That unfortunate Gentleman upon whose back all the evils of this world
have been laid from time immemorial, I mean the Devil, has certainly
(to give him his due) been tormenting my poor friend and schoolfellow
pretty handsomely. What with your cough in the first place and your
abscess in the second you have been quite a martyr, but remember the
martyrs always reach heaven at last and I doubt not that your
sufferings will soon be over and that in the little Paradise you have
planned for yourself some five or six miles from London (rather a
cockney distance by the by) you will enjoy the happiness of the blest
with those you love best. I think I shall make the same compact with
you that I have made with Becknell namely that in after years when
time has laid his heavy hand upon us all and when you are happy in
your children and your children’s children you will still give the
crusty old Bachelor a place at your fireside and your Sophia shall
furnish me with strong green tea and I will take my pinch of snuff and
tell you Graddam’s tales to amuse the little ones or recount the
wonderful things I have seen in my travels or growl at the degeneracy
of the world and praise the good old days when I was young and gay and
did many a wondrous deed for “Ladye love and pride of Chivalrie” and
you shall forgive many a cross word and ill tempered remark for old
friendship’s sake and say “He was not always so but this world’s
sorrows have soured his temper, poor old Man.”
You tell me to continue my history of Bretagne, but in sooth I know
not where I left off. Memory, that lazy slut, has forgot to mend her
pocket which has had a hole in it for some time and the consequence is
that, of all I give her to keep for me, the dross alone remains and
the better part is dropped by the wayside. But I am not at all in the
mood to give any descriptions. I am philosophical and therefore will
tell you a story.
In that mighty empire which exceeds all others as much in wisdom as it
does in size—in the time of Fo Whang, who was the six hundredth
emperor of the ninety-seventh dynasty which has sat on the throne of
Cathay, there lived a philosopher whose doctrine was such that every
Chinese from the mandarin who enjoys the light of the celestial
presence to the waterman who paddles his Junk in the river of Canton
became proselytes.
Every one knows that every Chinese from generation to generation is in
manners, customs, dress, and appearance so precisely what his father
was before him that a certain Mandarin who had thought proper to fall
into a trance for a century or so, waking from his sleep and entering
his paternal mansion, found his great grandson, who was at dinner, so
strikingly like himself that he was struck dumb with astonishment.
There were the same wide thin eye-brows, there were the same beautiful
black eyes no bigger than peas, there was the same delicate
tea-colored complexion. He wore the same silk his ancestor had worn
and the same chopsticks carried his food to his mouth. The Great
Grandson instantly recognized his predecessor, but the resuscitated
Mandarin, forgetting the lapse of years, mistook his descendant for
his own grandfather and each casting themselves on their belly
wriggled towards each other with all symptoms of respect. Such being
the laudable reverence of this people for all customs sanctified by
time, it may be well supposed that that doctrine was magnificent which
could take a Chinese by the ear, and such indeed was the doctrine of
the Philosopher, namely, that wisdom is folly and folly is wisdom.
Which he proved thus: “The end of wisdom” said the Philosopher, “is to
be happy. And the fewer are our wants the fewer can be our
disappointments and consequently the happier we are. The fool has
fewer wants than the wise man and the ignorant less wishes than the
learned, and therefore the fool being the happiest is the wisest and
the wise man is but a fool.” Now the wise men (even in China) being
lamentably in the minority the Philosopher had all the voices for
himself. Now there was a young Man named To-hi, who never pretended to
be a wise man but was nevertheless not a fool, and going to the
Philosopher he said to him—“Father, I cannot help thinking that your
doctrine means more than it appears to mean and I think I have found
its explication.” “Speak freely, my Son” replied the Philosopher, “and
tell me what you suppose it to be.” “I imagine,” said To-hi, “that you
wish to inculcate that Men seek for wisdom above their power and
destroy their happiness by examining too near the objects which
produce it. For I remark that all that is beautiful in nature as well
as in life is little better than a delusion which to be enjoyed must
be seen from a distance. When I look at the hills of Tartary, they
seem from here grand and soft and blue and changing all sorts of
colors from the reflection of the Sun, but when I approach them I find
nothing but heaps of barren rocks and frightful deserts. If we regard
the finest skin with a magnifying glass, it is like coarsest cloth of
Surat and the sunset that we admire for its soft splendor to the
nations on the edge of the horizon is but the glare of midday. Thus
then we ought to enjoy whatever the world offers us without searching
for faults and be as happy as we can without seeking to be too wise.
Is not this what you meant?” “My Son,” replied the Philosopher “like
many other Philosophers I did not well know what I meant and you, like
many other commentators, have given an explanation which the author
never intended.”
Rennes, first of Feby.
As you will see, my Dear Ranken, this letter has been written half a
century but I have been wandering about the country and forgot to
finish it before I went. Long before this however I hope you are
fundamentally cured and prepared to set up on your own bottom.
Doubtless you will find a vast fund of nonsense in the former part of
this ’pistle but if it serves to give you a minute’s amusement it will
answer the object of
Yours sincerely
G. P. R. JAMES.
Everybody seems to have written affectionately to Charles Ollier, the
publisher—Lamb, Hunt, Keats, Shelley, and a host of others. His son,
Edmund, ‘beheld Charles Lamb with infantile eyes and sat in poor Mary
Lamb’s lap.’[67] James writes to the elder Ollier, from the Chateau du
Buisson, Garumbourg, _près_ Evreux, on August 7, 1829:
“MY DEAR MR. OLLIER.
I take advantage of a friend’s departure for London, to write to you
though I have nothing to say. I have done so much of my new book as I
permit myself to do per diem and having nothing else to do my vile
_cacoethes scribendi_ prompts me to indite this epistle to your
manifest trouble and annoyance. My father informs me you have been ill
and calls your complaint ‘nothing but Dis-pep-sia.’ I hope and trust
however that you have no such long word in your stomach, but if you
have, nothing can be so good for it as crossing the water and visiting
a friend in France. One of my visitors lately brought me over about
twenty newspapers and also the information that my unfortunate _Adra_
had never made her appearance. Incontinent, I fell into one of my
accustomed fits of passion which was greatly increased by finding that
in none of the twenty journals was any advertisement or mention
whatever of _Richelieu_ which together with the news that about four
and twenty people had asked for _Richelieu_ and could not get it in
England, Scotland or Ireland, made me write instantly to Mr. Bentley a
very flaming letter about printing _Adra_ &c. &c. &c. I had written to
Mr. Colburn sometime ago without his doing me the _honor_ to answer
me, and therefore I write not there again. I have since received an
answer from Mr. R. Bentley and all has gone right. But I am most
profanely ignorant of all news and therefore will beg you to answer me
the following Qys. if you can.
Has _Richelieu_ been reviewed in the New Monthly? Has it ever been
advertised? Does the sale proceed as successfully as when I left
London? Will you see that its first success does not make Mr. Colburn
relax in his efforts in its favor? Will you manage the reviewing of
Adra and take care that it be sent to and noticed by as many
publications as possible? Will you see that the list of persons to
whom I desired it to be sent and which I left in Burlington street be
attended to? Will you let me know whether there be anything in which I
can in any way serve or pleasure you? I am sincere and ever yours.