An anxious, restless temper, that runs to meet care on its way, that
regrets lost opportunities too much, and that is over-painstaking in
contrivances for happiness, is foolish, and should not be indulged.[123]
If you cannot be happy in one way, be happy in another; and this
facility of disposition wants but little aid from philosophy, for health
and good-humour are almost the whole affair. Many run about after
felicity, like an absent man hunting for his hat while it is on his head
or in his hand. Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects,
inflict great pain, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not
suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an
undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas, are let
on long leases.
Nothing will justify, or even excuse, dejection. Untoward accidents will
sometimes happen; but, after many years’ experience (writes Mr. Sharp),
I can truly say, that nearly all those who began life with me have
succeeded, or failed, as they deserved:
Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ.
Though you may look to your understanding for amusement, it is to the
affections that we must trust for happiness, These imply a spirit of
self-sacrifice; and often our virtues, like our children, are endeared
to us by what we suffer for them. Conscience, even when it fails to
govern our conduct, can disturb our peace of mind. Yes, it is neither
paradoxical nor merely poetical to say:
That seeking others’ good, we find our own.
This solid yet romantic maxim is found in no less a writer than Plato;
who, it has been well observed, sometimes in his moral lessons, as well
as in his theological, is almost, though not altogether, a Christian.
The passion for enterprise and adventure is the shoal upon which high
hopes are constantly being wrecked. We remember, some thirty years
since, a merchant of London, who inherited a princely fortune, which he
embarked in speculations of almost astounding magnitude. He was a
large-minded and generous man; and among other instances of his
liberality, was his aid to scientific explorations, in acknowledgment of
which he received an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society. He
published upon political economy and monetary questions; and with that
fatality which often attends those who aspire to public business, our
merchant, in some measure, out-ventured his own. Before the
problematical economy of vast steam-ships had been settled, he invested
large sums in this class of speculation. He was rather athirst for fresh
fields than for the gold itself; and with this view he and his family
ceded to a chartered company a group of islands discovered some forty
years previously through their enterprise, and which the Government had
granted them in consideration for their services in more recent
discoveries of the southern continent. It was then resolved to colonise
the islands as the head-station of the southern whale-fishery; our
merchant receiving the appointment of lieutenant-governor. Troops of
friends and well-wishers attended the leave-taking; the voyage out was
fair and auspicious, and the governor and his little staff planted their
bare emblem of authority upon the islands.
The scheme was reasonable; for whale-fishing was rife in the
neighbouring seas, and sperm-whales even came into the anchorage. The
country is luxuriantly wooded, the flowering plants abound; and the
climate is mild, temperate, and salubrious. But the fishery failed, and
the horizon soon grew dark with gathering clouds of discontent among the
colonists; and there arose cabals, the usual consequence of defeated
hopes: as success brightly colours all things in life, so failures
darken them. After many months of suffering from indignities heaped upon
him by exasperated adventurers, and the confusion which follows such
mischances, the governor’s brief authority was respected only by _two_
individuals among the six-score colonists. Such heartless desertion in a
land upon whose storm-beaten shores human foot had rarely set, would
have made many a stout heart quail: not so our almost friendless
representative of authority; and at length the many closed their cruel
indignities by determining that he should leave the islands by the first
ship which should touch there. This stern resolve was carried into
effect; and our merchant-prince, solitary in all respects save hope,
returned to the home which he had left amid a choir of aspirations. He
memorialised the Government for redress, and besought parliament-men to
assert his wrongs; but the only result was the usual official coldness
and disinclination to interfere in troublesome matters; although the
enterprise was, at the commencement, fully recognised by the colonial
authorities at home.
This is a painful story of a few years’ misadventure and wrecked
fortune, and ingratitude to a man whose honour and integrity, in the
face of misfortune, should at least have shielded him from insult. Yet
how forcibly does it illustrate the perils which so often beset the
restless spirit!
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Footnote 123:
Such a person knows as much of what true felicity consists as did
Horace Walpole’s gardener, who thought it “something of a bulbous
root.”
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