fix our eye, are those which awaken ideas of innocence and peace;
affecting the heart with associations connected with the morning
of our life; or ideas of that power and immensity, which move and
elevate the soul. The paintings of nature, as well as those of men,
are thus capable of being embellished by moral associations. In
travelling, I perceive a delightful isle embosomed in a peaceful
lake. While I contemplate it, with the simple pleasure excited by
a charming landscape, I am told that it is inhabited by a happy
pair, who were long crossed and separated; but who wore out the
persevering opposition of fortune; and are now living there in
the innocence and peace of the first tenants of paradise. How
different an interest the landscape now assumes! I behold the happy
pair, without care or regret, sheltered from jealous observation,
enjoying the dream of their happy love, gratefully contemplating
the Author of the beautiful nature around them, and elevating their
love and their hearts, as a sacrifice to HIM.
Sites, which, in themselves, have no peculiar charm, become most
beautiful as soon as they awaken touching remembrances. Suppose
yourself cast by misfortune on the care of a stranger in a strange
land. He attempts to dispel your dejection, and says, ‘these
countries are hospitable, and nature here puts forth all her
opulence; come, and enjoy it with us.’ The gay landscapes, which
spread before you, all assume the appearance of strangers; and
offer no attractions. But while your eye traverses the scenery with
indifference, you see blue hills melting into the distant horizon.
No person remarks them, but yourself. They resemble the mountains
of your own country, the scenes upon which your infant view first
rested. You turn away to conceal the new emotions, and your eyes
are filling with tears. You continue to gaze fondly on those hills,
dear to memory. In the midst of a rich landscape, they are all that
interests you. You return to review them every day, and demand
of them their treasured remembrances and illusions,--the dearest
pleasures of your exile.[39]
All the senses would offer me examples, in illustration of this
idea. Deprive the pleasures of physical love of moral associations,
which touch the heart, and you take from it all that elevates the
enjoyment above that of the lowest animals. Else, why do modesty,
innocence, the expression of unstained chastity, and the graces
of simplicity possess such enchanting attractions? The truth, that
there exists in love a charm stronger than physical impulse, is
not unknown even to women of abandoned manners. The most dangerous
of all those in this unhappy class, are they, who, not relying on
their beauty, feign still to possess, or deeply to regret those
virtues, which they have really cast away.
There are useful duties upon this subject, which I should find
it difficult to present in our language. In proportion as the
manners of a people reach the extreme refinement of artifice and
corruption, their words become chaste. It is a final and sterile
homage rendered to modesty.
The last delights which imagination can add to the pleasures of
love, are not to be sought in those vile places where libertinism
is an art. We must imagine the first wedded days of a young and
innocent pair, whose spirits are blended in real affection, in
similar tastes, pursuits and hopes, who realize those vague images
which they had scarcely allowed before to float across their mind.
They who seek in the pleasures of taste only physical sensations,
degrade their minds and finish their useless existence in infirmity
and brutal degradation. The pleasures of taste should only serve
to render the other enjoyments more vivid, the imagination more
brilliant, and the pursuits of life more easy and pleasant.--All
objects should present themselves under a gay aspect. A happy veil
should shroud those pains which have been, or are to be endured.
Even the wine cup, more powerful than the waters of Lethe, should
not only procure forgetfulness of the past, but embellishment of
the future.
The pleasures derived from odors are only vivid, when they impart
to the mind a fleeting and vague exaltation. If the orientals
indulge a passion for respiring perfumes, it is not solely to
procure pleasurable physical sensations. An embalmed atmosphere
exalts the senses, and disposes the mind to pleasant revery, and
paints dreams of paradise upon the indolent imagination.
Were I disposed to present the details of a system upon this
subject, the sense of hearing would offer me a crowd of examples.
The brilliant and varied accents of the nightingale are ravishing.
But what a difference between hearing the melody from a cage, and
listening to the song at the noon of night, when a cool and pure
air refreshes the lassitude of the burning day, and we behold
objects by the light of the moon, and hear the strains of the
solitary bird poured from her free bower!
