WHO says that life is a treadmill?
You, merchant, when, after a weary day of measuring cotton-cloth or
numbering flower barrels, bowing to customers or taking account of
stock, you stumble homeward, thinking to yourself that the moon is a
tolerable substitute for gas light, to prevent people from running
against the posts--and then, by chance, recall the time when, a
school-boy, you read about "chaste Dian" in your Latin books, and
discovered a striking resemblance to moonbeams in certain blue eyes
that beamed upon you from the opposite side of the school-room.
Ah! those were the days when brick side-walks were as elastic as
India rubber beneath your feet; shop windows were an exhibition of
transparencies to amuse children and young people, and the world in
prospect was one long pleasure excursion. Then you drank the bright
effervescence in your glass of soda-water, and now you must swallow
the cold, flat settlings, or not get your money's worth. Long ago
you found out that the moon is the origin of moonshine, that blue
eyes are not quite as fascinating under gray hair and behind
spectacles, and that "money answereth all things."
You say so, clerk or bank-teller, when you look up from your books
at the new-fallen snow glistening in the morning light, and feel
something like the prancing of horses' hoofs in the soles of your
boots, and hear the jingling of sleigh bells in your mind's ear,
long after the sound of them has passed from your veritable
auriculars.
You say so, teacher, while going through the daily drill of your A B
C regiments, your multiplication table platoons, and your
chirographical battalions.
You say so, factory girl, passing backward and forward from the
noise and whirl of wheels in the mills, to the whirl and noise of
wheels in your dreams.
You say so, milliner's apprentice, as you sit down to sew gay
ribbons on gay bonnets, and stand up to try gay bonnets on gay
heads.
You say so, housemaid or housekeeper, when the song of the early
bird reminds you of crying children, whose faces are to be washed;
when the rustling of fallen leaves in the wind makes you wonder how
the new broom is going to sweep; when the aroma of roses suggests
the inquiry whether the box of burnt coffee is empty; and when the
rising sun, encircled by vapoury clouds, brings up the similitude of
a huge fire-proof platter, and the smoke of hot potatoes.
There is a principle in human nature which rebels against
repetitions. Who likes to fall asleep, thinking that to-morrow
morning he must get up and do exactly the same things that he did
to-day, the next day ditto, and so forth, until the chapter of
earthly existence is finished!
It is very irksome for these soaring thoughts winged to "wander
through eternity," to come down and work out the terms of a tedious
apprenticeship to the senses. And yet, what were thoughts
unlocalized and unembodied? Mere comets or vague nebulosities in the
firmament, without a form, and without a home.
All things have their orbit, and are held in it by the power of two
great opposing forces.
Outward circumstances form the centripetal force, which keeps us in
ours. Let the eccentric will fly off at ever so wide a tangent for a
time, back it must come to a regular diurnal path, or wander away
into the "blackness of darkness." And if these daily duties and
cares come to us robed in the shining livery of Law, should we not
accept them as bearers of a sublime mission?
"What?" you say, "anything sublime in yardstick tactics or ledger
columns? Anything sublime in washing dishes or trimming bonnets? The
idea is simply ridiculous!"
No, not ridiculous; only a simple idea, and great in its simplicity.
For the manner of performing even menial duties, gives you the gauge
and dimensions of the doer's inward strength. The power of the soul
asserts itself, not so much in shaping favourable circumstances to
desired ends, as in resisting the pressure of crushing circumstances,
and triumphing over them.
Manufactures, trades, and all the subordinate arts and occupations
that keep the car of civilization in motion, may be to you machines
moving with a monotonous and unmeaning buzz, or they may be like
Ezekiel's vision of wheels involved in wheels, that were lifted up
from the earth by the power of the living creature that was in them.
Grumbling man or woman, life _is_ a treadmill to you, because you
look doggedly down and see nothing but the dull steps you take. If
you would cease grumbling, and look up, your life would be
transformed into a Jacob's ladder, and every step onward would be a
step upward too. And even if it were a treadmill, to which you and
other mortals were condemned for past offences, a kindly sympathy
for your fellow-prisoners could carpet the way with velvet, and you
might move on smilingly together, as through the mazes of an easy
dance.
It is of no use to preach the old sermon of contentment with one
condition, whatever it may be, a sermon framed for lands where
aristocracies are fixtures, in this generation and on this
continent. Discontent is a necessity of republicanism, until the
millennium comes.
Yet it is not sensible to complain of the present, until we have
gleaned its harvests and drained its sap, and it has become capital
for us to draw upon in the future. Most of the dissatisfied
grumblers of our day are like children from whom the prospect of a
Christmas pie, intended for the climax of a supper, takes away all
relish for the more solid and wholesome introductory exercises of
bread and butter.
What is it we would have our life? Not princely pop and equipments,
nor to "marry the prince's own," which used to form the denouement
of every fairy tale, will suffice us now; for every ingenious Yankee
school-boy or girl has learned to dissect the puppet show of
royalty, and knows that its personages move in a routine the most
hampered and helpless of all.
The honour of being four years in stepping from one door of the
"White House" to the other, ceases to be the meed of a dignified
ambition when it results from a skilful shuffling of political
cards, rather than from strength and steadiness of head and an
upright gait.
If we ask for freedom from care, and leisure to enjoy life--until we
have learned, through the discipline of labour and care, how to
appreciate and use leisure--we might as well petition from
government a grant of prairie land for Egyptian mummies to run races
upon.
If one might get himself appointed to the general overseership of
the solar system, still, what would his occupation be but a regular
pacing to and fro from the sun to the outermost limits of Le
Verrier's calculations, and perhaps a little farther? A succession
of rather longish strides he would have to take, to be sure; now
burning his soles in the fires of Mercury; now hitting his corns
against some of the pebbly Asteroids, and now slipping upon the icy
rim of Neptune. Still, if he made drudgery of his work by keeping
his soul out of it, he would only have his treadmill life over
again, on a large scale.
The monotony of our three-score years and ten is wearisome to us;
what can we think then of the poor planets, doomed to the same
diurnal spinning, the same annual path, for six thousand years, to
our certain knowledge? And, if telescopes tell us the truth, the
universe is an ever-widening series of similar monotonies.
Yet space is ample enough to give all systems variety of place.
While each planet moves steadily along on the edge of its plane, the
whole solar equipage is going forward to open a new track on the
vast highway of the heavens.
We too, moving in our several spheres with honest endeavours and
aspirations, are, by the stability of our motions, lifting and being
lifted, with the whole compact human brotherhood, into a higher
elevation, a brighter revelation of the Infinite, the Universe of
Wisdom and Love.
And in this view, though our efforts be humble and our toil hard,
life can never be a treadmill.