satisfaction was fatal to man, that he went so far as to say: "If the
All-powerful Being, holding in one hand Truth, and in the other
the search for Truth, said to me, 'Choose,' I would answer Him, 'O
All-powerful, keep for Thyself the Truth; but leave to me the search for
it, which is the better for me.'" On the other hand, Bossuet said: "Si
je concevais une nature purement intelligente, il me semble que je n'y
mettrais qu'entendre et aimer la verite, et que cela seul la rendrait
heureux."]
[Footnote 137: The late Sir John Patteson, when in his seventieth year, attended an
annual ploughing-match dinner at Feniton, Devon, at which he thought it
worth his while to combat the notion, still too prevalent, that because
a man does not work merely with his bones and muscles, he is therefore
not entitled to the appellation of a workingman. "In recollecting
similar meetings to the present," he said, "I remember my friend, John
Pyle, rather throwing it in my teeth that I had not worked for nothing;
but I told him, 'Mr. Pyle, you do not know what you are talking about.
We are all workers. The man who ploughs the field and who digs the hedge
is a worker; but there are other workers in other stations of life as
well. For myself, I can say that I have been a worker ever since I have
been a boy.'... Then I told him that the office of judge was by no means
a sinecure, for that a judge worked as hard as any man in the country.
He has to work at very difficult questions of law, which are brought
before him continually, giving him great anxiety; and sometimes the
lives of his fellow-creatures are placed in his hands, and are dependent
very much upon the manner in which he places the facts before the jury.
That is a matter of no little anxiety, I can assure you. Let any man
think as he will, there is no man who has been through the ordeal
for the length of time that I have, but must feel conscious of the
importance and gravity of the duty which is cast upon a judge."]
[Footnote 138: Lord Stanley's Address to the Students of Glasgow University, on his
installation as Lord Rector, 1869.]
[Footnote 139: Writing to an abbot at Nuremberg, who had sent him a store of
turning-tools, Luther said: "I have made considerable progress in
clockmaking, and I am very much delighted at it, for these drunken
Saxons need to be constantly reminded of what the real time is; not that
they themselves care much about it, for as long as their glasses are
kept filled, they trouble themselves very little as to whether clocks,
or clockmakers, or the time itself, go right."--Michelet's LUTHER [13Bogue
Ed.], p. 200.]
[Footnote 1310: "Life of Perthes," ii. 20.]
[Footnote 1311: Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' [138vo. Ed.], p. 442.]
[Footnote 1312: Southey expresses the opinion in 'The Doctor', that the character
of a person may be better known by the letters which other persons write
to him than by what he himself writes.]
[Footnote 1313: 'Dissertation on the Science of Method.']
[Footnote 1314: The following passage, from a recent article in the PALL MALL
GAZETTE, will commend itself to general aproval:--"There can be no
question nowadays, that application to work, absorption in affairs,
contact with men, and all the stress which business imposes on us,
gives a noble training to the intellect, and splendid opportunity for
discipline of character. It is an utterly low view of business which
regards it as only a means of getting a living. A man's business is his
part of the world's work, his share of the great activities which render
society possible. He may like it or dislike it, but it is work, and as
such requires application, self-denial, discipline. It is his drill, and
he cannot be thorough in his occupation without putting himself into it,
checking his fancies, restraining his impulses, and holding himself to
the perpetual round of small details--without, in fact, submitting to
his drill. But the perpetual call on a man's readiness, sell-control,
and vigour which business makes, the constant appeal to the intellect,
the stress upon the will, the necessity for rapid and responsible
exercise of judgment--all these things constitute a high culture, though
not the highest. It is a culture which strengthens and invigorates if it
does not refine, which gives force if not polish--the FORTITER IN RE, if
not the SUAVITER IN MODO. It makes strong men and ready men, and men of
vast capacity for affairs, though it does not necessarily make refined
men or gentlemen."]
[Footnote 1315: On the first publication of his 'Despatches,' one of his friends
said to him, on reading the records of his Indian campaigns: "It seems
to me, Duke, that your chief business in India was to procure rice and
bullocks." "And so it was," replied Wellington: "for if I had rice and
bullocks, I had men; and if I had men, I knew I could beat the enemy."]
[Footnote 1316: Maria Edgeworth, 'Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth,' ii. 94.]
[Footnote 1317: A friend of Lord Palmerston has communicated to us the following
anecdote. Asking him one day when he considered a man to be in the prime
of life, his immediate reply was, "Seventy-nine!" "But," he added, with
a twinkle in his eye, "as I have just entered my eightieth year, perhaps
I am myself a little past it."]
[Footnote 1318: 'Reasons of Church Government,' Book II.]
[Footnote 1319: Coleridge's advice to his young friends was much to the same
effect. "With the exception of one extraordinary man," he says, "I have
never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, healthy
or happy without a profession: i.e., some regular employment which does
not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so
far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and
intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three
hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward
to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realise
in literature a larger product of what is truly genial, than weeks
of compulsion.... If facts are required to prove the possibility of
combining weighty performances in literature with full and independent
employment, the works of Cicero and Xenophon, among the ancients--of
Sir Thomas More, Bacon, Baxter, or [13to refer at once to later and
contemporary instances] Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive of the
question."--BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, Chap. xi.]
[Footnote 1320: Mr. Ricardo published his celebrated 'Theory of Rent,' at the
urgent recommendation of James Mill [13like his son, a chief clerk in the
India House], author of the 'History of British India.' When the 'Theory
of Rent' was written, Ricardo was so dissatisfied with it that he wished
to burn it; but Mr. Mill urged him to publish it, and the book was a
great success.]
[Footnote 1321: The late Sir John Lubbock, his father, was also eminent as a
mathematician and astronomer.]
[Footnote 1322: Thales, once inveighing in discourse against the pains and care men
put themselves to, to become rich, was answered by one in the company
that he did like the fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain.
Thereupon Thales had a mind, for the jest's sake, to show them the
contrary; and having upon this occasion for once made a muster of all
his wits, wholly to employ them in the service of profit, he set a
traffic on foot, which in one year brought him in so great riches, that
the most experienced in that trade could hardly in their whole lives,
with all their industry, have raked so much together.
--Montaignes ESSAYS, Book I., chap. 24.]
[Footnote 1323: "The understanding," says Mr. Bailey, "that is accustomed to
pursue a regular and connected train of ideas, becomes in some measure
incapacitated for those quick and versatile movements which are learnt
in the commerce of the world, and are indispensable to those who act a
part in it. Deep thinking and practical talents require indeed habits of
mind so essentially dissimilar, that while a man is striving after the
one, he will be unavoidably in danger of losing the other." "Thence,"
he adds, "do we so often find men, who are 'giants in the closet,' prove
but 'children in the world.'"--'Essays on the Formation and Publication
of Opinions,' pp.251-3.]
