together, to pass the cold months, and which may be termed their
villages or cities, a youth and maid, who came from different parts of
the country, were so much distinguished for their beauty, that they were
called by the rest of the inhabitants Anningait and Ajut, from a
supposed resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who had been
transformed of old into the sun and moon.
Anningait for some time heard the praises of Ajut with little emotion,
but at last, by frequent interviews, became sensible of her charms, and
first made a discovery of his affection, by inviting her with her
parents to a feast, where he placed before Ajut the tail of a whale.
Ajut seemed not much delighted by this gallantry; yet, however, from
that time was observed rarely to appear, but in a vest made of the skin
of a white deer; she used frequently to renew the black dye upon her
hands and forehead, to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to
braid her hair with great exactness.
The elegance of her dress, and the judicious disposition of her
ornaments, had such an effect upon Anningait, that he could no longer be
restrained from a declaration of his love. He therefore composed a poem
in her praise, in which, among other heroick and tender sentiments, he
protested, that "she was beautiful as the vernal willow, and fragrant as
the thyme upon the mountains; that her fingers were white as the teeth
of the morse, and her smile grateful as the dissolution of the ice; that
he would pursue her, though she should pass the snows of the midland
cliffs, or seek shelter in the caves of the eastern cannibals: that he
would tear her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks, snatch her
from the paws of Amarock, and rescue her from the ravine of Hafgufa." He
concluded with a wish, that "whoever shall attempt to hinder his union
with Ajut, might be buried without his bow, and that, in the land of
souls, his skull might serve for no other use than to catch the
droppings of the starry lamps."
This ode being universally applauded, it was expected that Ajut would
soon yield to such fervour and accomplishments; but Ajut, with the
natural haughtiness of beauty, expected all the forms of courtship; and
before she would confess herself conquered, the sun returned, the ice
broke, and the season of labour called all to their employments.
Anningait and Ajut for a time always went out in the same boat, and
divided whatever was caught. Anningait, in the sight of his mistress,
lost no opportunity of signalizing his courage: he attacked the
sea-horses on the ice; pursued the seals into the water, and leaped upon
the back of the whale, while he was yet struggling with the remains of
life. Nor was his diligence less to accumulate all that could be
necessary to make winter comfortable: he dried the roe of fishes and the
flesh of seals; he entrapped deer and foxes, and dressed their skins to
adorn his bride; he feasted her with eggs from the rocks, and strewed her
tent with flowers.
It happened that a tempest drove the fish to a distant part of the
coast, before Anningait had completed his store; he therefore entreated
Ajut, that she would at last grant him her hand, and accompany him to
that part of the country whither he was now summoned by necessity. Ajut
thought him not yet entitled to such condescension, but proposed, as a
trial of his constancy, that he should return at the end of summer to
the cavern where their acquaintance commenced, and there expect the
reward of his assiduities. "O virgin, beautiful as the sun shining on
the water, consider," said Anningait, "what thou hast required. How
easily may my return be precluded by a sudden frost or unexpected fogs!
then must the night be passed without my Ajut. We live not, my fair, in
those fabled countries, which lying strangers so wantonly describe;
where the whole year is divided into short days and nights; where the
same habitation serves for summer and winter; where they raise houses in
rows above the ground, dwell together from year to year, with flocks of
tame animals grazing in the fields about them; can travel at any time
from one place to another, through ways inclosed with trees, or over
walls raised upon the inland waters; and direct their course through
wide countries by the sight of green hills or scattered buildings. Even
in summer we have no means of crossing the mountains, whose snows are
never dissolved; nor can remove to any distant residence, but in our
boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut, a few summer-days, and a few
winter-nights, and the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of
ease and festivity, of revels and gaiety; but what will be the flaming
lamp, the delicious seal, or the soft oil, without the smile of Ajut?"
The eloquence of Anningait was vain; the maid continued inexorable, and
they parted with ardent promises to meet again before the night of
winter.
No. 187. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1751.
_Non illum nostri possunt mutare labores;
Non si frigoribus mediis Hebrunique bibamus,
Sithoniasque nives hyemis subeamus aquosae:--
Ominia vincit amor. Vinc. Ec. x. 64_.
Love alters not for us his hard decrees,
Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze,
Or the mild bliss of temperate skies forego,
And in raid winter tread Sithonian snow:--
Love conquers all.--DRYDEN.
Anningait, however discomposed by the dilatory coyness of Ajut, was yet
resolved to omit no tokens of amorous respect; and therefore presented
her at his departure with the skins of seven white fawns, of five swans
and eleven seals, with three marble lamps, ten vessels of seal oil, and
a large kettle of brass, which he had purchased from a ship, at the
price of half a whale, and two horns of sea-unicorns.
