilgrim's Progress' in his bundle, and only a few shillings in his
purse. He even succeeded in reaching the West Indies, doubtless very
much at a loss how to set about his proposed work; but in the meantime
his distressed parents, having discovered whither he had gone, had him
speedily brought back, yet with his enthusiasm unabated; and from that
time forward he unceasingly devoted himself to the truly philanthropic
work of educating the destitute poor. [212]
There needs all the force that enthusiasm can give to enable a man to
succeed in any great enterprise of life. Without it, the obstruction
and difficulty he has to encounter on every side might compel him to
succumb; but with courage and perseverance, inspired by enthusiasm,
a man feels strong enough to face any danger, to grapple with any
difficulty. What an enthusiasm was that of Columbus, who, believing in
the existence of a new world, braved the dangers of unknown seas; and
when those about him despaired and rose up against him, threatening to
cast him into the sea, still stood firm upon his hope and courage until
the great new world at length rose upon the horizon!
The brave man will not be baffled, but tries and tries again until
he succeeds. The tree does not fall at the first stroke, but only by
repeated strokes and after great labour. We may see the visible success
at which a man has arrived, but forget the toil and suffering and peril
through which it has been achieved. When a friend of Marshal Lefevre was
complimenting him on his possessions and good fortune, the Marshal said:
"You envy me, do you? Well, you shall have these things at a better
bargain than I had. Come into the court: I'll fire at you with a gun
twenty times at thirty paces, and if I don't kill you, all shall be your
own. What! you won't! Very well; recollect, then, that I have been shot
at more than a thousand times, and much nearer, before I arrived at the
state in which you now find me!"
The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men
have had to serve. It is usually the best stimulus and discipline of
character. It often evokes powers of action that, but for it, would
have remained dormant. As comets are sometimes revealed by eclipses,
so heroes are brought to light by sudden calamity. It seems as if, in
certain cases, genius, like iron struck by the flint, needed the sharp
and sudden blow of adversity to bring out the divine spark. There are
natures which blossom and ripen amidst trials, which would only wither
and decay in an atmosphere of ease and comfort.
Thus it is good for men to be roused into action and stiffened into
self-reliance by difficulty, rather than to slumber away their lives
in useless apathy and indolence. [213] It is the struggle that is the
condition of victory. If there were no difficulties, there would be
no need of efforts; if there were no temptations, there would be no
training in self-control, and but little merit in virtue; if there were
no trial and suffering, there would be no education in patience and
resignation. Thus difficulty, adversity, and suffering are not all evil,
but often the best source of strength, discipline, and virtue.
For the same reason, it is often of advantage for a man to be under the
necessity of having to struggle with poverty and conquer it. "He who has
battled," says Carlyle, "were it only with poverty and hard toil, will
be found stronger and more expert than he who could stay at home
from the battle, concealed among the provision waggons, or even rest
unwatchfully 'abiding by the stuff.'"
Scholars have found poverty tolerable compared with the privation of
intellectual food. Riches weigh much more heavily upon the mind. "I
cannot but choose say to Poverty," said Richter, "Be welcome! so that
thou come not too late in life." Poverty, Horace tells us, drove him
to poetry, and poetry introduced him to Varus and Virgil and Maecenas.
"Obstacles," says Michelet, "are great incentives. I lived for whole
years upon a Virgil, and found myself well off. An odd volume of Racine,
purchased by chance at a stall on the quay, created the poet of Toulon."
The Spaniards are even said to have meanly rejoiced the poverty of
Cervantes, but for which they supposed the production of his great works
might have been prevented. When the Archbishop of Toledo visited the
French ambassador at Madrid, the gentlemen in the suite of the latter
expressed their high admiration of the writings of the author of 'Don
Quixote,' and intimated their desire of becoming acquainted with one
who had given them so much pleasure. The answer they received was, that
Cervantes had borne arms in the service of his country, and was now
old and poor. "What!" exclaimed one of the Frenchmen, "is not Senor
Cervantes in good circumstances? Why is he not maintained, then, out
of the public treasury?" "Heaven forbid!" was the reply, "that his
necessities should be ever relieved, if it is those which make him
write; since it is his poverty that makes the world rich!" [214]
It is not prosperity so much as adversity, not wealth so much as
poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of strong and healthy natures,
rouses their energy and developes their character. Burke said of
himself: "I was not rocked, and swaddled, and dandled into a legislator.
'NITOR IN ADVERSUM' is the motto for a man like you." Some men only
require a great difficulty set in their way to exhibit the force of
their character and genius; and that difficulty once conquered becomes
one of the greatest incentives to their further progress.
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much
oftener succeed through failure. By far the best experience of men
is made up of their remembered failures in dealing with others in
the affairs of life. Such failures, in sensible men, incite to better
self-management, and greater tact and self-control, as a means of
avoiding them in the future. Ask the diplomatist, and he will tell you
that he has learned his art through being baffled, defeated, thwarted,
and circumvented, far more than from having succeeded. Precept, study,
advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has
done. It has disciplined them experimentally, and taught them what to
do as well as what NOT to do--which is often still more important in
diplomacy.
Many have to make up their minds to encounter failure again and again
before they succeed; but if they have pluck, the failure will only serve
to rouse their courage, and stimulate them to renewed efforts. Talma,
the greatest of actors, was hissed off the stage when he first appeared
on it. Lacordaire, one of the greatest preachers of modern times, only
acquired celebrity after repeated failures. Montalembert said of
his first public appearance in the Church of St. Roch: "He failed
completely, and on coming out every one said, 'Though he may be a man of
talent, he will never be a preacher.'" Again and again he tried until he
succeeded; and only two years after his DEBUT, Lacordaire was preaching
in Notre Dame to audiences such as few French orators have addressed
since the time of Bossuet and Massillon.
