Shews at what age men are most liable to the passion of grief: the
impatience of human nature under affliction, and the necessity there
is of exerting reason, to restrain the excesses it would otherwise
occasion.
There are certain periods of time, in which the passions take the
deepest root within us; what at one age makes but a slight impression,
and is easily dissipated by different ideas, at another engrosses all
the faculties, and becomes so much a part of the soul, as to require
the utmost exertion of reason, and all the aids of philosophy and
religion to eradicate.--Grief, for example, is one of those passions
which, in extreme youth, we know little of, and even when we grow
nearer to maturity, has rarely any great dominion, let the cause which
excites it be never so interesting, or justifiable: it may indeed be
poignant for a time, and drive us to all the excesses imputed to that
passion; but then it is of short continuance, it dwells not on the
mind, and the least appearance of a new object of satisfaction,
banishes it entirely; we dry our tears, and remember no more what so
lately we lamented, perhaps with the most noisy exclamations:--but it
is not so when riper years give a solidity and firmness to the
judgment;--then as we are less apt to grieve without a cause, so we
are less able to refrain from grieving, when we have a real
cause.--Grief may therefore be called a reasonable passion, tho' it
becomes not a reasonable man to give way to it;--this, at first sight,
may seem a paradox to many people, but may easily be solved, in my
opinion, on a very little consideration;--as thus,--because to be
sensible of our loss in the value of the thing for which we mourn, is
a proof of our judgment, as to refrain that mourning for what is past
retrieving, within the bounds of moderation, is the greatest proof we
can give of our reason:--a dull insensibility is not a testimony,
either of wisdom or virtue; we are not to bear afflictions like
_statues_, but like men; that is, we are allowed to _feel_, but not to
_repine_, or be _impatient_ under them:--few there are, however, who
have the power of preserving this happy medium, as I before observed,
tho' they are such as have the assistance both of precept and
experience.
In a word, all that can be expected from the best of men, when pressed
with any heavy calamity, is to struggle with all his might to bear up
beneath the weight with decency and resignation; and as grief never
seizes strongly on the mind, till a sufficient number of years gives
reason strength to combat with it, that consideration furnishes matter
for praise and adoration of the all-wise and all-beneficent Author of
our being, who has bestowed on us a certain comfort for all ills, if
we neglect not to make use of it; so that no man can be unhappy,
unless he will be so.
Motives for grief which happen on a sudden merit excuse for the
extravagancies they sometimes occasion, because they surprize us
unawares, reason is off her guard, and it cannot be expected we should
be armed against what we had no apprehensions of;--presence of mind is
an excellent, but rare quality, and we shall see very few, even among
the wisest men, who are such examples of it, as to behave in the first
shock of some unforeseen misfortune, with the same moderation and
calmness of temper, as they would have done, had they had previous
warning of what was to befal them.
Much, however, are the effects of this, as of all other passions,
owing to constitution:--the robust and sanguine nature soon kindles,
and is soon extinguished; whereas the phlegmatic is slow to be moved,
and when so not easily settled into a calm: and tho' the difference of
age makes a wide difference in our way of thinking, yet as there are
old men at twenty, and boys at three-score, that rule is not without
some exceptions. But to take nature in the general, and allowing for
the different habits of body and complexion, we may be truly said to
be most prone to particular passions at particular ages:--as in youth,
love, hope, and joy;--in maturity, ambition, pride, and its attendant
ostentation;--when more advanced in years, grief, fear, and
despair;--and in old age, avarice, and a kind of very churlish dislike
of every thing presented to us.
But to return to Natura, from whose adventures I have digressed; but I
hope forgiveness for it, as it was not only the history of the man I
took upon me to relate, but also to point out, in his example, the
various progress of the passions in a human mind.
He acquitted himself of the important trust had been reposed in him,
with all the diligence and discretion could be expected from him; and
returned honoured with many rich presents from the prince to whom he
had been sent, as a testimony of the sense he had of his abilities.
But scarce had he time to receive the felicitations of his friends on
this score, before an accident happened to him, which demanded a much
more than equal share of condolance from them.--His son, his only son,
the darling of his heart, was seized with a distemper in his head,
which in a very few days baffled the art of medicine, and snatched
him from the world.--What now availed his honours, his wealth, his
every requisite for grandeur, or for pleasure?--He, for whose sake
chiefly he had laboured to acquire them, was no more!--no second self
remained to enjoy what he must one day leave behind him.--All of him
was now collected in his own being, and with _that_ being must
end.--Melancholly reflection!--yet not the worst that this unhappy
incident inflicted:--his estate, all at least that had descended to
him by inheritance, with the vast improvements he had made on it, must
now devolve on a brother he had so much cause to hate, and whose very
name but mentioned struck horror to his heart.