Ajut was so much affected by the fondness of her lover, or so much
overpowered by his magnificence, that she followed him to the sea-side;
and, when she saw him enter the boat, wished aloud, that he might return
with plenty of skins and oil; that neither the mermaids might snatch him
into the deeps, nor the spirits of the rocks confine him in their
caverns.
She stood a while to gaze upon the departing vessel, and then returning
to her hut, silent and dejected, laid aside, from that hour, her white
deer skin, suffered her hair to spread unbraided on her shoulders, and
forbore to mix in the dances of the maidens. She endeavoured to divert
her thoughts, by continual application to feminine employments, gathered
moss for the winter lamps, and dried grass to line the boots of
Anningait. Of the skins which he had bestowed upon her, she made a
fishing-coat, a small boat, and tent, all of exquisite manufacture; and
while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she
prayed, "that her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the
bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the reindeer; that his dart
might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never
stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on
his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash the waves in vain."
The large boats in which the Greenlanders transport their families, are
always rowed by women; for a man will not debase himself by work, which
requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by
idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the
boat, with an intent to leap into the water, and swim back to his
mistress; but, recollecting the misery which they must endure in the
winter, without oil for the lamp, or skins for the bed, he resolved to
employ the weeks of absence in provision for a night of plenty and
felicity. He then composed his emotions as he could, and expressed, in
wild numbers and uncouth images, his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears.
"O life!" says he, "frail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find
thy resemblance, but in ice floating on the ocean? It towers on high, it
sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the
sun melts it above, and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou,
deceitful pleasure! but a sudden blaze streaming from the north, which
plays a moment on the eye, mocks the traveller with the hopes of light,
and then vanishes for ever? What, love, art thou but a whirlpool, which
we approach without knowledge of our danger, drawn on by imperceptible
degrees, till we have lost all power of resistance and escape? Till I
fixed my eyes on the graces of Ajut, while I had not yet called her to
the banquet, I was careless as the sleeping morse, was merry as the
singers in the stars. Why, Ajut, did I gaze upon thy graces? why, my
fair, did I call thee to the banquet? Yet, be faithful, my love,
remember Anningait, and meet my return with the smile of virginity. I
will chase the deer, I will subdue the whale, resistless as the frost of
darkness, and unwearied as the summer sun. In a few weeks I shall return
prosperous and wealthy; then shall the roe-fish and the porpoise feast
thy kindred; the fox and hare shall cover thy couch; the tough hide of
the seal shall shelter thee from cold; and the fat of the whale
illuminate thy dwelling."
Anningait having with these sentiments consoled his grief, and animated
his industry, found that they had now coasted the headland, and saw the
whales spouting at a distance. He therefore placed himself in his
fishing-boat, called his associates to their several employments, plied
his oar and harpoon with incredible courage and dexterity; and, by
dividing his time between the chace and fishery, suspended the miseries
of absence and suspicion.
Ajut, in the mean time, notwithstanding her neglected dress, happened,
as she was drying some skins in the sun, to catch the eye of Norngsuk,
on his return from hunting. Norngsuk was of birth truly illustrious. His
mother had died in child-birth, and his father, the most expert fisher
of Greenland, had perished by too close pursuit of the whale. His
dignity was equalled by his riches; he was master of four men's and two
women's boats, had ninety tubs of oil in his winter habitation, and
five-and-twenty seals buried in the snow against the season of darkness.
When he saw the beauty of Ajut, he immediately threw over her the skin
of a deer that he had taken, and soon after presented her with a branch
of coral. Ajut refused his gifts, and determined to admit no lover in
the place of Anningait.
Norngsuk, thus rejected, had recourse to stratagem. He knew that Ajut
would consult an Angekkok, or diviner, concerning the fate of her lover,
and the felicity of her future life. He therefore applied himself to the
most celebrated Angekkok of that part of the country, and, by a present
of two seals and a marble kettle, obtained a promise, that when Ajut
should consult him, he would declare that her lover was in the land of
souls. Ajut, in a short time, brought him a coat made by herself, and
inquired what events were to befall her, with assurances of a much
larger reward at the return of Anningait, if the prediction should
flatter her desires. The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and foretold
that Anningait, having already caught two whales, would soon return home
with a large boat laden with provisions.
This prognostication she was ordered to keep secret; and Norngsuk
depending upon his artifice, renewed his addresses with greater
confidence; but finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to
her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too
powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander; they forgot the merit and the
presents of Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of Norngsuk. She
entreated; she remonstrated; she wept, and raved; but finding riches
irresistible, fled away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon such
berries as she could gather, and the birds or hares which she had the
fortune to ensnare, taking care, at an hour when she was not likely to
be found, to view the sea every day, that her lover might not miss her
at his return.