When Mr. Cobden first appeared as a speaker, at a public meeting in
Manchester, he completely broke down, and the chairman apologized for
his failure. Sir James Graham and Mr. Disraeli failed and were derided
at first, and only succeeded by dint of great labour and application.
At one time Sir James Graham had almost given up public speaking in
despair. He said to his friend Sir Francis Baring: "I have tried it
every way--extempore, from notes, and committing all to memory--and
I can't do it. I don't know why it is, but I am afraid I shall never
succeed." Yet, by dint of perseverance, Graham, like Disraeli, lived
to become one of the most effective and impressive of parliamentary
speakers.
Failures in one direction have sometimes had the effect of forcing the
farseeing student to apply himself in another. Thus Prideaux's failure
as a candidate for the post of parish-clerk of Ugboro, in Devon, led to
his applying himself to learning, and to his eventual elevation to the
bishopric of Worcester. When Boileau, educated for the bar, pleaded his
first cause, he broke down amidst shouts of laughter. He next tried the
pulpit, and failed there too. And then he tried poetry, and succeeded.
Fontenelle and Voltaire both failed at the bar. So Cowper, through his
diffidence and shyness, broke down when pleading his first cause, though
he lived to revive the poetic art in England. Montesquieu and Bentham
both failed as lawyers, and forsook the bar for more congenial
pursuits--the latter leaving behind him a treasury of legislative
procedure for all time. Goldsmith failed in passing as a surgeon; but
he wrote the 'Deserted Village' and the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' whilst
Addison failed as a speaker, but succeeded in writing 'Sir Roger de
Coverley,' and his many famous papers in the 'Spectator.'
Even the privation of some important bodily sense, such as sight or
hearing, has not been sufficient to deter courageous men from zealously
pursuing the struggle of life. Milton, when struck by blindness, "still
bore up and steered right onward." His greatest works were produced
during that period of his life in which he suffered most--when he was
poor, sick, old, blind, slandered, and persecuted.
The lives of some of the greatest men have been a continuous struggle
with difficulty and apparent defeat. Dante produced his greatest work in
penury and exile. Banished from his native city by the local faction
to which he was opposed, his house was given up to plunder, and he was
sentenced in his absence to be burnt alive. When informed by a friend
that he might return to Florence, if he would consent to ask for pardon
and absolution, he replied: "No! This is not the way that shall lead me
back to my country. I will return with hasty steps if you, or any other,
can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame or the
honour of Dante; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then to
Florence I shall never return." His enemies remaining implacable, Dante,
after a banishment of twenty years, died in exile. They even pursued
him after death, when his book, 'De Monarchia,' was publicly burnt at
Bologna by order of the Papal Legate.
Camoens also wrote his great poems mostly in banishment. Tired of
solitude at Santarem, he joined an expedition against the Moors, in
which he distinguished himself by his bravery. He lost an eye when
boarding an enemy's ship in a sea-fight. At Goa, in the East Indies, he
witnessed with indignation the cruelty practised by the Portuguese on
the natives, and expostulated with the governor against it. He was in
consequence banished from the settlement, and sent to China. In the
course of his subsequent adventures and misfortunes, Camoens suffered
shipwreck, escaping only with his life and the manuscript of his
'Lusiad.' Persecution and hardship seemed everywhere to pursue him.
At Macao he was thrown into prison. Escaping from it, he set sail
for Lisbon, where he arrived, after sixteen years' absence, poor and
friendless. His 'Lusiad,' which was shortly after published, brought
him much fame, but no money. But for his old Indian slave Antonio, who
begged for his master in the streets, Camoens must have perished. [215] As
it was, he died in a public almshouse, worn out by disease and hardship.
An inscription was placed over his grave:--"Here lies Luis de Camoens:
he excelled all the poets of his time: he lived poor and miserable; and
he died so, MDLXXIX." This record, disgraceful but truthful, has since
been removed; and a lying and pompous epitaph, in honour of the great
national poet of Portugal, has been substituted in its stead.
Even Michael Angelo was exposed, during the greater part of his life,
to the persecutions of the envious--vulgar nobles, vulgar priests, and
sordid men of every degree, who could neither sympathise with him, nor
comprehend his genius. When Paul IV. condemned some of his work in 'The
Last Judgment,' the artist observed that "The Pope would do better
to occupy himself with correcting the disorders and indecencies which
disgrace the world, than with any such hypercriticisms upon his art."
Tasso also was the victim of almost continual persecution and calumny.
After lying in a madhouse for seven years, he became a wanderer over
Italy; and when on his deathbed, he wrote: "I will not complain of
the malignity of fortune, because I do not choose to speak of the
ingratitude of men who have succeeded in dragging me to the tomb of a
mendicant."
But Time brings about strange revenges. The persecutors and the
persecuted often change places; it is the latter who are great--the
former who are infamous. Even the names of the persecutors would
probably long ago have been forgotten, but for their connection with the
history of the men whom they have persecuted. Thus, who would now have
known of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, but for his imprisonment of Tasso? Or,
who would have heard of the existence of the Grand Duke of Wurtemburg of
some ninety years back, but for his petty persecution of Schiller?
Science also has had its martyrs, who have fought their way to light
through difficulty, persecution, and suffering. We need not refer again
to the cases of Bruno, Galileo, and others, [216] persecuted because
of the supposed heterodoxy of their views. But there have been other
unfortunates amongst men of science, whose genius has been unable to
save them from the fury of their enemies. Thus Bailly, the celebrated
French astronomer [21who had been mayor of Paris], and Lavoisier, the
great chemist, were both guillotined in the first French Revolution.