[Footnote 1324: Mr. Gladstone is as great an enthusiast in literature as
Canning was. It is related of him that, while he was waiting in his
committee-room at Liverpool for the returns coming in on the day of the
South Lancashire polling, he occupied himself in proceeding with the
translation of a work which he was then preparing for the press.]
[Footnote 141: James Russell Lowell.]
[Footnote 142: Yet Bacon himself had written, "I would rather believe all the
faiths in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this
universal frame is without a mind."]
[Footnote 143: Aubrey, in his 'Natural History of Wiltshire,' alluding to Harvey,
says: "He told me himself that upon publishing that book he fell in his
practice extremely."]
[Footnote 144: Sir Thomas More's first wife, Jane Colt, was originally a young
country girl, whom he himself instructed in letters, and moulded to
his own tastes and manners. She died young, leaving a son and three
daughters, of whom the noble Margaret Roper most resembled More himself.
His second wife was Alice Middleton, a widow, some seven years older
than More, not beautiful--for he characterized her as "NEC BELLA,
NEC PUELLA"--but a shrewd worldly woman, not by any means disposed to
sacrifice comfort and good cheer for considerations such as those which
so powerfully influenced the mind of her husband.]
[Footnote 145: Before being beheaded, Eliot said, "Death is but a little word;
but ''tis a great work to die.'" In his 'Prison Thoughts' before his
execution, he wrote: "He that fears not to die, fears nothing.... There
is a time to live, and a time to die. A good death is far better and
more eligible than an ill life. A wise man lives but so long as his life
is worth more than his death. The longer life is not always the better."]
[Footnote 146: Mr. J. S. Mill, in his book 'On Liberty,' describes "the masses," as
"collective mediocrity." "The initiation of all wise or noble things,"
he says, "comes, and must come, from individuals--generally at first
from some one individual. The honour and glory of the average man is
that he is capable of following that imitation; that he can respond
internally to wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes
open.... In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere
refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely
because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a
reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that
people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and
where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity
in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius,
mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now
dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."--Pp. 120-1.]
[Footnote 147: Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his thoughtful books, published in 1845,
made some observations on this point, which are not less applicable now.
He there said: "it is a grievous thing to see literature made a vehicle
for encouraging the enmity of class to class. Yet this, unhappily, is
not unfrequent now. Some great man summed up the nature of French novels
by calling them the Literature of Despair; the kind of writing that I
deprecate may be called the Literature of Envy.... Such writers like
to throw their influence, as they might say, into the weaker scale. But
that is not the proper way of looking at the matter. I think, if they
saw the ungenerous nature of their proceedings, that alone would stop
them. They should recollect that literature may fawn upon the masses
as well as the aristocracy; and in these days the temptation is in the
former direction. But what is most grievous in this kind of writing is
the mischief it may do to the working-people themselves. If you have
their true welfare at heart, you will not only care for their being
fed and clothed, but you will be anxious not to encourage unreasonable
expectations in them--not to make them ungrateful or greedy-minded.
Above all, you will be solicitous to preserve some self-reliance in
them. You will be careful not to let them think that their condition can
be wholly changed without exertion of their own. You would not desire to
have it so changed. Once elevate your ideal of what you wish to happen
amongst the labouring population, and you will not easily admit anything
in your writings that may injure their moral or their mental character,
even if you thought it might hasten some physical benefit for them. That
is the way to make your genius most serviceable to mankind. Depend upon
it, honest and bold things require to be said to the lower as well as
the higher classes; and the former are in these times much less likely
to have, such things addressed to them."-Claims of Labour, pp. 253-4.]
[Footnote 148: 'Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson' [14Bohn's Ed.], p. 32.]
[Footnote 149: At a public meeting held at Worcester, in 1867, in recognition of
Sir J. Pakington's services as Chairman of Quarter Sessions for a period
of twenty-four years, the following remarks, made by Sir John on the
occasion, are just and valuable as they are modest:-"I am indebted for
whatever measure of success I have attained in my public life, to a
combination of moderate abilities, with honesty of intention, firmness
of purpose, and steadiness of conduct. If I were to offer advice to any
young man anxious to make himself useful in public life, I would sum up
the results of my experience in three short rules--rules so simple that
any man may understand them, and so easy that any man may act upon them.
My first rule would be--leave it to others to judge of what duties you
are capable, and for what position you are fitted; but never refuse to
give your services in whatever capacity it may be the opinion of others
who are competent to judge that you may benefit your neighbours or your
country. My second rule is--when you agree to undertake public duties,
concentrate every energy and faculty in your possession with the
determination to discharge those duties to the best of your ability.
Lastly, I would counsel you that, in deciding on the line which you will
take in public affairs, you should be guided in your decision by that
which, after mature deliberation, you believe to be right, and not
by that which, in the passing hour, may happen to be fashionable or
popular."]
[Footnote 1410: The following illustration of one of his minute acts of kindness is
given in his biography:--"He was one day taking a long country walk near
Freshford, when he met a little girl, about five years old, sobbing over
a broken bowl; she had dropped and broken it in bringing it back from
the field to which she had taken her father's dinner in it, and she said
she would be beaten on her return home for having broken it; when, with
a sudden gleam of hope, she innocently looked up into his face, and
said, 'But yee can mend it, can't ee?'
"My father explained that he could not mend the bowl, but the trouble he
could, by the gift of a sixpence to buy another. However, on opening his
purse it was empty of silver, and he had to make amends by promising to
meet his little friend in the same spot at the same hour next day, and
to bring the sixpence with him, bidding her, meanwhile, tell her mother
she had seen a gentleman who would bring her the money for the bowl next
day. The child, entirely trusting him, went on her way comforted. On
his return home he found an invitation awaiting him to dine in Bath the
following evening, to meet some one whom he specially wished to see. He
hesitated for some little time, trying to calculate the possibility of
giving the meeting to his little friend of the broken bowl and of still
being in time for the dinner-party in Bath; but finding this could
not be, he wrote to decline accepting the invitation on the plea of 'a
pre-engagement,' saying to us, 'I cannot disappoint her, she trusted me
so implicitly.'"]
[Footnote 1411: Miss Florence Nightingale has related the following incident as
having occurred before Sebastopol:--"I remember a sergeant who, on
picket, the rest of the picket killed and himself battered about the
head, stumbled back to camp, and on his way picked up a wounded man
and brought him in on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down
insensible. When, after many hours, he recovered his senses, I believe
after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade, 'Is he
alive?' 'Comrade, indeed; yes, he's alive--it is the general.' At that
moment the general, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside. 'Oh,
general, it's you, is it, I brought in? I'm so glad; I didn't know your
honour. But, ----, if I'd known it was you, I'd have saved you all the
same.' This is the true soldier's spirit."