At last she saw the great boat in which Anningait had departed, stealing
slow and heavy laden along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of
affection to catch her lover in her arms, and relate her constancy and
sufferings. When the company reached the land, they informed her that
Anningait, after the fishery was ended, being unable to support the slow
passage of the vessel of carriage, had set out before them in his
fishing-boat, and they expected at their arrival to have found him on
shore.
Ajut, distracted at this intelligence, was about to fly into the hills,
without knowing why, though she was now in the hands of her parents, who
forced her back to their own hut, and endeavoured to comfort her; but
when at last they retired to rest, Ajut went down to the beach; where,
finding a fishing-boat, she entered it without hesitation, and telling
those who wondered at her rashness, that she was going in search of
Anningait, rowed away with great swiftness, and was seen no more.
The fate of these lovers gave occasion to various fictions and
conjectures. Some are of opinion, that they were changed into stars;
others imagine, that Anningait was seized in his passage by the genius
of the rocks, and that Ajut was transformed into a mermaid, and still
continues to seek her lover in the deserts of the sea. But the general
persuasion is, that they are both in that part of the land of souls
where the sun never sets, where oil is always fresh, and provisions
always warm. The virgins sometimes throw a thimble and a needle into the
bay, from which the hapless maid departed; and when a Greenlander would
praise any couple for virtuous affection, he declares that they love
like Anningait and Ajut.
No. 188. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1751.
--_Si te colo, Sexte, non amabo_. MART. Lib. ii. Ep. lv. 33.
The more I honour thee, the less I love.
None of the desires dictated by vanity is more general, or less
blamable, than that of being distinguished for the arts of conversation.
Other accomplishments may be possessed without opportunity of exerting
them, or wanted without danger that the defect can often be remarked;
but as no man can live, otherwise than in an hermitage, without hourly
pleasure or vexation, from the fondness or neglect of those about him,
the faculty of giving pleasure is of continual use. Few are more
frequently envied than those who have the power of forcing attention
wherever they come, whose entrance is considered as a promise of
felicity, and whose departure is lamented, like the recess of the sun
from northern climates, as a privation of all that enlivens fancy, or
inspirits gaiety.
It is apparent, that to excellence in this valuable art, some peculiar
qualifications are necessary; for every one's experience will inform
him, that the pleasure which men are able to give in conversation, holds
no stated proportion to their knowledge or their virtue. Many find their
way to the tables and the parties of those who never consider them as of
the least importance in any other place; we have all, at one time or
other, been content to love those whom we could not esteem, and been
persuaded to try the dangerous experiment of admitting him for a
companion, whom we knew to be too ignorant for a counsellor, and too
treacherous for a friend.
I question whether some abatement of character is not necessary to
general acceptance. Few spend their time with much satisfaction under
the eye of uncontestable superiority; and therefore, among those whose
presence is courted at assemblies of jollity, there are seldom found men
eminently distinguished for powers or acquisitions. The wit whose
vivacity condemns slower tongues to silence, the scholar whose knowledge
allows no man to fancy that he instructs him, the critick who suffers no
fallacy to pass undetected, and the reasoner who condemns the idle to
thought, and the negligent to attention, are generally praised and
feared, reverenced and avoided.
He that would please must rarely aim at such excellence as depresses his
hearers in their own opinion, or debars them from the hope of
contributing reciprocally to the entertainment of the company.
Merriment, extorted by sallies of imagination, sprightliness of remark,
or quickness of reply, is too often what the Latins call, the Sardinian
laughter, a distortion of the face without gladness of heart.
For this reason, no style of conversation is more extensively acceptable
than the narrative. He who has stored his memory with slight anecdotes,
private incidents, and personal peculiarities, seldom fails to find his
audience favourable. Almost every man listens with eagerness to
contemporary history; for almost every man has some real or imaginary
connexion with a celebrated character, some desire to advance or oppose
a rising name. Vanity often co-operates with curiosity. He that is a
hearer in one place, qualifies himself to become a speaker in another;
for though he cannot comprehend a series of argument, or transport the
volatile spirit of wit without evaporation, he yet thinks himself able
to treasure up the various incidents of a story, and please his hopes
with the information which he shall give to some inferior society.
Narratives are for the most part heard without envy, because they are
not supposed to imply any intellectual qualities above the common rate.
To be acquainted with facts not yet echoed by plebeian mouths, may
happen to one man as well as to another; and to relate them when they
are known, has in appearance so little difficulty, that every one
concludes himself equal to the task.
But it is not easy, and in some situations of life not possible, to
accumulate such a stock of materials as may support the expense of
continual narration; and it frequently happens, that they who attempt
this method of ingratiating themselves, please only at the first
interview; and, for want of new supplies of intelligence, wear out their
stories by continual repetition.