When the latter, after being sentenced to death by the Commune, asked
for a few days' respite, to enable him to ascertain the result of some
experiments he had made during his confinement, the tribunal refused
his appeal, and ordered him for immediate execution--one of the judges
saying, that "the Republic had no need of philosophers." In England
also, about the same time, Dr. Priestley, the father of modern
chemistry, had his house burnt over his head, and his library destroyed,
amidst shouts of "No philosophers!" and he fled from his native country
to lay his bones in a foreign land.
The work of some of the greatest discoverers has been done in the midst
of persecution, difficulty, and suffering. Columbus, who discovered
the New World and gave it as a heritage to the Old, was in his lifetime
persecuted, maligned, and plundered by those whom he had enriched. Mungo
Park's drowning agony in the African river he had discovered, but which
he was not to live to describe; Clapperton's perishing of fever on the
banks of the great lake, in the heart of the same continent, which
was afterwards to be rediscovered and described by other explorers;
Franklin's perishing in the snow--it might be after he had solved
the long-sought problem of the North-west Passage--are among the most
melancholy events in the history of enterprise and genius.
The case of Flinders the navigator, who suffered a six years'
imprisonment in the Isle of France, was one of peculiar hardship. In
1801, he set sail from England in the INVESTIGATOR, on a voyage of
discovery and survey, provided with a French pass, requiring all French
governors [21notwithstanding that England and France were at war] to give
him protection and succour in the sacred name of science. In the course
of his voyage he surveyed great part of Australia, Van Diemen's Land,
and the neighbouring islands. The INVESTIGATOR, being found leaky and
rotten, was condemned, and the navigator embarked as passenger in the
PORPOISE for England, to lay the results of his three years' labours
before the Admiralty. On the voyage home the PORPOISE was wrecked on a
reef in the South Seas, and Flinders, with part of the crew, in an open
boat, made for Port Jackson, which they safely reached, though distant
from the scene of the wreck not less than 750 miles. There he procured a
small schooner, the CUMBERLAND, no larger than a Gravesend sailing-boat,
and returned for the remainder of the crew, who had been left on the
reef. Having rescued them, he set sail for England, making for the Isle
of France, which the CUMBERLAND reached in a sinking condition, being
a wretched little craft badly found. To his surprise, he was made a
prisoner with all his crew, and thrown into prison, where he was treated
with brutal harshness, his French pass proving no protection to him.
What aggravated the horrors of Flinders' confinement was, that he knew
that Baudin, the French navigator, whom he had encountered while making
his survey of the Australian coasts, would reach Europe first, and claim
the merit of all the discoveries he had made. It turned out as he had
expected; and while Flinders was still imprisoned in the Isle of France,
the French Atlas of the new discoveries was published, all the points
named by Flinders and his precursors being named afresh. Flinders was at
length liberated, after six years' imprisonment, his health completely
broken; but he continued correcting his maps, and writing out his
descriptions to the last. He only lived long enough to correct his
final sheet for the press, and died on the very day that his work was
published!
Courageous men have often turned enforced solitude to account in
executing works of great pith and moment. It is in solitude that the
passion for spiritual perfection best nurses itself. The soul communes
with itself in loneliness until its energy often becomes intense. But
whether a man profits by solitude or not will mainly depend upon his
own temperament, training, and character. While, in a large-natured man,
solitude will make the pure heart purer, in the small-natured man it
will only serve to make the hard heart still harder: for though solitude
may be the nurse of great spirits, it is the torment of small ones.
It was in prison that Boetius wrote his 'Consolations of Philosophy,'
and Grotius his 'Commentary on St. Matthew,' regarded as his masterwork
in Biblical Criticism. Buchanan composed his beautiful 'Paraphrases
on the Psalms' while imprisoned in the cell of a Portuguese monastery.
Campanella, the Italian patriot monk, suspected of treason, was immured
for twenty-seven years in a Neapolitan dungeon, during which, deprived
of the sun's light, he sought higher light, and there created his
'Civitas Solis,' which has been so often reprinted and reproduced in
translations in most European languages. During his thirteen years'
imprisonment in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 'History of the World,' a
project of vast extent, of which he was only able to finish the first
five books. Luther occupied his prison hours in the Castle of Wartburg
in translating the Bible, and in writing the famous tracts and treatises
with which he inundated all Germany.
It was to the circumstance of John Bunyan having been cast into gaol
that we probably owe the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He was thus driven in
upon himself; having no opportunity for action, his active mind
found vent in earnest thinking and meditation; and indeed, after
his enlargement, his life as an author virtually ceased. His 'Grace
Abounding' and the 'Holy War' were also written in prison. Bunyan lay
in Bedford Gaol, with a few intervals of precarious liberty, during not
less than twelve years; [217] and it was most probably to his prolonged
imprisonment that we owe what Macaulay has characterised as the finest
allegory in the world.
All the political parties of the times in which Bunyan lived, imprisoned
their opponents when they had the opportunity and the power. Bunyan's
prison experiences were principally in the time of Charles II. But in
the preceding reign of Charles I., as well as during the Commonwealth,
illustrious prisoners were very numerous. The prisoners of the former
included Sir John Eliot, Hampden, Selden, Prynne [218] [21a most voluminous
prison-writer], and many more. It was while under strict confinement
in the Tower, that Eliot composed his noble treatise, 'The Monarchy
of Man.' George Wither, the poet, was another prisoner of Charles the
First, and it was while confined in the Marshalsea that he wrote his
famous 'Satire to the King.' At the Restoration he was again imprisoned
in Newgate, from which he was transferred to the Tower, and he is
supposed by some to have died there.