In the same letter, Miss Nightingale says: "England, from her grand
mercantile and commercial successes, has been called sordid; God knows
she is not. The simple courage, the enduring patience, the good sense,
the strength to suffer in silence--what nation shows more of this in
war than is shown by her commonest soldier? I have seen men dying of
dysentery, but scorning to report themselves sick lest they should
thereby throw more labour on their comrades, go down to the trenches and
make the trenches their deathbed. There is nothing in history to compare
with it...."]
"Say what men will, there is something more truly Christian in the man
who gives his time, his strength, his life, if need be, for something
not himself--whether he call it his Queen, his country, or his
colours--than in all the asceticism, the fasts, the humiliations, and
confessions which have ever been made: and this spirit of giving one's
life, without calling it a sacrifice, is found nowhere so truly as in
England."]
[Footnote 1412: Mrs. Grote's 'Life of Ary Scheffer,' pp. 154-5.]
[Footnote 1413: The sufferings of this noble woman, together with those of her
unfortunate husband, were touchingly described in a letter afterwards
addressed by her to a female friend, which was published some years ago
at Haarlem, entitled, 'Gertrude von der Wart; or, Fidelity unto Death.'
Mrs. Hemans wrote a poem of great pathos and beauty, commemorating the
sad story in her 'Records of Woman.']
[Footnote 151: 'Social Statics,' p. 185.]
[Footnote 152: "In all cases," says Jeremy Bentham, "when the power of the will can
be exercised over the thoughts, let those thoughts be directed towards
happiness. Look out for the bright, for the brightest side of things,
and keep your face constantly turned to it.... A large part of existence
is necessarily passed in inaction. By day [15to take an instance from the
thousand in constant recurrence], when in attendance on others, and time
is lost by being kept waiting; by night when sleep is unwilling to
close the eyelids, the economy of happiness recommends the occupation of
pleasurable thought. In walking abroad, or in resting at home, the mind
cannot be vacant; its thoughts may be useful, useless, or pernicious to
happiness. Direct them aright; the habit of happy thought will spring up
like any other habit." DEONTOLOGY, ii. 105-6.]
[Footnote 153: The following extract from a letter of M. Boyd, Esq., is given by
Earl Stanhope in his 'Miscellanies':--"There was a circumstance told me
by the late Mr. Christmas, who for many years held an important official
situation in the Bank of England. He was, I believe, in early life a
clerk in the Treasury, or one of the government offices, and for some
time acted for Mr. Pitt as his confidential clerk, or temporary private
secretary. Christmas was one of the most obliging men I ever knew; and,
from the, position he occupied, was constantly exposed to interruptions,
yet I never saw his temper in the least ruffled. One day I found him
more than usually engaged, having a mass of accounts to prepare for one
of the law-courts--still the same equanimity, and I could not resist the
opportunity of asking the old gentleman the secret. 'Well, Mr. Boyd,
you shall know it. Mr. Pitt gave it to me:--NOT TO LOSE MY TEMPER,
IF POSSIBLE, AT ANY TIME, AND NEVER DURING THE HOURS OF BUSINESS. My
labours here [15Bank of England] commence at nine and end at three; and,
acting on the advice of the illustrious statesman, I NEVER LOSE MY
TEMPER DURING THOSE HOURS.'"]
[Footnote 154: 'Strafford Papers,' i. 87.]
[Footnote 155: Jared Sparks' 'Life of Washington,' pp. 7, 534.]
[Footnote 156: Brialmont's 'Life of Wellington.']
[Footnote 157: Professor Tyndall, on 'Faraday as a Discoverer,' p. 156.]
[Footnote 158: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 216.]
[Footnote 159: Lady Elizabeth Carew.]
[Footnote 1510: Francis Horner, in one of his letters, says: "It is among the
very sincere and zealous friends of liberty that you will find the most
perfect specimens of wrongheadedness; men of a dissenting, provincial
cast of virtue--who [15according to one of Sharpe's favourite phrases]
WILL drive a wedge the broad end foremost--utter strangers to all
moderation in political business."--Francis Horner's LIFE AND
CORRESPONDENCE [151843], ii. 133.]
[Footnote 1511: Professor Tyndall on 'Faraday as a Discoverer,' pp. 40-1.]
[Footnote 1512: Yet Burke himself; though capable of giving Barry such excellent
advice, was by no means immaculate as regarded his own temper. When
he lay ill at Beaconsfield, Fox, from whom he had become separated by
political differences arising out of the French Revolution, went down
to see his old friend. But Burke would not grant him an interview;
he positively refused to see him. On his return to town, Fox told his
friend Coke the result of his journey; and when Coke lamented Burke's
obstinacy, Fox only replied, goodnaturedly: "Ah! never mind, Tom; I
always find every Irishman has got a piece of potato in his head."
Yet Fox, with his usual generosity, when he heard of Burke's impending
death, wrote a most kind and cordial letter to Mrs. Burke, expressive of
his grief and sympathy; and when Burke was no more, Fox was the first
to propose that he should be interred with public honours in Westminster
Abbey--which only Burke's own express wish, that he should be buried at
Beaconsfield, prevented being carried out.]
[Footnote 1513: When Curran, the Irish barrister, visited Burns's cabin in 1810, he
found it converted into a public house, and the landlord who showed it
was drunk. "There," said he, pointing to a corner on one side of the
fire, with a most MALAPROPOS laugh-"there is the very spot where Robert
Burns was born." "The genius and the fate of the man," says Curran,
"were already heavy on my heart; but the drunken laugh of the landlord
gave me such a view of the rock on which he had foundered, that I could
not stand it, but burst into tears."]
[Footnote 1514: The chaplain of Horsemongerlane Gaol, in his annual report to the
Surrey justices, thus states the result of his careful study of the
causes of dishonesty: "From my experience of predatory crime, founded
upon careful study of the character of a great variety of prisoners,
I conclude that habitual dishonesty is to be referred neither to
ignorance, nor to drunkenness, nor to poverty, nor to overcrowding in
towns, nor to temptation from surrounding wealth--nor, indeed, to any
one of the many indirect causes to which it is sometimes referred--but
mainly TO A DISPOSITION TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY WITH A LESS DEGREE OF LABOUR
THAN ORDINARY INDUSTRY." The italics are the author's.]
[Footnote 1515: S. C. Hall's 'Memories.']
[Footnote 1516: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. Ed., p. 182.]
[Footnote 1517: Captain Basil Hall records the following conversation with
Scott:-"It occurs to me," I observed, "that people are apt to make too
much fuss about the loss of fortune, which is one of the smallest of the
great evils of life, and ought to be among the most tolerable."--"Do you
call it a small misfortune to be ruined in money-matters?" he asked.