A symphony, the sounds of which only delight the ear, would soon
become wearying. If it have no other determinate expression, it
ought, at least, to inspire revery, and produce an effect not
unlike that of perfumes upon the orientals.
Suppose we have been at an opera, got up with all the luxury of
art. Emotions of delight and astonishment rapidly succeed each
other, and we believe it impossible to experience new sensations
of pleasure. In returning home, we chance to hear in the distance,
through the stillness of night, a well remembered song of our
infancy, that was sung to us by some one dear to our memory. It
is at once a music exciting more profound emotion, than all the
strains of art which we so recently thought could not be surpassed.
The remembrances of infancy and home rush upon the spirit, and
efface the pompous spectacle, and the artificial graces of
execution.[39a]
Observations to the same effect might be multiplied without end. If
you desire pleasures, fertile in happy remembrances, if you wish to
preserve elevation of mind and freshness of imagination, choose,
among the pleasures of the senses, only those which associate
with moral ideas. Feeble, when separated from the alliance of
those ideas, they become fatal when they exclude them. To dare
to taste them, is to sacrifice happiness to pleasures which are
alike ephemeral and degrading. It is to resemble him, who should
strip the tree of its flowers, to enjoy their beauty. He loses the
fruits which would have followed, and scarcely casts his eye on the
flowers before they have faded.
LETTER XVIII.
THE PLEASURES OF THE HEART.
The Creator has put forth in his gifts, a magnificence which should
impress our hearts. What variety in those affectionate sentiments,
of the delights of which our natures are susceptible! Without going
out of the family circle, I enumerate filial piety, fraternal
affection, friendship, love, and parental tenderness. These
different sentiments can all coëxist in our hearts, and, so far
from weakening each other, each tends to give vigor and intensity
to the other. No doubt, the need of so many affections and props
attests our feebleness and dependence. But I can scarcely conceive
of the happiness, which a being, impassible to weaknesses and
wants, could find in himself. I am ready to bless that infirmity of
our natures, which is the source of such pure pleasures, and such
tender affections.
Let us avoid confounding that sensibility which exacts the
pleasures of the heart, with that which produces impassioned
characters. They differ as essentially as the genial, vital
warmth, from the burning of a fever. Indolence, objects calculated
strongly to strike the imagination, and those maxims which corrupt
the understanding, develope a vague and ardent sensibility, which
sometimes conducts to crime, and always to misery. The other
species is approved by reason and preserved by virtue. We owe to it
those pure emotions which impart upon earth an indistinct sentiment
of the joys of heaven.
There are men, however, who dread genuine sensibility; and,
under the conviction that it will multiply their pains, study to
eradicate the germs of it from their soul.
Hume was unhappily an unbeliever; but I might easily cite from
his life many honorable traits indicative of a good natural
disposition. He remarked to a friend, who confided to him his
secret sorrows, ‘you entertain an internal enemy, who will always
hinder you from being happy. It is your sensibility of heart.’
‘What!’ responded his friend with a kind of terror, ‘have you not
sensibility?’ ‘No. My reason alone speaks, and it declares that it
is right to soothe distress.’
In listening to this reply of Hume, we are at once struck with the
idea, that the greater part of those who adopt his principles,
do not pause at the same point with their model. They sink into
that heartless class, who see all human calamities with a dry eye,
provided they have no tendency to abridge their own enjoyments.
Suppose even that they pursue the lessons of the Scotch philosopher
to better purpose; and without any emotion, without any impulse
of heart, hold out a succoring hand to those who suffer. This,
perhaps, may answer the claims of reason. But the social instinct
will always repel that austere morality, which would give to the
human heart an unnatural insensibility, and deprive it, if I may so
say, of its amiable weakness. I would hardly desire to see a man
oppose a courage, too stoical, to his own miseries. The natural
tears which he sheds in extreme affliction, are his guaranty for
the sympathy which he will feel for my sorrows.
