Men in power are happy, they think. They have but to wish, and it
is accomplished. The epitaph of the Swedish minister is sublime,
and the index of a great truth. He had run the career of power and
fortune with success. When near the period of his death, he ordered
this inscription for his tomb: _Tandem Felix._ _At last I am happy._
We never leave the society of the great as we entered it. We have
become either better or more perverse. Inexperience is easily
dazzled with the superficial splendor. For a man of disciplined
mind and a character of energy, it is the most useful of schools.
Here he tests and confirms his principles. Here he observes,
sometimes with terror, sometimes with disgust, the melancholy
results of the seductive passions. He here sees those who seem to
have reached all their aims enjoying the repose of happy privacy.
I anticipate the objection, ‘that this is all absurdity; that not
one will be so convinced of his misery as to resign his power and
descend from his elevation to that obscurity for which he sighs.’
I believe it; and I see in this a deeper shade in his misery. He
has so long experienced the pernicious excitement of this splendid
torment, that he can no longer exist in repose.
Such is the lot of erring humanity, that the world naturally
associates glory and happiness with ambition, and sees not that
the association is formed by our own mental feebleness. To rise
above vulgar errors and the common train of thinking, to form sage
principles, and, still more, to have the courage and decision to
follow them, this is the proof of real force of character. But,
to feel the need of dazzling the vulgar, to be willing to creep in
order to rise, to struggle and dispute for trinkets, this is the
common standard by which the multitude estimate a great mind.
Philosophers are accused of having presented grandeur under an
unfavorable aspect in order to console themselves for not having
enjoyed it. History reads us another lesson. Aristotle instructed
the son of Philip. Plato was received at the courts of kings.
Cicero received the title of ‘father of his country’ by a decree
of the senate. Boethius, thrice clad with the consular purple,
when his locks were hoary, was dragged to a dungeon. He wrote ‘the
consolations inspired by philosophy,’ and laid down his book at
the foot of the scaffold. Marcus Aurelius honored the throne of
the world by those modest virtues which shone still brighter in
obscurity. Fenelon was raised to the highest dignities only to
experience their bitterness, and, like his great predecessor, to
owe his glory and his happy days only to wisdom and retirement.
Franklin will be remembered in all time, not as the governor,
legislator and ambassador, but as having trained himself to
his admirable philosophy of common sense amidst the laborious
occupations of a printer.
The certainty of acquiring the self-respect of conscious
usefulness, a certainty which the great can seldom have, ought
alone to determine a wise man to quit his obscurity. But if the
emoluments and honors of a high station seduce us, let us value our
independence and let us not exchange treasures for tinsel.
We have freedom to avoid every culpable action, and to contemplate
with pity the chimeras of ambition. Let us see if in misfortune we
can preserve tranquillity of mind.
LETTER VII.
OF MISFORTUNE.
If we wish our precepts to be followed, we must avoid the extremes
to which moralists and philosophers are too much inclined to
press their doctrines, for they are impracticable in real life.
It is useless to deny that there are evils against which the aids
of reason and friendship are powerless. Let us leave him who is
about to lose a being whose life is blended with his own, to
groan unreproved. Time alone can enfeeble his remembrances and
assuage his pain. To render man inaccessible to suffering would
be to change his nature. Those austere moralists who treat our
feebleness with disdain, and who would render us indifferent to the
most terrible blows of destiny, would at the same time leave us
no sensibility to taste pleasure. Nothing can be more absurd than
the vain harangues by which common-place consolation is offered
to those who mourn a wife, a child, a friend. All reasonings are
ineffectual when opposed to these words, ‘I have lost the loved
one. You inform me that my misfortune is without a remedy. Oh! if
there were a remedy, instead of unavailing tears, I would employ
it. It is precisely because there is none, that I grieve.’ ‘Your
tears are useless.’ ‘Still they serve to solace me.’ ‘God has done
it.’ ‘True, and God has formed my heart to suffer from his blow.’