"It is not so painful, at all events, as the loss of friends."--"I grant
that," he said. "As the loss of character?"--"True again." "As the loss
of health?"--"Ay, there you have me," he muttered to himself, in a
tone so melancholy that I wished I had not spoken. "What is the loss of
fortune to the loss of peace of mind?" I continued. "In short," said he,
playfully, "you will make it out that there is no harm in a man's being
plunged over-head-and-ears in a debt he cannot remove." "Much depends,
I think, on how it was incurred, and what efforts are made to redeem
it--at least, if the sufferer be a rightminded man." "I hope it does,"
he said, cheerfully and firmly.--FRAGMENTS OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 3rd
series, pp. 308-9.]
[Footnote 1518: "These battles," he wrote in his Diary, "have been the death of
many a man, I think they will be mine."]
[Footnote 1519: Scott's Diary, December 17th, 1827.]
[Footnote 161: From Lovelace's lines to Lucusta [16Lucy Sacheverell], 'Going to the
Wars.']
[Footnote 162: Amongst other great men of genius, Ariosto and Michael Angelo
devoted to her their service and their muse.]
[Footnote 163: See the Rev. F. W. Farrar's admirable book, entitled 'Seekers after
God' [16Sunday Library]. The author there says: "Epictetus was not a
Christian. He has only once alluded to the Christians in his works, and
then it is under the opprobrious title of 'Galileans,' who practised a
kind of insensibility in painful circumstances, and an indifference to
worldly interests, which Epictetus unjustly sets down to 'mere habit.'
Unhappily, it was not granted to these heathen philosophers in any true
sense to know what Christianity was. They thought that it was an attempt
to imitate the results of philosophy, without having passed through the
necessary discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it
with injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone,
they would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest
anticipations."]
[Footnote 164: Sparks' 'Life of Washington,' pp. 141-2.]
[Footnote 165: Wellington, like Washington, had to pay the penalty of his adherence
to the cause he thought right, in his loss of "popularity." He was
mobbed in the streets of London, and had his windows smashed by the mob,
while his wife lay dead in the house. Sir Walter Scott also was hooted
and pelted at Hawick by "the people," amidst cries of "Burke Sir
Walter!"]
[Footnote 166: Robertson's 'Life and Letters,' ii. 157.]
[Footnote 167: We select the following passages from this remarkable report of
Baron Stoffel, as being of more than merely temporary interest:--Who
that has lived here [16Berlin] will deny that the Prussians are energetic,
patriotic, and teeming with youthful vigour; that they are not corrupted
by sensual pleasures, but are manly, have earnest convictions, do not
think it beneath them to reverence sincerely what is noble and lofty?
What a melancholy contrast does France offer in all this? Having sneered
at everything, she has lost the faculty of respecting anything.
Virtue, family life, patriotism, honour, religion, are represented to a
frivolous generation as fitting subjects of ridicule. The theatres have
become schools of shamelessness and obscenity. Drop by drop, poison is
instilled into the very core of an ignorant and enervated society, which
has neither the insight nor the energy left to amend its institutions,
nor--which would be the most necessary step to take--become better
informed or more moral. One after the other the fine qualities of the
nation are dying out. Where is the generosity, the loyalty, the charm of
our ESPRIT, and our former elevation of soul? If this goes on, the
time will come when this noble race of France will be known only by its
faults. And France has no idea that while she is sinking, more earnest
nations are stealing the march upon her, are distancing her on the
road to progress, and are preparing for her a secondary position in the
world.
"I am afraid that these opinions will not be relished in France. However
correct, they differ too much from what is usually said and asserted at
home. I should wish some enlightened and unprejudiced Frenchmen to come
to Prussia and make this country their study. They would soon discover
that they were living in the midst of a strong, earnest, and intelligent
nation, entirely destitute, it is true, of noble and delicate feelings,
of all fascinating charms, but endowed with every solid virtue, and
alike distinguished for untiring industry, order, and economy, as well
as for patriotism, a strong sense of duty, and that consciousness of
personal dignity which in their case is so happily blended with respect
for authority and obedience to the law. They would see a country with
firm, sound, and moral institutions, whose upper classes are worthy of
their rank, and, by possessing the highest degree of culture,
devoting themselves to the service of the State, setting an example of
patriotism, and knowing how to preserve the influence legitimately their
own. They would find a State with an excellent administration where
everything is in its right place, and where the most admirable order
prevails in every branch of the social and political system. Prussia
may be well compared to a massive structure of lofty proportions and
astounding solidity, which, though it has nothing to delight the eye
or speak to the heart, cannot but impress us with its grand symmetry,
equally observable in its broad foundations as in its strong and
sheltering roof.
"And what is France? What is French society in these latter days? A
hurly-burly of disorderly elements, all mixed and jumbled together; a
country in which everybody claims the right to occupy the highest posts,
yet few remember that a man to be employed in a responsible position
ought to have a well-balanced mind, ought to be strictly moral, to
know something of the world, and possess certain intellectual powers; a
country in which the highest offices are frequently held by ignorant and
uneducated persons, who either boast some special talent, or whose
only claim is social position and some versatility and address. What a
baneful and degrading state of things! And how natural that, while it
lasts, France should be full of a people without a position, without a
calling, who do not know what to do with themselves, but are none the
less eager to envy and malign every one who does....
"The French do not possess in any very marked degree the qualities
required to render general conscription acceptable, or to turn it to
account. Conceited and egotistic as they are, the people would object
to an innovation whose invigorating force they are unable to comprehend,
and which cannot be carried out without virtues which they do not
possess--self-abnegation, conscientious recognition of duty, and a
willingness to sacrifice personal interests to the loftier demands
of the country. As the character of individuals is only improved by
experience, most nations require a chastisement before they set about
reorganising their political institutions. So Prussia wanted a Jena to
make her the strong and healthy country she is."]
[Footnote 168: Yet even in De Tocqueville's benevolent nature, there was a
pervading element of impatience. In the very letter in which the above
passage occurs, he says: "Some persons try to be of use to men while
they despise them, and others because they love them. In the services
rendered by the first, there is always something incomplete, rough, and
contemptuous, that inspires neither confidence nor gratitude. I should
like to belong to the second class, but often I cannot. I love mankind
in general, but I constantly meet with individuals whose baseness
revolts me. I struggle daily against a universal contempt for my fellow,
creatures."--MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE, vol. i. p. 813.
[Footnote 16Letter to Kergorlay, Nov. 13th, 1833].]
[Footnote 169: Gleig's 'Life of Wellington,' pp. 314, 315.]
[Footnote 1610: 'Life of Arnold,' i. 94.]
[Footnote 1611: See the 'Memoir of George Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E.' By his sister
[Footnote 16Edinburgh, 1860].]