The motives for his grief were great, it must be allowed, and such as
demanded the utmost fortitude to sustain;--he certainly exerted all he
was master of on this occasion; but, in spite of his efforts, nature
got the upper hand, and rendered him inconsolable:--he burst not into
any violent exclamations, but the silent sorrow preyed on his vitals,
and reduced him, in a short time, almost to the shadow of what he had
been.
One of the most dangerous effects of melancholy is, the gloomy
pleasure it gives to every thing that serves to indulge it:--darkness
and solitude are its delight and nourishment, and the person possessed
of it, naturally shuns and hates whatever might alleviate it;--the
sight of his best friends now became irksome to him;--he not only
loathed, but grew incapable of all business;--he shut himself in his
closet, shunned conversation, was scarce prevailed on to take the
necessary supports of nature, and seemed as if his soul was buried in
the tomb of his son, and only a kind of vegetative life remained
within him.
His sister, who loved him very affectionately, and for whom he had
always preserved the tenderest amity, being informed of his
disconsolate condition, came to town, flattering herself with being
able to dissipate, at least some part of his chagrin. To this end she
brought with her all her children, some of whom he had never seen, and
had frequently expressed by letter, the desire he had of embracing
them, and the regret he had that the great affairs he was always
constantly engaged in, would not permit him time to take a journey
into the country where she lived.
But how greatly did she deceive herself;--he was too far sunk in the
lethargy of grief, to be roused out of it by all her kind
endeavours;--on the contrary, the sight of those near and dear
relatives she presented to him only added to his affliction, by
reminding him in a more lively manner of his own loss; and the sad
effect she found their presence had on him, obliged her to remove them
immediately from his eyes.
She could not, however, think of quitting him in a state so truly
deplorable, and so unbecoming of his circumstances and character:--she
remained in his house, would pursue him wherever he retired, and as
she was a woman of excellent sense, as well as good-nature, invented a
thousand little stratagems to divert his thoughts from the melancholly
theme which had too much engrossed them, but had not the satisfaction
to perceive that any thing she could say or do, occasioned the least
movement of that fixed sullenness, which, by a long habit, appeared
like a second nature in him.
This poor lady found also other matters of surprize and discontent, on
her staying in town, besides the sad situation of her brother's
health:--as she had never been informed of the disunion between him
and his wife, much less of the occasion of it, the behaviour of that
lady filled her with the utmost astonishment:--to perceive she took no
pains to alleviate his sorrows, never came into the room where he was,
or even sent her woman with those common compliments, which he
received from all who had the least acquaintance with him, would have
afforded sufficient occasion for the speculation of a sister; yet was
this manifest disregard, this failure in all the duties of a wife, a
friend, a neighbour, little worthy of consideration, when put in
comparison with her conduct in other points.
After the adventure of her detection, finding the minister was
resolved to support her, and that her husband durst not come to any
open breach with her, she immediately began to throw aside all regard
for decorum;--she seemed utterly to despise all sense of shame, and
even to glory in a life of continual dissolution;--the company she
kept of both sexes, were, for the most part, persons of abandoned
characters: whether she indulged herself in a plurality of amours, is
uncertain, though it was said she did so; but there was one man to
whom she was most particularly attached;--this was a person who had
formerly enjoyed a post under the government, but was turned out on
the score of misbehaviour, and had now no other support than what he
received from her:--with him she frequently passed whole nights, and
took so little care in concealing the place of their meeting, that the
sister of Natura easily found it out.
On relating the discovery she had made to some of their relations,
they advised her to tell her brother, imagining this glaring insult on
his honour would effectually rouse him out of the stupidity he
languished under:--she was of the same opinion, and took the first
opportunity of letting Natura into the whole infamous affair, not
without some apprehensions, that an excess of rage on hearing it,
might hurry him into a contrary extreme; but her terrors on this head
were presently dissipated, when having repeated many circumstances to
corroborate the truth of what she said, there appeared not the least
emotion in his countenance; and on her urging him to take some
measures to do himself justice, or at least to put a stop to this
licentiousness of a person whose dishonour was his own; all she could
get from him was, that he had neither regard enough for her to take
any pains for the reclaiming her, nor for the censure of the world on
himself, and desired she would not trouble him any farther on this
point.
This strange insensibility afforded cause to fear his faculties were
all too deeply absorbed in melancholy, for him ever to become a man of
the world again, and as she truly loved him, gave both her, and all
his other friends, an infinite concern.