The Commonwealth also had its prisoners. Sir William Davenant, because
of his loyalty, was for some time confined a prisoner in Cowes Castle,
where he wrote the greater part of his poem of 'Gondibert': and it
is said that his life was saved principally through the generous
intercession of Milton. He lived to repay the debt, and to save Milton's
life when "Charles enjoyed his own again." Lovelace, the poet and
cavalier, was also imprisoned by the Roundheads, and was only liberated
from the Gatehouse on giving an enormous bail. Though he suffered and
lost all for the Stuarts, he was forgotten by them at the Restoration,
and died in extreme poverty.
Besides Wither and Bunyan, Charles II. imprisoned Baxter, Harrington
[21the author of 'Oceana'], Penn, and many more. All these men solaced
their prison hours with writing. Baxter wrote some of the most
remarkable passages of his 'Life and Times' while lying in the King's
Bench Prison; and Penn wrote his 'No Cross no Crown' while imprisoned in
the Tower. In the reign of Queen Anne, Matthew Prior was in confinement
on a vamped-up charge of treason for two years, during which he wrote
his 'Alma, or Progress of the Soul.'
Since then, political prisoners of eminence in England have been
comparatively few in number. Among the most illustrious were De Foe,
who, besides standing three times in the pillory, spent much of his
time in prison, writing 'Robinson Crusoe' there, and many of his best
political pamphlets. There also he wrote his 'Hymn to the Pillory,' and
corrected for the press a collection of his voluminous writings. [219]
Smollett wrote his 'Sir Lancelot Greaves' in prison, while undergoing
confinement for libel. Of recent prison-writers in England, the best
known are James Montgomery, who wrote his first volume of poems while a
prisoner in York Castle; and Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, who wrote his
'Purgatory of Suicide' in Stafford Gaol.
Silvio Pellico was one of the latest and most illustrious of the prison
writers of Italy. He lay confined in Austrian gaols for ten years, eight
of which he passed in the Castle of Spielberg in Moravia. It was there
that he composed his charming 'Memoirs,' the only materials for which
were furnished by his fresh living habit of observation; and out of even
the transient visits of his gaoler's daughter, and the colourless events
of his monotonous daily life, he contrived to make for himself a little
world of thought and healthy human interest.
Kazinsky, the great reviver of Hungarian literature, spent seven years
of his life in the dungeons of Buda, Brunne, Kufstein, and Munkacs,
during which he wrote a 'Diary of his Imprisonment,' and amongst
other things translated Sterno's 'Sentimental Journey;' whilst Kossuth
beguiled his two years' imprisonment at Buda in studying English, so as
to be able to read Shakspeare in the original.
Men who, like these, suffer the penalty of law, and seem to fail, at
least for a time, do not really fail. Many, who have seemed to fail
utterly, have often exercised a more potent and enduring influence upon
their race, than those whose career has been a course of uninterupted
success. The character of a man does not depend on whether his efforts
are immediately followed by failure or by success. The martyr is not
a failure if the truth for which he suffered acquires a fresh lustre
through his sacrifice. [2110] The patriot who lays down his life for his
cause, may thereby hasten its triumph; and those who seem to throw their
lives away in the van of a great movement, often open a way for those
who follow them, and pass over their dead bodies to victory. The triumph
of a just cause may come late; but when it does come, it is due as much
to those who failed in their first efforts, as to those who succeeded in
their last.
The example of a great death may be an inspiration to others, as well as
the example of a good life. A great act does not perish with the life of
him who performs it, but lives and grows up into like acts in those who
survive the doer thereof and cherish his memory. Of some great men, it
might almost be said that they have not begun to live until they have
died.
The names of the men who have suffered in the cause of religion, of
science, and of truth, are the men of all others whose memories are
held in the greatest esteem and reverence by mankind. They perished,
but their truth survived. They seemed to fail, and yet they eventually
succeeded. [2111] Prisons may have held them, but their thoughts were not
to be confined by prison-walls. They have burst through, and defied the
power of their persecutors. It was Lovelace, a prisoner, who wrote:
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."
It was a saying of Milton that, "who best can suffer best can do." The
work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst
suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the
tide, and reached the shore exhausted, only to grasp the sand and
expire. They have done their duty, and been content to die. But death
hath no power over such men; their hallowed memories still survive,
to soothe and purify and bless us. "Life," said Goethe, "to us all is
suffering. Who save God alone shall call us to our reckoning? Let not
reproaches fall on the departed. Not what they have failed in, nor
what they have suffered, but what they have done, ought to occupy the
survivors."
Thus, it is not ease and facility that tries men, and brings out the
good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the
touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth
their sweetest odour, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to
evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask
virtues, and bring to light hidden graces. Men apparently useless and
purposeless, when placed in positions of difficulty and responsibility,
have exhibited powers of character before unsuspected; and where we
before saw only pliancy and self-indulgence, we now see strength,
valour, and self-denial.
As there are no blessings which may not be perverted into evils, so
there are no trials which may not be converted into blessings. All
depends on the manner in which we profit by them or otherwise. Perfect
happiness is not to be looked for in this world. If it could be secured,
it would be found profitless. The hollowest of all gospels is the
gospel of ease and comfort. Difficulty, and even failure, are far
better teachers. Sir Humphry Davy said: "Even in private life, too much
prosperity either injures the moral man, and occasions conduct which
ends in suffering; or it is accompanied by the workings of envy,
calumny, and malevolence of others."
Failure improves tempers and strengthens the nature. Even sorrow is in
some mysterious way linked with joy and associated with tenderness. John
Bunyan once said how, "if it were lawful, he could even pray for greater
trouble, for the greater comfort's sake." When surprise was expressed at
the patience of a poor Arabian woman under heavy affliction, she said,
"When we look on God's face we do not feel His hand."