[Footnote 1612: Such cases are not unusual. We personally knew a young lady, a
countrywoman of Professor Wilson, afflicted by cancer in the breast,
who concealed the disease from her parents lest it should occasion them
distress. An operation became necessary; and when the surgeons called
for the purpose of performing it, she herself answered the door,
received them with a cheerful countenance, led them upstairs to her
room, and submitted to the knife; and her parents knew nothing of the
operation until it was all over. But the disease had become too deeply
seated for recovery, and the noble self-denying girl died, cheerful and
uncomplaining to the end.
[Footnote 1613: "One night, about eleven o'clock, Keats returned home in a state
of strange physical excitement--it might have appeared, to those who did
not know him, one of fierce intoxication. He told his friend he had
been outside the stage-coach, had received a severe chill, was a little
fevered, but added, 'I don't feel it now.' He was easily persuaded to go
to bed, and as he leapt into the cold sheets, before his head was on
the pillow, he slightly coughed and said, 'That is blood from my mouth;
bring me the candle; let me see this blood' He gazed steadfastly for
some moments at the ruddy stain, and then, looking in his friend's face
with an expression of sudden calmness never to be forgotten, said,
'I know the colour of that blood--it is arterial blood. I cannot
be deceived in that colour; that drop is my death-warrant. I must
die!'"--Houghton's LIFE OF KEATS, Ed. 1867, p. 289.
In the case of George Wilson, the bleeding was in the first instance
from the stomach, though he afterwards suffered from lung haemorrhage
like Keats. Wilson afterwards, speaking of the Lives of Lamb and Keats,
which had just appeared, said he had been reading them with great
sadness. "There is," said he, "something in the noble brotherly love of
Charles to brighten, and hallow, and relieve that sadness; but Keats's
deathbed is the blackness of midnight, unmitigated by one ray of light!"]
[Footnote 1614: On the doctors, who attended him in his first attack, mistaking the
haemorrhage from the stomach for haemorrhage from the lungs, he wrote:
"It would have been but poor consolation to have had as an epitaph:--
"Here lies George Wilson,
Overtaken by Nemesis;
He died not of Haemoptysis,
But of Haematemesis."]
[Footnote 1615: 'Memoir,' p. 427.]
[Footnote 171: Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living.']
[Footnote 172: 'Michelet's 'Life of Luther,' pp. 411-12.]
[Footnote 173: Sir John Kaye's 'Lives of Indian Officers.']
[Footnote 174: 'Deontology,' pp. 130-1, 144.]
[Footnote 175: 'Letters and Essays,' p. 67.]
[Footnote 176: 'Beauties of St. Francis de Sales.']
[Footnote 177: Ibid.]
[Footnote 178: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 449.]
[Footnote 179: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. Ed., p. 483.]
[Footnote 181: Locke thought it of greater importance that an educator of youth
should be well-bred and well-tempered, than that he should be either a
thorough classicist or man of science. Writing to Lord Peterborough on
his son's education, Locke said: "Your Lordship would have your son's
tutor a thorough scholar, and I think it not much matter whether he be
any scholar or no: if he but understand Latin well, and have a general
scheme of the sciences, I think that enough. But I would have him
WELL-BRED and WELL-TEMPERED."]
[Footnote 182: Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoir of the Life of Lieut.-Colonel Hutchinson,'
p. 32.]
[Footnote 183: 'Letters and Essays,' p. 59.]
[Footnote 184: 'Lettres d'un Voyageur.']
[Footnote 185: Sir Henry Taylor's 'Statesman,' p. 59.]
[Footnote 186: Introduction to the 'Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal
Highness the Prince Consort,' 1862.]
[Footnote 187:
"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beween my outcast state,
And troubled deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate;
WISHING ME LIKE TO ONE MORE RICH IN HOPE,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy, contented least;
Yet in these thoughts, MYSELF ALMOST DESPISING,
Haply I think on thee," &c.--SONNET XXIX.
"So I, MADE LAME by sorrow's dearest spite," &c.--SONNET XXXVI]
[Footnote 188: "And strength, by LIMPING sway disabled," &c.--SONNET LXVI.
"Speak of MY LAMENESS, and I straight will halt."--SONNET LXXXIX.]
[Footnote 189:
"Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And MADE MYSELF A MOTLEY TO THE VIEW,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new," &c.--SONNET CX.
"Oh, for my sake do you with fortune chide!
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
THAN PUBLIC MEANS, WHICH PUBLIC MANNERS BREED;
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued,
To what it works in like the dyer's hand," &c.--SONNET CXI.]
[Footnote 1810:
"In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our loves a separable spite,
Which though it alter not loves sole effect;
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight,
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest MY BEWAILED GUILT SHOULD DO THEE SHAME."--SONNET XXXVI.]
[Footnote 1811: It is related of Garrick, that when subpoenaed on Baretti's trial,
and required to give his evidence before the court--though he had been
accustomed for thirty years to act with the greatest self-possession in
the presence of thousands--he became so perplexed and confused, that he
was actually sent from the witness-box by the judge, as a man from whom
no evidence could be obtained.]
[Footnote 1812: Mrs. Mathews' 'Life and Correspondence of Charles Mathews,' [18Ed.
1860: p. 232.]
[Footnote 1813: Archbishop Whately's 'Commonplace Book.']
[Footnote 1814: Emerson is said to have had Nathaniel Hawthorne in his mind when
writing the following passage in his 'Society and Solitude:'--"The most
agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to imply that you had not
observed him in a house or a street where you had met him. Whilst
he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself with the
delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places where he was
not. All he wished of his tailor was to provide that sober mean of
colour and cut which would never detain the eye for a moment.... He
had a remorse, running to despair, of his social GAUCHERIES, and walked
miles and miles to get the twitchings out of his face, and the starts
and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders. 'God may forgive sins,' he
said, 'but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.'"]
[Footnote 1815: In a series of clever articles in the REVUE DES DEUX MONDES,
entitled, 'Six mille Lieues a toute Vapeur,' giving a description of his
travels in North America, Maurice Sand keenly observed the comparatively
anti-social proclivities of the American compared with the Frenchman.
The one, he says, is inspired by the spirit of individuality, the other
by the spirit of society. In America he sees the individual absorbing
society; as in France he sees society absorbing the individual. "Ce
peuple Anglo-Saxon," he says, "qui trouvait devant lui la terre,
l'instrument de travail, sinon inepuisable, du mons inepuise, s'est mis
a l'exploiter sous l'inspiration de l'egoisme; et nous autres Francais,
nous n'avons rien su en faire, parceque NOUS NE POUVONS RIEN DANS
L'ISOLEMENT.... L'Americain supporte la solitude avec un stoicisme
admirable, mais effrayant; il ne l'aime pas, il ne songe qu'a la
detruire.... Le Francais est tout autre. Il aime son parent, son ami,
son compagnon, et jusqu'a son voisin d'omnibus ou de theatre, si sa
figure lui est sympathetique. Pourquoi? Parce qu'il le regarde et
cherche son ame, parce qu'il vit dans son semblable autant qu'en
lui-meme. Quand il est longtemps seul, il deperit, et quand il est
toujours seul, it meurt."]