It is a vile but common maxim, that two conditions are necessary
to success in life. The one is, to have a selfish heart. The
other, the adage of egotism, is, that to avoid suffering, we must
stifle sensibility. I say to these heartless philosophers of the
world, that if the only requisite is to avoid suffering, through
destitution of feeling, to die is the surest method of all.[40]
The secret of happiness does not consist in avoiding all evils;
for in that case, we must learn to love nothing. If there be a
lot on earth worthy of envy, it is that of a man, good and tender
hearted, who beholds his own creation in the happiness of all
who surround him. Let him who would be happy, strive to encircle
himself with happy beings. Let the happiness of his family be the
incessant object of his thoughts. Let him divine the sorrows and
anticipate the wishes of his friends. Let him inspire the fidelity
of affection in his domestics, by pledging to them a comfortable
and pleasant old age. Let him, as far as may be, preserve the same
servants, and give them all needed succor and counsel. In fine,
let the inmates and dependents of the house all respire a calm
and regulated happiness. Let even the domestic animals know, that
humanity presides over their condition.
Entertaining such views, it will be easy to see in what light I
contemplate those men who take pleasure in witnessing the combats
of animals. What man who has a heart, can see spectacles, equally
barbarous and detestable, with satisfaction; such as dogs tearing
to pieces a bull, exhausted with wounds, cocks mangling each other,
the encounter of brutal boxers, or of bad boys in the streets,
encouraged to the diabolical sport of fighting? These are the true
schools of cowardly and savage ferocity, and not of manly courage,
as too many have supposed.[41] But it is not my purpose to draw a
painting in detail of the abominations of cruelty, or the pleasures
of beneficence, and I resume my rapid and desultory reflections.
To preserve the sentiments of beneficence and sensibility, let
us avoid the pride which mars them. Beneficence in one respect
resembles love. Like that, it courts concealment and the shade.
The most useful direction we can give to beneficence is, to
multiply its gifts as widely as possible. Let us avoid imitating
those men who are always fearful of being deceived by those who
solicit their pity. In an uncertainty whether or not you ought to
extend succor, grant it. It can only expose you to the error that
is least subject to repentance.[42]
Offer useful counsels and indulgent consolations. Save, from
despair, the unfortunate victim, who groans under the remorse of
an unpremeditated fault. Unite him again to society by those cords
which his imprudence has broken. Rekindle in him the love of his
kind, by saying to him, ‘though you may not recover innocence,
repentance can at least restore your virtue.’
If we have access to the opulent and powerful, we have an
honorable, but difficult task to fulfil. To assume the often
thankless office of soliciting frequent favors for friends,
without losing the consideration necessary to success, requires
peculiar tact, discernment and dignity.--Above all, it requires
disinterested zeal. In attempting this delicate duty in the form of
letters, we may soon dissipate our slender fund of credit. Letters
of recommendation resemble a paper currency. They are redeemed in
specie so long as they are issued discreetly, and in small amounts,
but which become worse than blank paper, as soon as we multiply
them too far.[43]
Such is the intrinsic attraction of beneficence, that even if we
refuse to practise it, we still love whatever retraces its image.
A romance affects us. Pathetic scenes soften our hearts at the
theatre. In thus embracing the shadow, we pay a sublime testimonial
to the substance.
The example of beneficence so readily finds its way to every heart,
that we are affected even in thinking of those who practise it.
The coldest hearts pay a tribute of veneration to those women,
who, in consecrating themselves to the service of the poor and the
sick, encounter extreme fatigue, disgust, and often abuse from
the wretched objects themselves, in the squalidness and filth of
prisons and hospitals. How beautiful to learn to put forth patience
to mitigate the maladies of the body, and hope, to soothe those of
the mind![44] Ye, who practise virtues thus touching and sublime,
may well hope the highest recompenses of heaven. Such alone are
worthy of your pure spirits. Ye seem to have passed in light across
our dark sphere, only to fulfil a transient and celestial mission,
to return again to your country.
LETTER XIX.
THE PLEASURES OF THE UNDERSTANDING.