Suffering is doubtless as divinely appointed as joy, while it is much
more influential as a discipline of character. It chastens and sweetens
the nature, teaches patience and resignation, and promotes the deepest
as well as the most exalted thought. [2112]
"The best of men
That e'er wore earth about Him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit
The first true gentleman that ever breathed." [2113]
Suffering may be the appointed means by which the highest nature of man
is to be disciplined and developed. Assuming happiness to be the end of
being, sorrow may be the indispensable condition through which it is to
be reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox descriptive of the Christian
life,--"as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet
possessing all things."
Even pain is not all painful. On one side it is related to suffering,
and on the other to happiness. For pain is remedial as well as
sorrowful. Suffering is a misfortune as viewed from the one side, and a
discipline as viewed from the other. But for suffering, the best part of
many men's nature would sleep a deep sleep. Indeed, it might almost
be said that pain and sorrow were the indispensable conditions of some
men's success, and the necessary means to evoke the highest development
of their genius. Shelley has said of poets:
"Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by wrong,
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
Does any one suppose that Burns would have sung as he did, had he
been rich, respectable, and "kept a gig;" or Byron, if he had been a
prosperous, happily-married Lord Privy Seal or Postmaster-General?
Sometimes a heartbreak rouses an impassive nature to life. "What does
he know," said a sage, "who has not suffered?" When Dumas asked Reboul,
"What made you a poet?" his answer was, "Suffering!" It was the death,
first of his wife, and then of his child, that drove him into solitude
for the indulgence of his grief, and eventually led him to seek and find
relief in verse. [2114] It was also to a domestic affliction that we owe
the beautiful writings of Mrs. Gaskell. "It was as a recreation, in the
highest sense of the word," says a recent writer, speaking from personal
knowledge, "as an escape from the great void of a life from which
a cherished presence had been taken, that she began that series of
exquisite creations which has served to multiply the number of our
acquaintances, and to enlarge even the circle of our friendships." [2115]
Much of the best and most useful work done by men and women has been
done amidst affliction--sometimes as a relief from it, sometimes from a
sense of duty overpowering personal sorrow. "If I had not been so great
an invalid," said Dr. Darwin to a friend, "I should not have done nearly
so much work as I have been able to accomplish." So Dr. Donne, speaking
of his illnesses, once said: "This advantage you and my other friends
have by my frequent fevers is, that I am so much the oftener at the
gates of Heaven; and by the solitude and close imprisonment they reduce
me to, I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in which you and my other
dear friends are not forgotten."
Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical
suffering almost amounting to torture. Handel was never greater than
when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with
distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which
have made his name immortal in music. Mozart composed his great operas,
and last of all his 'Requiem,' when oppressed by debt, and struggling
with a fatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst
gloomy sorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness. And poor
Schubert, after his short but brilliant life, laid it down at the early
age of thirty-two; his sole property at his death consisting of his
manuscripts, the clothes he wore, and sixty-three florins in money. Some
of Lamb's finest writings were produced amidst deep sorrow, and Hood's
apparent gaiety often sprang from a suffering heart. As he himself
wrote,
"There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy."
Again, in science, we have the noble instance of the suffering
Wollaston, even in the last stages of the mortal disease which afflicted
him, devoting his numbered hours to putting on record, by dictation, the
various discoveries and improvements he had made, so that any knowledge
he had acquired, calculated to benefit his fellow-creatures, might not
be lost.
Afflictions often prove but blessings in disguise. "Fear not the
darkness," said the Persian sage; it "conceals perhaps the springs of
the waters of life." Experience is often bitter, but wholesome; only
by its teaching can we learn to suffer and be strong. Character, in
its highest forms, is disciplined by trial, and "made perfect through
suffering." Even from the deepest sorrow, the patient and thoughtful
mind will gather richer wisdom than pleasure ever yielded.
"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decayed, Lets in new light
through chinks that Time has made."
"Consider," said Jeremy Taylor, "that sad accidents, and a state of
afflictions, is a school of virtue. It reduces our spirits to soberness,
and our counsels to moderation; it corrects levity, and interrupts
the confidence of sinning.... God, who in mercy and wisdom governs the
world, would never have suffered so many sadnesses, and have sent them,
especially, to the most virtuous and the wisest men, but that He intends
they should be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the
exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the venturing for a crown,
and the gate of glory." [2116]
And again:--"No man is more miserable than he that hath no adversity.
That man is not tried, whether he be good or bad; and God never crowns
those virtues which are only FACULTIES and DISPOSITIONS; but every act
of virtue is an ingredient unto reward." [2117]
Prosperity and success of themselves do not confer happiness; indeed,
it not unfrequently happens that the least successful in life have the
greatest share of true joy in it. No man could have been more
successful than Goethe--possessed of splendid health, honour, power, and
sufficiency of this world's goods--and yet he confessed that he had not,
in the course of his life, enjoyed five weeks of genuine pleasure.
So the Caliph Abdalrahman, in surveying his successful reign of fifty
years, found that he had enjoyed only fourteen days of pure and genuine
happiness. [2118] After this, might it not be said that the pursuit of
mere happiness is an illusion?
Life, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all
pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not human life.
Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn. It is made up
of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of the
sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another, making us
sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving; it
binds us more closely together while here. Dr. Thomas Browne has argued
that death is one of the necessary conditions of human happiness; and
he supports his argument with great force and eloquence. But when death
comes into a household, we do not philosophise--we only feel. The eyes
that are full of tears do not see; though in course of time they come to
see more clearly and brightly than those that have never known sorrow.
The wise person gradually learns not to expect too much from life.
While he strives for success by worthy methods, he will be prepared for
failures, he will keep his mind open to enjoyment, but submit patiently
to suffering. Wailings and complainings of life are never of any use;
only cheerful and continuous working in right paths are of real avail.