‘Your child is happy, and knew neither the errors nor the sorrows
of life.’ ‘A parent’s instinctive love inspired the desire that I
might teach it to avoid both and obtain happiness.’ ‘In the course
of a long career your friend gave an example of all the virtues.’
‘It is because the loss of these virtues is irreparable to me that
I must deplore his death.’[11]
The greater portion of men, I admit, exaggerating their regrets,
pay a tribute of dissembled grief rather to opinion, than to
nature; and cold declamation and frivolous distractions are
sufficient to console them. But the orators of consolation
sometimes press their lessons on hearts which are really bleeding.
Let such groan at liberty, and attempt not to contradict nature.
Solitude may exalt the imagination; but it also inspires consoling
ideas. In the silence of its refuge the desolate mourner brings
himself to a nearer communion with him he regrets. He invokes,
sees, and addresses him. Grief is more ingenious than we imagine in
finding consolation, and has learned to employ different remedies
according as the wounds are slight or deep. Two persons have each
lost a dear friend. The one studiously avoids the places where he
used to meet his friend. The other repairs to his desolate haunts,
and surrounding himself by monuments associated with his memory, he
seeks, if I may so say, to restore him to life.
The death of a beloved wife is, perhaps, the most inconsolable of
evils. Let this follow a series of other misfortunes, and it so
effaces their remembrance that the sufferer feels he has not until
then known real grief. But if this affliction be one under which
our strength is broken, let it be the only one to obtain this fatal
triumph. Under all other misfortunes we may find in ourselves
resources for sustaining them; and may invariably either evade or
assuage them, or mitigate their bitterness by resignation.
Moralists have expatiated upon the manner in which a sage ought
to contemplate the evils of life. Instead of subscribing to their
trite maxims, often more imposing than practicable, I sketch a
summary of my philosophy. I caution the feeble and erring beings
that surround me, not to dream of unmixed happiness. I invite them
to partake promptly of all innocent pleasures. The evils too often
appended to them may follow. Know nothing of those which have no
existence except in opinion. Struggle with courage to escape all
that may be evaded. But if it become inevitable to meet them, let
resignation, closing your eyes on the past, secure the repose of
patient endurance when happiness exists for you no longer.
Permit me to give these ideas some development. If I may believe
the most prevalent modern philosophy, tranquillity of mind is the
result of organization, or temperament, and of circumstances. It is
the burden of my inculcation, that it may be of our own procuring;
and that we owe it still more to the masculine exercise of our
reason, discipline, and mental energy, than to our temperament or
condition.
We have reason to deplore that unhappy being, who, yielding to
dreams of pleasure, forgets to forearm himself against a fatal
awakening. The history of great political convulsions, and, more
than all, that of the French revolution furnishes impressive
examples of this spectacle. It offers more than one instance, in
the feebler sex, of persons, who seemed created only to respire
happiness. To the advantages of youth, talent and beauty, were
united the most exalted rank, and wealth, pleasure and power,
apparently to the extent of their wishes. To the dazzling
fascination, with which a brilliant crowd surrounded their
inexperience, many of them united the richer domestic enjoyments
of the wife and mother. In the midst of their illusions, the
revolutionary shout struck their ear, like a thunderstroke.
Executioners bade them ascend the scaffold.[12]
These great catastrophes, I know, are rare. But there will never
cease to be sorrows, which will receive their last bitterness
only in death. They are all too painful to be sustained, unless
they have been wisely foreseen. Let us think of misfortune, as of
certain characters, with whom our lot may one day compel us to
consort.
It is novelty alone, which gives our emotions extreme keenness.
Whoever has strength of character, may learn to endure anything.
The red men of the American wilderness are most impressive examples
of this truth. Time, however, is the most efficacious teacher of
the lesson of endurance. Poussin, in his painting of Eudomidas,
has delineated the human heart with fidelity. The young girl of
the piece abandons herself to despair. Half stretched upon the
earth, her head falls supinely on the knees of the aged mother of
the dying. This mother is sitting. Her attitude announces mingled
meditation and grief. Amidst her tears, we trace firmness on her
visage. One of the two women is taking her first lesson of misery.