All this is perfectly true, and it explains why the comparatively
unsociable Germans, English, and Americans, are spreading over the
earth, while the intensely sociable Frenchmen, unable to enjoy life
without each other's society, prefer to stay at home, and France fails
to extend itself beyond France.]
[Footnote 1816: The Irish have, in many respects, the same strong social instincts
as the French. In the United States they cluster naturally in the towns,
where they have their "Irish Quarters," as in England. They are even
more Irish there than at home, and can no more forget that they are
Irishmen than the French can that they are Frenchmen. "I deliberately
assert," says Mr. Maguire, in his recent work on 'The Irish in America,'
"that it is not within the power of language to describe adequately,
much less to exaggerate, the evils consequent on the unhappy tendency
of the Irish to congregate in the large towns of America." It is this
intense socialism of the Irish that keeps them in a comparatively
hand-to-mouth condition in all the States of the Union.]
[Footnote 1817: 'The Statesman,' p. 35.]
[Footnote 1818: Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his 'First Impressions of France and
Italy,' says his opinion of the uncleanly character of the modern Romans
is so unfavourable that he hardly knows how to express it "But the
fact is that through the Forum, and everywhere out of the commonest
foot-track and roadway, you must look well to your steps.... Perhaps
there is something in the minds of the people of these countries that
enables them to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty.
They spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else
they like; they place paltry-looking wooden confessionals beneath its
sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of
the Crucifixion; they hang tin hearts, and other tinsel and trumpery, at
the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with
gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of
saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon;--in short, they let the
sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least
troubled by the proximity."]
[Footnote 1819: Edwin Chadwick's 'Address to the Economic Science and Statistic
Section,' British Association [18Meeting, 1862].]
[Footnote 191: 'Kaye's 'Lives of Indian Officers.']
[Footnote 192: Emerson, in his 'Society and Solitude,' says "In contemporaries, it
is not so easy to distinguish between notoriety and fame. Be sure, then,
to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press or the gossip of the
hour.... The three practical rules I have to offer are these:--1. Never
read a book that is not a year old; 2. Never read any but famed books;
3. Never read any but what you like." Lord Lytton's maxim is: "In
science, read by preference the newest books; in literature, the
oldest."]
[Footnote 193: A friend of Sir Walter Scott, who had the same habit, and prided
himself on his powers of conversation, one day tried to "draw out" a
fellow-passenger who sat beside him on the outside of a coach, but
with indifferent success. At length the conversationalist descended to
expostulation. "I have talked to you, my friend," said he, "on all the
ordinary subjects--literature, farming, merchandise, gaming, game-laws,
horse-races, suits at law, politics, and swindling, and blasphemy, and
philosophy: is there any one subject that you will favour me by opening
upon?" The wight writhed his countenance into a grin: "Sir," said he,
"can you say anything clever about BEND-LEATHER?" As might be expected,
the conversationalist was completely nonplussed.]
[Footnote 194: Coleridge, in his 'Lay Sermon,' points out, as a fact of history,
how large a part of our present knowledge and civilization is owing,
directly or indirectly, to the Bible; that the Bible has been the main
lever by which the moral and intellectual character of Europe has been
raised to its present comparative height; and he specifies the marked
and prominent difference of this book from the works which it is the
fashion to quote as guides and authorities in morals, politics, and
history. "In the Bible," he says, "every agent appears and acts as a
self-substituting individual: each has a life of its own, and yet all
are in life. The elements of necessity and freewill are reconciled in
the higher power of an omnipresent Providence, that predestinates the
whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts. Of this the Bible
never suffers us to lose sight. The root is never detached from
the ground, it is God everywhere; and all creatures conform to His
decrees--the righteous by performance of the law, the disobedient by the
sufferance of the penalty."]
[Footnote 195: Montaigne's Essay [19Book I. chap. xxv.]--'Of the Education of
Children.']
[Footnote 196: "Tant il est vrai," says Voltaire, "que les hommes, qui sont
audessus des autres par les talents, s'en RAPPROCHENT PRESQUE TOUJOURS
PAR LES FAIBLESSES; car pourquoi les talents nous mettraient-ils
audessous de l'humanite."--VIE DE MOLIERE.]
[Footnote 197: 'Life,' 8vo Ed., p. 102.]
[Footnote 198: 'Autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart.,' vol. i. p. 91.]
[Footnote 199: It was wanting in Plutarch, in Southey [19'Life of Nelson'], and in
Forster [19'Life of Goldsmith']; yet it must be acknowledged that personal
knowledge gives the principal charm to Tacitus's 'Agricola,' Roper's
'Life of More,' Johnson's 'Lives of Savage and Pope,' Boswell's
'Johnson,' Lockhart's 'Scott,' Carlyle's 'Sterling,' and Moore's
'Byron,']
[Footnote 1910: The 'Dialogus Novitiorum de Contemptu Mundi.']
[Footnote 1911: The Life of Sir Charles Bell, one of our greatest physiologists,
was left to be written by Amedee Pichot, a Frenchman; and though Sir
Charles Bell's letters to his brother have since been published, his
Life still remains to be written. It may also be added that the best
Life of Goethe has been written by an Englishman, and the best Life of
Frederick the Great by a Scotchman.]
[Footnote 1912: It is not a little remarkable that the pious Schleiermacher should
have concurred in opinion with Goethe as to the merits of Spinoza,
though he was a man excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, and
denounced by the Christians as a man little better than an atheist. "The
Great Spirit of the world," says Schleiermacher, in his REDE UBER DIE
RELIGION, "penetrated the holy but repudiated Spinoza; the Infinite was
his beginning and his end; the universe his only and eternal love. He
was filled with religion and religious feeling: and therefore is it
that he stands alone unapproachable, the master in his art, but
elevated above the profane world, without adherents, and without even
citizenship."]
Cousin also says of Spinoza:--"The author whom this pretended atheist
most resembles is the unknown author of 'The Imitation of Jesus
Christ.'"]
[Footnote 1913: Preface to Southeys 'Life of Wesley' [191864].]
[Footnote 1914: Napoleon also read Milton carefully, and it has been related of
him by Sir Colin Campbell, who resided with Napoleon at Elba, that
when speaking of the Battle of Austerlitz, he said that a particular
disposition of his artillery, which, in its results, had a decisive
effect in winning the battle, was suggested to his mind by the
recollection of four lines in Milton. The lines occur in the sixth book,
and are descriptive of Satan's artifice during the war with Heaven.