Nor will the wise man expect too much from those about him. If he would
live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear. And even the best
have often foibles of character which have to be endured, sympathised
with, and perhaps pitied. Who is perfect? Who does not suffer from
some thorn in the flesh? Who does not stand in need of toleration, of
forbearance, of forgiveness? What the poor imprisoned Queen Caroline
Matilda of Denmark wrote on her chapel-window ought to be the prayer of
all,--"Oh! keep me innocent! make others great."
Then, how much does the disposition of every human being depend upon
their innate constitution and their early surroundings; the comfort
or discomfort of the homes in which they have been brought up; their
inherited characteristics; and the examples, good or bad, to which they
have been exposed through life! Regard for such considerations should
teach charity and forbearance to all men.
At the same time, life will always be to a large extent what we
ourselves make it. Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful
mind makes it pleasant, and the discontented mind makes it miserable.
"My mind to me a kingdom is," applies alike to the peasant as to the
monarch. The one may be in his heart a king, as the other may be a
slave. Life is for the most part but the mirror of our own individual
selves. Our mind gives to all situations, to all fortunes, high or low,
their real characters. To the good, the world is good; to the bad, it
is bad. If our views of life be elevated--if we regard it as a sphere of
useful effort, of high living and high thinking, of working for others'
good as well as our own--it will be joyful, hopeful, and blessed. If,
on the contrary, we regard it merely as affording opportunities for
self-seeking, pleasure, and aggrandisement, it will be full of toil,
anxiety, and disappointment.
There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never
comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much that
we see "as in a glass darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full
meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pass,
we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little
individual lives form a part.
We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have
been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its
accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the
truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of
its fulfilment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly
satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment. In
the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed "gives
us music at midnight."
And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labour, of
love, or of duty,--like the silkworm that spins its little cocoon and
dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is
the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and
end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the
accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall
at last put on:
"Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
Half that we have
Unto an honest faithful grave;
Making our pillows either down or dust!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 101: Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Lord High Treasurer under Elizabeth and
James I.]
[Footnote 102: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 217.]
[Footnote 103: Lockhart's 'Life of Scott.']
[Footnote 104: Debate on the Petition of Right, A.D. 1628.]
[Footnote 105: The Rev. F. W. Farrer's 'Seekers after God,' p. 241.]
[Footnote 106: 'The Statesman,' p. 30.]
[Footnote 107: 'Queen of the Air,' p. 127]
[Footnote 108: "Instead of saying that man is the creature of Circumstance, it would
be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of Circumstance. It
is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance. Our strength
is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds
palaces, another hovels: one warehouses, another villas. Bricks
and mortar are mortar and bricks, until the architect can make them
something else. Thus it is that in the same family, in the same
circumstances, one man rears a stately edifice, while his brother,
vacillating and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins: the block of
granite, which was an obstacle on the pathway of the weak, becomes a
stepping-stone on the pathway of the strong."--G. H. Lewes, LIFE OF
GOETHE.]
[Footnote 109: Introduction to 'The Principal Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H. the
Prince Consort' [101862], pp. 39-40.]
[Footnote 1010: Among the latest of these was Napoleon "the Great," a man of
abounding energy, but destitute of principle. He had the lowest opinion
of his fellowmen. "Men are hogs, who feed on gold," he once said: "Well,
I throw them gold, and lead them whithersoever I will." When the Abbe de
Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, was setting out on his embassy to Poland
in 1812, Napoleon's parting instruction to him was, "Tenez bonne table
et soignez les femmes,"--of which Benjamin Constant said that such an
observation, addressed to a feeble priest of sixty, shows Buonaparte's
profound contempt for the human race, without distinction of nation or
sex.]
[Footnote 1011: Condensed from Sir Thomas Overbury's 'Characters' [101614].]
[Footnote 1012: 'History of the Peninsular War,' v. 319.--Napier mentions another
striking illustration of the influence of personal qualities in young
Edward Freer, of the same regiment [10the 43rd], who, when he fell at the
age of nineteen, at the Battle of the Nivelle, had already seen more
combats and sieges than he could count years. "So slight in person, and
of such surpassing beauty, that the Spaniards often thought him a girl
disguised in man's clothing, he was yet so vigorous, so active, so
brave, that the most daring and experienced veterans watched his looks
on the field of battle, and, implicitly following where he led,
would, like children, obey his slightest sign in the most difficult
situations."]
[Footnote 1013: When the dissolution of the Union at one time seemed imminent, and
Washington wished to retire into private life, Jefferson wrote to him,
urging his continuance in office. "The confidence of the whole Union,"
he said, "centres in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an
answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people
in any quarter into violence and secession.... There is sometimes an
eminence of character on which society has such peculiar claims as to
control the predilection of the individual for a particular walk of
happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and
future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and
the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character and
fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives
like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others, who have
no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal from your former
determination, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the
aspect of things."--Sparks' Life of Washington, i. 480.]
[Footnote 1014: Napier's 'History of the Peninsular War,' v. 226.]
[Footnote 1015: Sir W. Scott's 'History of Scotland,' vol. i. chap. xvi.]
[Footnote 1016: Michelet's 'History of Rome,' p. 374.]
[Footnote 1017: Erasmus so reverenced the character of Socrates that he said, when
he considered his life and doctrines, he was inclined to put him in the
calendar of saints, and to exclaim, "SANCTE SOCRATES, ORA PRO NOBIS."
(Holy Socrates, pray for us!)]