The other has already passed through a long apprenticeship of
grief.[13]
Reflection imparts anticipated experience. It takes from misery
that air of novelty, which renders it terrible. When a wise man
experiences a reverse, his new position has been foreseen. He
has measured the sorrows, and prepared the consolations. Into
whatever scene of trial he is brought, he will show in no one the
embarrassment of a stranger.
Taught to be conscious that we are feeble combatants, thrown upon
an arena of strife, let us not calculate that destiny has no blows
in store for us. Let us prepare for wounds, painful and slow to
heal. Let us blunt the darts of misfortune in advance. Then, if
they strike they will not penetrate so deep. But in premeditating
the trials, which may be in reserve for our courage, let not
anticipated solicitude disturb the present. Of all mental efforts,
foresight is the most difficult to regulate. If we have it not, we
fall into reverses unprepared. If we exercise it too far, we are
perpetually miserable by anticipation.
The philosopher prepares himself for contingent perils by processes
which impart a keener pleasure to present enjoyment. He better
understands the value of the moments of joy, and learns to dispel
the fears, which might mar their tranquillity. That is a gloomy
wisdom, which condemns the precepts that invite us to draw, from
the uncertainty of our lot, a motive to embellish the moment of
actual happiness. Transient beings, around whom everything is
changing and in motion, adopt my maxims. Let us aid those who
surround us, to put them in practice. Let us render those who are
happy today more happy. Tomorrow the opportunity may have passed
forever.
As though nature had not sowed sufficient sorrows in our path
during our short career, we have added to the mass by our own
invention. The offspring of our vanity and puerile prejudices,
these factitious pains seem sometimes more difficult to support,
than real evils. A warrior, who has shown fearless courage in the
deadly breach, has passed a sleepless night, because he was not
invited to a party, or a feast; or because a riband, or a diploma
has not been added to the many, with which he is already decorated.
I had been informed, that the wife and son of a distinguished
acquaintance were dangerously sick. I met him pale, and thoughtful.
I was meditating, how to give him hope in regard to the objects
of his supposed anxiety. While I was hesitating how to address
him, he made known the subject of his real inquietude. He was in
expectation of a high employment. The man of power, in whose hand
was the gift, had just received him coldly a second time. He was
anxiously calculating his remaining chances, and striving to divine
the causes of his discouraging reception.
To avoid such ridiculous agonies, let us adopt a maxim, not the
less true, because the phrase, in which I express it, may seem
trivial. Three quarters and half the remaining quarter of our
vexations are not worth wasting a thought upon their cause. I add,
that even in expectations which appear important, we ought to fear
trusting too little to chance. The order of events, which we call
by this name, is often more sage than any that human calculation
can arrange. If it decides in a manner which at first view seems
greatly against us, let us defer our accusations, until we have
more thoroughly tested the event. I have met a man, who had long
been an aspirant for a certain place, with a radiant countenance,
having just obtained it. Three months afterwards, he would have
purchased at any price the power of recalling events. I have seen
another friend in desolation, because he could not obtain the hand
of the daughter of a man, whose enterprises promised an immense
fortune. He had been rejected. The speculations of her father
all failed; and the reputation of his integrity and good faith
with them. The despairing lover would have shared the poverty and
disgrace of a helpless family; and would have been tormented,
besides, with an incompatible union, of itself sufficient to have
rendered him miserable in the midst of all the expected prosperity.
One event is contemplated with a charmed eye; another with despair.
The issue alone can declare, which of the two we ought to have
desired.
I grant, that we are surrounded by real dangers. I pretend not to
be above suffering; and I attach no merit to becoming the reckless
dupe of men or chance. The highest philosophy is at the same time
the most simple and practicable. There is no error more common
than one, which is taken for profound wisdom. Most men look too
deep for the springs of events, and the motives of action. In many
alternatives, we shall be most wise in giving the reins to chance.
When we are menaced by an evident peril, let us summon all our
energy, and courageously struggle to ward it off. If, after all,
neither wisdom can evade it, nor bravery vanquish it, let us see,
how true wisdom ordains us to sustain it.