In the savage man the intellectual faculties sleep. As soon as
his appetites are satisfied, he sees neither pleasures to desire,
nor pains to fear. He lies down and sleeps again. This negative
happiness would bring desolation to the heart of a civilized man.
All his faculties have commenced their development. He experiences
a new craving, which occupations, grave or futile, but rapidly
changed and renewed, can alone appease. If there occur between
them intervals which can be filled neither by remembrances, nor by
necessary repose, lassitude and ennui intervene, and measure for
him the length of these chasms in life by sadness.
The next enemy to happiness, after vice, is ennui. Some escape it
without much seeming calculation. My neighbor every morning turns
over twenty gazettes, the state articles of which are copied the
one from the other. Economising the pleasure of this reading, and
gravely reposing in the intervals, he communicates, sometimes with
an oracular tone, sometimes with a modest reserve, his reflections
to those who surround him; and, at length, leaves the reading room
with the importance of one who feels that he has discharged a debt
to society.
In public places, it is not the spectacles, but the emotions of the
common people who behold them, that are worthy of contemplation. In
the murder of a poor tragedy by poorer actors, what transports from
this enthusiastic mass of the audience when a blow of the poniard,
preceded by a pompous maxim, lays the tyrant of the piece low! What
earnest feeling, what sincere tears do we witness! How much more
worthy of envy these honest people who lose their enjoyment neither
by the revolting improbability of the situations, nor by the
absurdity of the dialogue, nor by the mouthing of the rehearsal,
than those fastidious critics who exalt their intellectual pride at
the expense of these cheap enjoyments!
From the moment in which a man feels sincere pleasure in
cultivating his understanding, he may date defiance to the fear
of the weight of time. He has the magic key which unlocks the
exhaustless treasury of enjoyments. He lives in the age and country
which he prefers. Space and time are no longer obstacles to his
happiness. He interrogates the wise and good of all ages and all
countries; and his conversations with them cease, or change object,
as soon as he chooses. How much gratitude does he owe the author of
nature for having impressed on genius so many different impulses!
With Plato, he is among the sages of Greece, hearing their lessons
and associating his wishes with theirs for the happiness of his
kind.[45] In the range of history, he ascends to the infancy of
empires and time. Does he court repose? Horace bids him gather the
roses before they fade; or Shakspeare reminds him, when illusions
will vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision.
If a man has powers and acquirements, it is a great evil, if he
is disposed to fatigue others with his self-love. If we could
number all the subjects of which the most accomplished scholar
is ignorant, we should perceive that the interval between him
and a common person is not so immense as he may imagine. Ought
he to be astonished if the real friends of the Muses tire of his
declamations, his recitations and occupancy with himself?
To attain truth should be the real end of all study. In such
researches the mind kindles, as by enchantment, at every step! The
desire to succeed, produces that noble emotion which is always
developed by ardent zeal and pure intentions. Success, although we
were to think nothing of its results, inspires a kind of pleasure;
because truth comports with our understanding, as brilliant and
soft colors agree with the eye, or pleasant sounds with the ear.
This enjoyment naturally associates with another still more vivid.
The effect of truth is universally salutary; and every instance
in which our feeble intellect discovers some gleams, elevates
the spirit, and intimately penetrates it with a high degree of
happiness.
One of the chief advantages of study is, that it enfranchises the
mind from those prejudices that disturb life. How many, and what
agonizing torments have been caused by those which are associated
with false ideas of religion.[46] After those great calamities in
the dark ages which destroyed the traces of the sciences and arts,
men, pursued by terror, seemed to imagine that they constantly
saw malevolent spirits flying among the clouds or wandering in
the depth of woods. The sound of strong wind and thunder came to
their ear as the voice of infernal divinities; and, prostrate
with terror, they sought to appease their angry gods by bloody
sacrifices. In process of time, a small number of men, enlightened
by observation, dared to raise the veil by degrees, and succeeded
in dissipating these terrors by tracing the seeming prodigies to
some of the simplest laws of physics. The phantoms of superstition
vanished, and, in the light of reason, revealed a just and
beneficent Divinity presiding over obedient nature.