[Footnote 1018: "Honour to all the brave and true; everlasting honour to John Knox
one of the truest of the true! That, in the moment while he and his
cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and confusion, were still but
struggling for life, he sent the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and
said, 'Let the people be taught:' this is but one, and, and indeed, an
inevitable and comparatively inconsiderable item in his great message to
men. This message, in its true compass, was, 'Let men know that they are
men created by God, responsible to God who work in any meanest moment
of time what will last through eternity...' This great message Knox did
deliver, with a man's voice and strength; and found a people to believe
him. Of such an achievement, were it to be made once only, the results
are immense. Thought, in such a country, may change its form, but
cannot go out; the country has attained MAJORITY thought, and a certain
manhood, ready for all work that man can do, endures there.... The
Scotch national character originated in many circumstances: first of
all, in the Saxon stuff there was to work on; but next, and beyond all
else except that, is the Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox."--(Carlyle's
MISCELLANIES, iv. 118.)]
[Footnote 1019: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. ed. p.484.--Dante was a religious
as well as a political reformer. He was a reformer three hundred years
before the Reformation, advocating the separation of the spiritual from
the civil power, and declaring the temporal government of the Pope to
be a usurpation. The following memorable words were written over five
hundred and sixty years ago, while Dante was still a member of the Roman
Catholic Church:--"Every Divine law is found in one or other of the two
Testaments; but in neither can I find that the care of temporal matters
was given to the priesthood. On the contrary, I find that the first
priests were removed from them by law, and the later priests, by command
of Christ, to His disciples."--DE MONARCHIA, lib. iii. cap. xi.
Dante also, still clinging to 'the Church he wished to reform,' thus
anticipated the fundamental doctrine of the Reformation:-"Before the
Church are the Old and New Testament; after the Church are traditions.
It follows, then, that the authority of the Church depends, not on
traditions, but traditions on the Church."]
[Footnote 1020: 'Blackwood's Magazine,' June, 1863, art. 'Girolamo Savonarola.']
[Footnote 1021: One of the last passages in the Diary of Dr. Arnold, written the
year before his death, was as follows:--"It is the misfortune of France
that her 'past' cannot be loved or respected--her future and her present
cannot be wedded to it; yet how can the present yield fruit, or the
future have promise, except their roots be fixed in the past? The evil
is infinite, but the blame rests with those who made the past a dead
thing, out of which no healthful life could be produced."--LIFE, ii.
387-8, Ed. 1858.]
[Footnote 1022: A public orator lately spoke with contempt of the Battle of
Marathon, because only 192 perished on the side of the Athenians,
whereas by improved mechanism and destructive chemicals, some 50,000
men or more may now be destroyed within a few hours. Yet the Battle of
Marathon, and the heroism displayed in it, will probably continue to
be remembered when the gigantic butcheries of modern times have been
forgotten.]
[Footnote 111: Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in
private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who
has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true
love for humanity.--Jules Simon's LE DEVOIR.]
[Footnote 112: 'Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education.']
[Footnote 113: Speaking of the force of habit, St. Augustine says in his
'Confessions' "My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for
me, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made; and a lust
served became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which
links, as it were, joined together [11whence I called it a chain] a hard
bondage held me enthralled."]
[Footnote 114: Mr. Tufnell, in 'Reports of Inspectors of Parochial School Unions in
England and Wales,' 1850.]
[Footnote 115: See the letters [11January 13th, 16th, 18th, 20th, and 23rd, 1759],
written by Johnson to his mother when she was ninety, and he himself was
in his fiftieth year.--Crokers BOSWELL, 8vo. Ed. pp. 113, 114.]
[Footnote 116: Jared Sparks' 'Life of Washington.']
[Footnote 117: Forster's 'Eminent British Statesmen' [11Cabinet Cyclop.] vi. 8.]
[Footnote 118: The Earl of Mornington, composer of 'Here in cool grot,' &c.]
[Footnote 119: Robert Bell's 'Life of Canning,' p. 37.]
[Footnote 1110: 'Life of Curran,' by his son, p. 4.]
[Footnote 1111: The father of the Wesleys had even determined at one time to
abandon his wife because her conscience forbade her to assent to his
prayers for the then reigning monarch, and he was only saved from the
consequences of his rash resolve by the accidental death of William
III. He displayed the same overbearing disposition in dealing with his
children; forcing his daughter Mehetabel to marry, against her will, a
man whom she did not love, and who proved entirely unworthy of her.]
[Footnote 1112: Goethe himself says--"Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, Des Lebens
ernstes Fuhren; Von Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zu fabuliren."]
[Footnote 1113: Mrs. Grote's 'Life of Ary Scheffer,' p. 154.]
[Footnote 1114: Michelet, 'On Priests, Women, and Families.']
[Footnote 1115: Mrs. Byron is said to have died in a fit of passion, brought on by
reading her upholsterer's bills.]
[Footnote 1116: Sainte-Beuve, 'Causeries du Lundi,' i. 23.]
[Footnote 1117: Ibid. i. 22.]
[Footnote 1118: Ibid. 1. 23.]
[Footnote 1119: That about one-third of all the children born in this country die
under five years of age, can only he attributable to ignorance of the
natural laws, ignorance of the human constitution, and ignorance of
the uses of pure air, pure water, and of the art of preparing and
administering wholesome food. There is no such mortality amongst the
lower animals.]
[Footnote 1120: Beaumarchais' 'Figaro,' which was received with such enthusiasm in
France shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, may be regarded as
a typical play; it represented the average morality of the upper as well
as the lower classes with respect to the relations between the sexes.