How many are ignorant of the value of resignation, or confound
it with weakness! The courage of resignation is, perhaps, the
most high and rare of all the forms of that virtue. Man received
the gift directly from the Author of his being. His desires,
inquietudes, misguided opinions, the fruits of an ambitious and
incongruous education, have weakened its force in the soul. Who
can read the anecdote of the American wilderness without thrilling
emotion? An Indian, descending the Niagara river, was drawn into
the rapids above the sublime cataract. The nursling of the desert
rowed with incredible vigor at first, in an intense struggle for
life. Seeing his efforts useless, he dropped his oars, sung his
death song, and floated in calmness down the abyss. His example
is worthy of imitation. While there is hope, let us nerve all our
force, to avail ourselves of all the chances it suggests. When
hope ceases, and the peril must be braved, wisdom counsels calm
resignation.[14]
In regard to unconquerable evils, the true doctrine is not vain
resistance, but profound submission. It conceals the outline of
what we have to suffer, as with a veil. It hastens to bring us the
fruit of consoling time. It opens our eyes to a clearer view of
the possessions which remain to us. It precedes hope, as twilight
ushers in the day.
It is by laying down certain well ascertained principles of
conduct, and re-examining them every day, that a new empire is
given to reason, and that we learn to select the most eligible
point in all situations in life. The Greek philosophers were,
incontestably, the men, who best understood the art of becoming
happy. Their studies led them to the unwearied contemplation of
the true good, the advantages of elevation of mind, the danger of
the passions, and a calm submission to inevitable ills. Such were
the habitual subjects of their meditations and discourses. They
suffered less from the evils of life, only because they cultivated
habits of profound reflection.
Among the moderns, in pursuit of happiness, some study only
to multiply their physical enjoyments; and limited to gross
sensations, differ little from brutes, except in discoursing about
what they eat. Others, higher in the scale of thought, cultivate
the pleasures of literature and the fine arts. But disciplining
but a single class of their powers, with a view to distinguish
themselves from the vulgar, they are not always more happy. True
philosophy is chiefly conversant about that kind of acquisition,
which preëminently constitutes the rational man, forms his reason,
and places him, as a master, in the midst of an unreflecting world
surrounded by children full of ignorance and fatuity.
LETTER VIII.
OF INDEPENDENCE.
We distinguish many kinds of liberty. That which we owe to equal
laws, without being indispensable to a philosopher, renders the
attainment of happiness more easy to him. However men differ in
their political opinions, they all have an instinctive desire to be
free. Every one is reluctant and afraid to submit himself to the
capricious power of those about him. The thirst of power is only
another form of this ardor for independence.
With what interest we read in history of those ignorant tribes,
unknown to fame, whose liberty and simple manners at once astonish
and delight us? When visiting the isles of Greece, where the charm
of memory rendered the view of their actual slavery more revolting,
what delight the traveller experiences in traversing the little
isle of Casos which had never submitted to the Ottoman yoke! He
there found the usages of the ancient Greeks, their costume, their
beauty and their amiable and elevated natural manner. This isle
is but a rock. But its dangerous shores have defended it against
tyranny. Associations with the songs of Homer and Hesiod are
renewed. Such a picture delights even a people whose manners are
refined to a degree tending to depravation. Thus those opulent
citizens who find the country a place of exile still decorate their
splendid halls with landscapes and flowers.
Let not a sensitive and wandering imagination kindle too readily at
the recitals of travellers. Were we to transport ourselves to one
of those remote points of the earth where felicity is represented
to have chosen her asylum, new usages, manners and pleasures, and
a foreign people every moment reminding us that we are strangers,
would, perhaps, give birth to the most painful regrets. When in our
youth we were charmed as we read of the prodigies of Athens and
Rome, we uttered the wish that we had been born in those renowned
republics. There is little doubt that, had our wish been realized,
we should be glad to escape their storms, in exchange for obscurely
tranquil days.