We think, in our pride, that an immense interval separates us from
those times of disaster, ignorance and alarm. How many of our
kind, unhappy by their intellectual weakness, still tremble before
the jealous and implacable god of their imaginations, who enjoins
hatred and wrath; and punishes even the errors of opinion by the
most horrible torments. The man who is exempt from prejudices is
alone capable of prostrating himself before the Divinity from a
feeling of love, and whose prayer, alike confident and resigned, is
addressed to his noble attributes of power, justice and clemency.
There are other errors which study dispels. The student who is
charmed with communion with the muses, does not consume his best
years in gloomy intrigues; nor do you meet him pressing forward
in the path which ambition has traced. The Greeks, fertile in
significant allegories, supposed the same divinity to preside over
the sciences and wisdom.
The habit of living in converse with the noblest works of mind and
art, produces elevation of soul; and he who has an elevated mind
must be intrinsically good and happy. Exempt from the weaknesses
of vanity, free from the tumultuous passions, he cultivates the
noble and generous virtues for the pleasure of practising them.
Disdaining a mass of objects of desire which disturb the vulgar, he
offers a small mark to misery. Should adversity strike him, he has
resources so much the more sure, as he finds them in himself.
No one can ever taste the full charm of letters and the arts,
except in the bosom of retirement. If he reads and meditates only
for the pursuit of fame, amusements change to labors. If we propose
to enter the lists, outstrip rivals, and direct a party, we are
soon agitated with little passions, but great inquietudes. Heaven,
sternly decreeing that no earthly felicity shall be unalloyed, has
placed a thirst for celebrity as a drawback upon the love of study.
But ought the ardor to render immortal services--ought the noble
ambition to be useful, to be stifled? Are not these the source
of pleasures as pure as they are ravishing? I contemplate an
immense and indestructible republic, composed of all those men
who devote themselves to the happiness of their kind. Occupied
without relaxation or abatement in continuing the works which their
predecessors have begun, they bequeath to their successors the
care of pursuing and crowning their labors. Men of genius are the
chiefs of this republic. As they have talents which separate them
from the rest of the human race; they have also pleasures reserved
for themselves alone. What a sublime sentiment must have elevated
the spirit of Newton when a part of the mysterious laws of the
universe first dawned on his mind! A glow still more delightful
must have pervaded the bosom of Fenelon when meditating the most
beautiful lessons which wisdom ever announced to the powerful and
the rulers of the people. To these privileged beings it belongs, to
give a powerful impulse to minds, and to trace a new path for the
generations to come.
I shall have attained my humble ambition if, docile to the voice
of the wise, I shall be able, in any degree, to indicate the way
in which these lessons may be put in practice. I shall thus have
contributed my aid to dissipate the night of prejudice and vice.
LETTER XX.
THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
If these words denote pleasures which have no reality, let us
no longer use them.[47] The person who, during the twelve hours
of every day that he passed in sleep, believed himself clothed
with royal authority, shared a lot exactly similar to the king
who, dreaming through the same number of hours, imagined that he
suffered cold and hunger, and asked the pity of the peasants in the
streets.
All our pleasures are fugitive, and they are all real. That
wonderful faculty, the imagination, awakens past pleasures, charms
the instant that is flowing, and either veils the future, or
embellishes it in the radiance of hope.
Let us banish that vulgar prejudice which represents reason and
imagination as two enemies which cannot coëxist. The severest
reason ought to disdain no easy and pure pleasures. The happy
paintings even of a dream bring joy, until their rainbow hues melt
away. The dreams of the imagination have greatly the advantage over
those of sleep. Our will gives them birth. We prolong, dissipate
and renew them at pleasure.[48] All, who have learned to multiply
these happy moments, know, at the same time, how to enjoy these
agreeable visions, and paint with enchantment those dreamy hours
which they owe to the effervescence of a gay imagination.