There would be, therefore, little hope of obtaining the praise of a good
companion, were it not to be gained by more compendious methods; but
such is the kindness of mankind to all, except those who aspire to real
merit and rational dignity, that every understanding may find some way
to excite benevolence; and whoever is not envied may learn the art of
procuring love. We are willing to be pleased, but are not willing to
admire: we favour the mirth or officiousness that solicits our regard,
but oppose the worth or spirit that enforces it.
The first place among those that please, because they desire only to
please, is due to the _merry fellow_, whose laugh is loud, and whose
voice is strong; who is ready to echo every jest with obstreperous
approbation, and countenance every frolick with vociferations of
applause. It is not necessary to a merry fellow to have in himself any
fund of jocularity, or force of conception; it is sufficient that he
always appears in the highest exaltation of gladness, for the greater
part of mankind are gay or serious by infection, and follow without
resistance the attraction of example.
Next to the merry fellow is the _good-natured man_, a being generally
without benevolence, or any other virtue, than such as indolence and
insensibility confer. The characteristick of a good-natured man is to
bear a joke; to sit unmoved and unaffected amidst noise and turbulence,
profaneness and obscenity; to hear every tale without contradiction; to
endure insult without reply; and to follow the stream of folly, whatever
course it shall happen to take. The good-natured man is commonly the
darling of the petty wits, with whom they exercise themselves in the
rudiments of raillery; for he never takes advantage of failings, nor
disconcerts a puny satirist with unexpected sarcasms; but while the
glass continues to circulate, contentedly bears the expense of an
uninterrupted laughter, and retires rejoicing at his own importance.
The _modest man_ is a companion of a yet lower rank, whose only power of
giving pleasure is not to interrupt it. The modest man satisfies himself
with peaceful silence, which all his companions are candid enough to
consider as proceeding not from inability to speak, but willingness to
hear.
Many, without being able to attain any general character of excellence,
have some single art of entertainment which serves them as a passport
through the world. One I have known for fifteen years the darling of a
weekly club, because every night, precisely at eleven, he begins his
favourite song, and during the vocal performance, by corresponding
motions of his hand, chalks out a giant upon the wall. Another has
endeared himself to a long succession of acquaintances by sitting among
them with his wig reversed; another by contriving to smut the nose of
any stranger who was to be initiated in the club; another by purring
like a cat, and then pretending to be frighted; and another by yelping
like a hound, and calling to the drawers to drive out the dog[k].
Such are the arts by which cheerfulness is promoted, and sometimes
friendship established; arts, which those who despise them should not
rigorously blame, except when they are practised at the expense of
innocence; for it is always necessary to be loved, but not always
necessary to be reverenced.
No. 189. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1752.
_Quod tam grande Sophos clamat tibi turba togata;
Non tu, Pomponi; caena diserta tua est_. MART. Lib. vi. Ep. xlviii.
Resounding plaudits though the crowd have rung;
Thy treat is eloquent, and not thy tongue. F. LEWIS.
The world scarcely affords opportunities of making any
observation more frequently, than on false claims to commendation.
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display
qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he
cannot keep; so that scarcely can two persons casually meet, but one is
offended or diverted by the ostentation of the other.
Of these pretenders it is fit to distinguish those who endeavour to
deceive from them who are deceived; those who by designed impostures
promote their interest, or gratify their pride, from them who mean only
to force into regard their latent excellencies and neglected virtues;
who believe themselves qualified to instruct or please, and therefore
invite the notice of mankind.
The artful and fraudulent usurpers of distinction deserve greater
severities than ridicule and contempt, since they are seldom content
with empty praise, but are instigated by passions more pernicious than
vanity. They consider the reputation which they endeavour to establish
as necessary to the accomplishment of some subsequent design, and value
praise only as it may conduce to the success of avarice or ambition.
The commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by the
bankruptcy of merchants, that assumed the splendour of wealth only to
obtain the privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and of
contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties could enable them
to pay; till after having supported their appearance a while by
tumultuous magnificence of boundless traffick, they sink at once, and
drag down into poverty those whom their equipages had induced to trust
them.
Among wretches that place their happiness in the favour of the great, of
beings whom only high titles or large estates set above themselves,
nothing is more common than to boast of confidence which they do not
enjoy; to sell promises which they know their interest unable to
perform; and to reimburse the tribute which they pay to an imperious
master, from the contributions of meaner dependants, whom they can amuse
with tales of their influence, and hopes of their solicitation.
Even among some, too thoughtless and volatile for avarice or ambition,
may be found a species of falsehood more detestable than the levee or
exchange can shew. There are men that boast of debaucheries, of which
they never had address to be guilty; ruin, by lewd tales, the characters
of women to whom they are scarcely known, or by whom they have been
rejected; destroy in a drunken frolick the happiness of families; blast
the bloom of beauty, and intercept the reward of virtue.