It is a distinguished folly which impels men far from their country
in search of happiness. The greater portion, deceived in their
hopes after having wandered amidst danger, die with regret and
sorrow, worn out with vexation resulting from the broken ties and
remembrances of home. Home is the last thought that comes over the
departing mind. ‘Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.’ _Ubi patria
ibi bene_ is an adage which contains as much wise observation as
elevated patriotism. Our country is our common mother. We ought
to love and sustain her more firmly in her misery than in her
prosperity.
Whatever manners, opinions and talents we carry into another
country, we are still strangers there. The manners which we adopt
are new and irksome. The eye sees nothing to awaken dear and
embellished remembrances; and we find in the heart of no one the
reverberating chord of ancient friendship and sympathy. We always
regret the places where we knew the first pleasures and the first
pains, and saw the first enchanting visions of life; the cherished
spots where we learned to love and be loved. If, returning there,
drawn back by an invincible sentiment, after a long absence we see
it again, what sorrows await us! We find ourselves strangers in
our own country. We ask for our parents and friends who departed
in succession. The blows were struck at long intervals. We receive
them all in a moment. We return to shed tears only on the tombs of
our fathers![15]
Retreat and competence everywhere supply a wise man a degree of
independence. Even when the sport of oppression and injustice, he
yields to these evils as the caprices of destiny. He would be free
in the midst of Constantinople under the government of the Sultan.
Another kind of liberty is the portion of but a few in our own
country--the liberty of disposing of our whole time at our choice.
To those who understand not the value of time, this liberty
bequeaths a heavy bondage. But to those who have learned the
secret of happiness it is of inestimable value. The privilege of
the favored possessor of opulence is a high one. Neither the slave
of business, fashion, opinion or routine, it is in his power at
awaking to say ‘this day is all my own.’[15a]
But moralists exclaim, ‘you must pay your debt: you must render
yourselves useful to society.’ Let me not be understood to
inculcate the doctrine of indolence. Industry will have wings
and power when you unite it to freedom. But how many repeat the
hackneyed cry of ‘the debt to society,’ who, in the choice of their
profession, had never a thought but of its honors and emoluments!
This man whose industry in the pursuit of his choice proves that
his toil is his pleasure, that man who is in earnest to serve every
one whom he can oblige and who might have shone, had he chosen it,
in the career of ambition, but who, modest, proud, studious and
free, lives happily in the bosom of retreat, has this man done
nothing to acquit his debt? Is his example useless to society?
If my condition deny me leisure and independence in regard to
the disposal of my time, without bestowing much concern upon the
choice of my profession, I should choose that most favorable to
free thoughts, to breathing the open air, and, as much as might
be, in view of a beautiful nature. I should consider it as a
most important element in my happiness that I should be chiefly
conversant with people of compatible characters. The profession of
an advocate, perpetually conversant with the follies, vices and
crimes of society, is one of the most trying, both to integrity and
philosophy. That of the physician, continually witnessing groans,
tears and physical suffering, however painful to sensibility,
may become the source of high reflected pleasure to a generous
and humane heart. I would avoid a function the disquieting
responsibility of which would disturb my sleep. Above all, I should
dread one of high honor and emolument, connected with proportionate
uncertainty of tenure.
The balance of enjoyment being taken into view, I should prefer
an occupation of privacy. It would be more easy at once to obtain
and preserve. It would expose me less to envy and competition.
Exempt from the inquietudes inspired by severe labors, and the
ennui of important etiquette, I should at least find an absolute
independence, every evening, at the relinquishment of my daily
routine of occupation, and I should suffer no care for the morrow;
I would learn to enhance the charms of my condition by thinking of
the agitation, regrets and alarms of those who are still swept by
the whirlwinds of life. In this way I would imitate him who, to
procure a more delicious repose, placed his couch under a tent near
the sea, to be lulled by the dashing of its waves and the noise
of its storms. But it is time to contemplate the most useful kind
of liberty, the only indispensable kind, and happily one which is
accessible to all. It is the liberty resulting from self-command
and inward mastery of ourselves. It has a value to cause all others
to be forgotten--a value which no other kind can replace.