"In hollow cube
Training his devilish engin'ry, impal'd
On every side WITH SHADOWING SQUADRONS DEEP
TO HIDE THE FRAUD."
"The indubitable fact," says Mr. Edwards, in his book 'On Libraries,'
"that these lines have a certain appositeness to an important manoeuvre
at Austerlitz, gives an independent interest to the story; but it is
highly imaginative to ascribe the victory to that manoeuvre. And for
the other preliminaries of the tale, it is unfortunate that Napoleon had
learned a good deal about war long before he had learned anything about
Milton."]
[Footnote 1915: 'Biographia Literaria,' chap. i.]
[Footnote 1916: Sir John Bowring's 'Memoirs of Bentham,' p. 10.]
[Footnote 1917: Notwithstanding recent censures of classical studies as a useless
waste of time, there can be no doubt that they give the highest
finish to intellectual culture. The ancient classics contain the most
consummate models of literary art; and the greatest writers have been
their most diligent students. Classical culture was the instrument with
which Erasmus and the Reformers purified Europe. It distinguished
the great patriots of the seventeenth century; and it has ever since
characterised our greatest statesmen. "I know not how it is," says an
English writer, "but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to
produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing
effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and
events in general. They are like persons who have had a weighty and
impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire
of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with
whom they live."]
[Footnote 1918: Hazlitt's TABLE TALK: 'On Thought and Action.']
[Footnote 201: Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident than
by any other that befel him in the course of his travels. As he lay
down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut, his
benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume their
task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far into the
night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller,
"one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of
it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a chorus.
The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated,
were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man,
faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring
him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus--'Let us pity the white
man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital may appear, to a person
in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I
was so oppressed by such unexpected kindness, that sleep fled before my
eyes."]
[Footnote 202: 'Transformation, or Monte Beni.']
[Footnote 203: 'Portraits Contemporains,' iii. 519.]
[Footnote 204: Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his Essays, has wisely said: "You
observe a man becoming day by day richer, or advancing in station,
or increasing in professional reputation, and you set him down as a
successful man in life. But if his home is an ill-regulated one,
where no links of affection extend throughout the family--whose former
domestics [20and he has had more of them than he can well remember] look
back upon their sojourn with him as one unblessed by kind words or
deeds--I contend that that man has not been successful. Whatever good
fortune he may have in the world, it is to be remembered that he has
always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man's life
does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home.
It may have sent forth rays in various directions, but there should have
been a warm focus of love--that home-nest which is formed round a good
mans heart."--CLAIMS OF LABOUR.]
[Footnote 205: "The red heart sends all its instincts up to the white brain, to be
analysed, chilled, blanched, and so become pure reason--which is just
exactly what we do NOT want of women as women. The current should run
the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, which, in women, shapes
itself so rapidly that they hardly know it as thought, should always
travel to the lips VIA the heart. It does so in those women whom
all love and admire.... The brain-women never interest us like the
heart-women; white roses please less than red."--THE PROFESSOR AT THE
BREAKFAST TABLE, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.]
[Footnote 206: 'The War and General Culture,' 1871.]
[Footnote 207: "Depend upon it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than on
the accomplishments of women, which they are rarely able to appreciate.
It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature unfits women
for the everyday business of life. It is not so with men. You see
those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time and
attention to the most homely objects. Literature gives women a real
and proper weight in society, but then they must use it with
discretion."--THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.]
[Footnote 208: 'The Statesman,' pp. 73-75.]
[Footnote 209: Fuller, the Church historian, with his usual homely mother-wit,
speaking of the choice of a wife, said briefly, "Take the daughter of a
good mother."]
[Footnote 2010: She was an Englishwoman--a Miss Motley. It maybe mentioned that
amongst other distinguished Frenchmen who have married English wives,
were Sismondi, Alfred de Vigny, and Lamartine.]
[Footnote 2011: "Plus je roule dans ce monde, et plus je suis amene a penser qu'il
n'y a que le bonheur domestique qui signifie quelque chose."--OEUVRES ET
CORRESPONDENCE.]
[Footnote 2012: De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. i. p. 408.]
[Footnote 2013: De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. ii. p. 48.]
[Footnote 2014: Colonel Hutchinson was an uncompromising republican, thoroughly
brave, highminded, and pious. At the Restoration, he was discharged from
Parliament, and from all offices of state for ever. He retired to his
estate at Owthorp, near Nottingham, but was shortly after arrested and
imprisoned in the Tower. From thence he was removed to Sandown Castle,
near Deal, where he lay for eleven months, and died on September
11th, 1664. The wife petitioned for leave to share his prison, but was
refused. When he felt himself dying, knowing the deep sorrow which
his death would occasion to his wife, he left this message, which was
conveyed to her: "Let her, as she is above other women, show herself on
this occasion a good Christian, and above the pitch of ordinary women."
Hence the wife's allusion to her husband's "command" in the above
passage.]
[Footnote 2015: Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson to her children concerning their father:
'Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson' [20Bohn's Ed.], pp. 29-30.]
[Footnote 2016: On the Declaration of American Independence, the first John Adams,
afterwards President of the United States, bought a copy of the 'Life
and Letters of Lady Russell,' and presented it to his wife, "with an
express intent and desire" [20as stated by himself], "that she should
consider it a mirror in which to contemplate herself; for, at that time,
I thought it extremely probable, from the daring and dangerous career
I was determined to run, that she would one day find herself in the
situation of Lady Russell, her husband without a head:" Speaking of his
wife in connection with the fact, Mr. Adams added: "Like Lady Russell,
she never, by word or look, discouraged me from running all hazards for
the salvation of my country's liberties. She was willing to share
with me, and that her children should share with us both, in all the
dangerous consequences we had to hazard."]
[Footnote 2017: 'Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romily,' vol. i. p. 41.]
[Footnote 2018: It is a singular circumstance that in the parish church of St.
Bride, Fleet Street, there is a tablet on the wall with an inscription
to the memory of Isaac Romilly, F.R.S., who died in 1759, of a broken
heart, seven days after the decease of a beloved wife--CHAMBERS' BOOK OF
DAYS, vol. ii. p. 539.]
[Footnote 2019: Mr. Frank Buckland says "During the long period that Dr. Buckland
was engaged in writing the book which I now have the honour of editing,
my mother sat up night after night, for weeks and months consecutively,
writing to my father's dictation; and this often till the sun's rays,
shining through the shutters at early morn, warned the husband to cease
from thinking, and the wife to rest her weary hand. Not only with her
pen did she render material assistance, but her natural talent in
the use of her pencil enabled her to give accurate illustrations and
finished drawings, many of which are perpetuated in Dr. Buckland's
works. She was also particularly clever and neat in mending broken
fossils; and there are many specimens in the Oxford Museum, now
exhibiting their natural forms and beauty, which were restored by
her perseverance to shape from a mass of broken and almost comminuted
fragments."]