"Label men how you please," says Herbert Spencer, "with titles of
'upper' and 'middle' and 'lower,' you cannot prevent them from being
units of the same society, acted upon by the same spirit of the age,
moulded after the same type of character. The mechanical law, that
action and reaction are equal, has its moral analogue. The deed of one
man to another tends ultimately to produce a like effect upon both, be
the deed good or bad. Do but put them in relationship, and no
division into castes, no differences of wealth, can prevent men from
assimilating.... The same influences which rapidly adapt the individual
to his society, ensure, though by a slower process, the general
uniformity of a national character.... And so long as the assimilating
influences productive of it continue at work, it is folly to suppose
any one grade of a community can be morally different from the rest. In
whichever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades all
ranks--be assured it is the symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst
the virus of depravity exists in one part of the body-politic, no other
part can remain healthy."--SOCIAL STATICS, chap. xx. 7.]
[Footnote 1121: Some twenty-eight years since, the author wrote and published the
following passage, not without practical knowledge of the subject; and
notwithstanding the great amelioration in the lot of factory-workers,
effected mainly through the noble efforts of Lord Shaftesbury, the
description is still to a large extent true:--"The factory system,
however much it may have added to the wealth of the country, has had a
most deleterious effect on the domestic condition of the people. It has
invaded the sanctuary of home, and broken up family and social ties.
It has taken the wife from the husband, and the children from their
parents. Especially has its tendency been to lower the character of
woman. The performance of domestic duties is her proper office,--the
management of her household, the rearing of her family, the economizing
of the family means, the supplying of the family wants. But the factory
takes her from all these duties. Homes become no longer homes. Children
grow up uneducated and neglected. The finer affections become blunted.
Woman is no more the gentle wife, companion, and friend of man, but his
fellow-labourer and fellow-drudge. She is exposed to influences which
too often efface that modesty of thought and conduct which is one of the
best safeguards of virtue. Without judgment or sound principles to guide
them, factory-girls early acquire the feeling of independence. Ready to
throw off the constraint imposed on them by their parents, they leave
their homes, and speedily become initiated in the vices of their
associates. The atmosphere, physical as well as moral, in which they
live, stimulates their animal appetites; the influence of bad example
becomes contagious among them and mischief is propagated far and
wide."--THE UNION, January, 1843.]
[Footnote 1122: A French satirist, pointing to the repeated PLEBISCITES and
perpetual voting of late years, and to the growing want of faith
in anything but votes, said, in 1870, that we seemed to be rapidly
approaching the period when the only prayer of man and woman would be,
"Give us this day our daily vote!"]
[Footnote 1123: "Of primeval and necessary and absolute superiority, the relation
of the mother to the child is far more complete, though less seldom
quoted as an example, than that of father and son.... By Sir Robert
Filmer, the supposed necessary as well as absolute power of the father
over his children, was taken as the foundation and origin, and thence
justifying cause, of the power of the monarch in every political state.
With more propriety he might have stated the absolute dominion of a
woman as the only legitimate form of government."--DEONTOLOGY, ii. 181.]
[Footnote 121: 'Letters of Sir Charles Bell,' p. 10. [122: 'Autobiography of Mary
Anne Schimmelpenninck,' p. 179.]
[Footnote 123: Dean Stanley's 'Life of Dr. Arnold,' i. 151 [12Ed. 1858].]
[Footnote 124: Lord Cockburn's 'Memorials,' pp. 25-6.]
[Footnote 125: From a letter of Canon Moseley, read at a Memorial Meeting held
shortly after the death of the late Lord Herbert of Lea.]
[Footnote 126: Izaak Walton's 'Life of George Herbert.']
[Footnote 127: Stanley's 'Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold,' i. 33.]
[Footnote 128: Philip de Comines gives a curious illustration of the subservient,
though enforced, imitation of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, by his
courtiers. When that prince fell ill, and had his head shaved, he
ordered that all his nobles, five hundred in number, should in like
manner shave their heads; and one of them, Pierre de Hagenbach, to prove
his devotion, no sooner caught sight of an unshaven nobleman, than
he forthwith had him seized and carried off to the barber!--Philip de
Comines [12Bohn's Ed.], p. 243.]
[Footnote 129: 'Life,' i. 344.]
[Footnote 1210: Introduction to 'The Principal Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H. the
Prince Consort,' p. 33.]
[Footnote 1211: Speech at Liverpool, 1812.]
[Footnote 131:In the third chapter of his Natural History, Pliny relates in what
high honour agriculture was held in the earlier days of Rome; how the
divisions of land were measured by the quantity which could be ploughed
by a yoke of oxen in a certain time [13JUGERUM, in one day; ACTUS, at one
spell]; how the greatest recompence to a general or valiant citizen
was a JUGERUM; how the earliest surnames were derived from agriculture
(Pilumnus, from PILUM, the pestle for pounding corn; Piso, from PISO,
to grind coin; Fabius, from FABA, a bean; Lentulus, from LENS, a lentil;
Cicero, from CICER, a chickpea; Babulcus, from BOS, &c.); how the
highest compliment was to call a man a good agriculturist, or a good
husbandman (LOCUPLES, rich, LOCI PLENUS, PECUNIA, from PECUS, &c.);
how the pasturing of cattle secretly by night upon unripe crops was a
capital offence, punishable by hanging; how the rural tribes held the
foremost rank, while those of the city had discredit thrown upon them as
being an indolent race; and how "GLORIAM DENIQUE IPSAM, A FARRIS HONORE,
'ADOREAM' APPELLABANT;" ADOREA, or Glory, the reward of valour, being
derived from Ador, or spelt, a kind of grain.]
[Footnote 132: 'Essay on Government,' in 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.']
[Footnote 133: Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' Part i., Mem. 2, Sub. 6.]
[Footnote 134: Ibid. End of concluding chapter.]
[Footnote 135: It is characteristic of the Hindoos to regard entire inaction as
the most perfect state, and to describe the Supreme Being as "The
Unmoveable."]