[Footnote 2020: Veitch's 'Memoirs of Sir William Hamilton.']
[Footnote 2021: The following extract from Mr. Veitch's biography will give one an
idea of the extraordinary labours of Lady Hamilton, to whose unfailing
devotion to the service of her husband the world of intellect has been
so much indebted: "The number of pages in her handwriting," says Mr.
Veitch,--"filled with abstruse metaphysical matter, original and quoted,
bristling with proportional and syllogistic formulae--that are still
preserved, is perfectly marvellous. Everything that was sent to the
press, and all the courses of lectures, were written by her, either to
dictation, or from a copy. This work she did in the truest spirit of
love and devotion. She had a power, moreover, of keeping her husband up
to what he had to do. She contended wisely against a sort of energetic
indolence which characterised him, and which, while he was always
labouring, made him apt to put aside the task actually before
him--sometimes diverted by subjects of inquiry suggested in the course
of study on the matter in hand, sometimes discouraged by the difficulty
of reducing to order the immense mass of materials he had accumulated
in connection with it. Then her resolution and cheerful disposition
sustained and refreshed him, and never more so than when, during the
last twelve years of his life, his bodily strength was broken, and his
spirit, though languid, yet ceased not from mental toil. The truth is,
that Sir William's marriage, his comparatively limited circumstances,
and the character of his wife, supplied to a nature that would have been
contented to spend its mighty energies in work that brought no reward
but in the doing of it, and that might never have been made publicly
known or available, the practical force and impulse which enabled him
to accomplish what he actually did in literature and philosophy. It was
this influence, without doubt, which saved him from utter absorption
in his world of rare, noble, and elevated, but ever-increasingly
unattainable ideas. But for it, the serene sea of abstract thought might
have held him becalmed for life; and in the absence of all utterance of
definite knowledge of his conclusions, the world might have been left to
an ignorant and mysterious wonder about the unprofitable scholar."]
[Footnote 211: 'Calcutta Review,' article on 'Romance and Reality of Indian Life.']
[Footnote 212: Joseph Lancaster was only twenty years of age when [21in 1798: he
opened his first school in a spare room in his father's house, which was
soon filled with the destitute children of the neighbourhood. The room
was shortly found too small for the numbers seeking admission, and one
place after another was hired, until at length Lancaster had a special
building erected, capable of accommodating a thousand pupils; outside of
which was placed the following notice:--"All that will, may send their
children here, and have them educated freely; and those that do not
wish to have education for nothing, may pay for it if they please." Thus
Joseph Lancaster was the precursor of our present system of National
Education.]
[Footnote 213: A great musician once said of a promising but passionless
cantatrice--"She sings well, but she wants something, and in that
something everything. If I were single, I would court her; I would marry
her; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six months
she would be the greatest singer in Europe!"--BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.]
[Footnote 214: Prescot's 'Essays,' art. Cervantes.]
[Footnote 215: A cavalier, named Ruy de Camera, having called upon Camoens to
furnish a poetical version of the seven penitential psalms, the poet,
raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful
slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and
blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch!
See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to
purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier,
Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart
and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of
Portugal!--Lord Strangford's REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF
CAMOENS, 1824.]
[Footnote 216: See chapter v. p. 125.]
[Footnote 217: A Quaker called on Bunyan one day with "a message from the Lord,"
saying he had been to half the gaols of England, and was glad at last
to have found him. To which Bunyan replied: "If the Lord sent thee, you
would not have needed to take so much trouble to find me out, for He
knew that I have been in Bedford Gaol these seven years past."]
[Footnote 218: Prynne, besides standing in the pillory and having his ears cut off,
was imprisoned by turns in the Tower, Mont Orgueil [21Jersey], Dunster
Castle, Taunton Castle, and Pendennis Castle. He after-wards pleaded
zealously for the Restoration, and was made Keeper of the Records
by Charles II. It has been computed that Prynne wrote, compiled, and
printed about eight quarto pages for every working-day of his life, from
his reaching man's estate to the day of his death. Though his books
were for the most part appropriated by the trunkmakers, they now command
almost fabulous prices, chiefly because of their rarity.]
[Footnote 219: He also projected his 'Review' in prison--the first periodical of
the kind, which pointed the way to the host of 'Tatlers,' 'Guardians,'
and 'Spectators,' which followed it. The 'Review' consisted of 102
numbers, forming nine quarto volumes, all of which were written by De
Foe himself, while engaged in other and various labours.]
[Footnote 2110: A passage in the Earl of Carlisles Lecture on Pope--'Heaven was
made for those who have failed in this world'--struck me very forcibly
several years ago when I read it in a newspaper, and became a rich vein
of thought, in which I often quarried, especially when the sentence
was interpreted by the Cross, which was failure apparently."--LIFE AND
LETTERS OF ROBERTSON [21of Brighton], ii. 94.]
[Footnote 2111:
"Not all who seem to fail, have failed indeed;
Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain:
For all our acts to many issues lead;
And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain,
Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain,
The Lord will fashion, in His own good time,
[21Be this the labourer's proudly-humble creed,]
Such ends as, to His wisdom, fitliest chime
With His vast love's eternal harmonies.
There is no failure for the good and wise:
What though thy seed should fall by the wayside
And the birds snatch it;--yet the birds are fed;
Or they may bear it far across the tide,
To give rich harvests after thou art dead."
POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE, 1848.]
[Footnote 2112: "What is it," says Mr. Helps, "that promotes the most and the
deepest thought in the human race? It is not learning; it is not the
conduct of business; it is not even the impulse of the affections. It
is suffering; and that, perhaps, is the reason why there is so much
suffering in the world. The angel who went down to trouble the waters
and to make them healing, was not, perhaps, entrusted with so great
a boon as the angel who benevolently inflicted upon the sufferers the
disease from which they suffered."--BREVIA.]
[Footnote 2113: These lines were written by Deckar, in a spirit of boldness equal
to its piety. Hazlitt has or said of them, that they "ought to
embalm his memory to every one who has a sense either of religion, or
philosophy, or humanity, or true genius."]
[Footnote 2114: Reboul, originally a baker of Nismes, was the author of many
beautiful poems--amongst others, of the exquisite piece known in this
country by its English translation, entitled 'The Angel and the Child.']
[Footnote 2115: 'Cornhill Magazine,' vol. xvi. p. 322.]
[Footnote 2116: 'Holy Living and Dying,' ch. ii. sect. 6.]
[Footnote 2117: Ibid., ch. iii. sect. 6.]
[Footnote 2118: Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' vol. x. p. 40.]