It has been said that the first three men in the world were a gardener,
a ploughman, and a grazier; while all political economists admit that
the real wealth and stamina of a nation must be looked for among the
cultivators of the soil. Was it not Swift who declared that the man who
could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass grow upon a spot of
ground where only one grew before, deserved better of mankind than the
whole race of politicians? Bacon, Cowley, Sir William Temple, Buffon,
and Addison were all attached to horticulture, and more or less time was
devoted by them to the cultivation of trees and plants of various sorts;
nor did they fail to record the refined delight and the profit they
derived therefrom. Daniel Webster was an enthusiastic agriculturist; so
were Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Walter Scott, Horace Greeley,
Gladstone, Evarts,[78] Wilder, Loring, Poore, and a host of other
contemporaneous and noted men. "They who labor in the earth," said
Jefferson, "are the chosen people of God."
But the habits and mode of composition adopted by literary men still
crowd upon the memory. Hobbes, the famous English philosopher, author of
a "Treatise on Human Nature," a political work entitled the "Leviathan,"
etc., was accustomed to compose in the open air. The top of his
walking-stick was supplied with pen and inkhorn, and he would pause
anywhere to record his thoughts in the note-book always carried in his
pocket. Virgil rose early in the morning and wrote at a furious rate
innumerable verses, which he afterwards pruned and altered and polished,
as he said, after the manner of a bear licking her cubs into shape. The
Earl of Roscommon, in his "Essay on Translated Verse," declared this to
be the duty of the poet,--
"To write with fury and correct with phlegm."
Dr. Darwin, the ingenious English poet, wrote his works, like some
others of whom we have spoken, on scraps of paper with a pencil while
travelling. His old-fashioned sulky was so full of books as to give
barely room for him to sit and to carry a well-stored hamper of fruits
and sweetmeats, of which he was immoderately fond.
Rousseau tells us that he composed in bed at night, or else out of doors
while walking, carefully recording his ideas in his brain, arranging and
turning them many times until they satisfied him, and then he committed
them to paper perfected. He said it was in vain for him to attempt to
compose at a table surrounded by books and all the usual accessories of
an author. Irving wrote most of the "Stout Gentleman" mounted on a stile
at Stratford-on-Avon, while his friend Leslie, the painter, was engaged
in taking sketches of the interesting locality. Jane Taylor, the English
poetess and prose writer, began to produce creditable work at a very
early age, and used at first to compose tales and dramas while whipping
a top, committing them to paper at the close of that somewhat trivial
exercise. As she grew older she said that she could find mental
inspiration only from outdoor exercise.
Petavius, the learned Jesuit, when composing his "Theologica Dogmata"
and other works, would leave his table and pen at the end of every other
hour to twirl his chair, first with one hand, then with the other, for
ten minutes, by way of exercise. Cardinal Richelieu resorted to jumping
in his garden, and in bad weather leaped over the chairs and tables
indoors,--an exercise which seemed to have a special charm for him.
Samuel Clark, the English philosopher and mathematician, adopted
Richelieu's plan of exercise when tired of continuous writing. Pope
says, with regard to exercise, "I, like a poor squirrel, am continually
in motion, indeed, but it is only a cage of three feet: my little
excursions are like those of a shopkeeper, who walks every day a mile or
two before his own door, but minds his business all the while."
We are told that Douglas Jerrold, when engaged in preparing literary
matter, used to walk back and forth before his desk, talking wildly to
himself, occasionally stopping to note down his thoughts. Sometimes he
would burst forth in boisterous laughter when he hit upon a droll idea.
He was always extremely restless, would pass out of the house into the
garden and stroll about, carelessly picking leaves from the trees and
chewing them; then suddenly hastening back to his desk, he recorded any
thoughts or sentences which had formed themselves in his mind. Jerrold
wrote so fine a hand, forming his letters so minutely, that his
manuscript was hardly legible to those not accustomed to it. He was very
fastidious about his writing-desk, permitting nothing upon it except
pen, ink, and paper. Like most persons who habitually resort to
stimulants, he could not be content with a single glass of spirits or
wine, but consumed many, until he was only too often unfitted for mental
labor. Jerrold's wit was of a coarser texture than that of Sheridan,
but, unlike his, it came with spontaneous force; it was always ready,
though it had not the polish which premeditation is able to impart.
Oftentimes his wit was severely sarcastic, but as a rule it was only
genial and mirth-provoking.
It was asked in Jerrold's club, on a certain occasion, what was the best
definition of dogmatism. "There is but one," he instantly replied,--"the
maturity of puppyism." A member remarked one day that the business of a
mutual acquaintance was going to the devil. "All right," said Jerrold;
"then he's sure to get it back again." Another member who was not very
popular with the club, hearing a certain melody spoken of, said, "That
always carries me away when I hear it." "Cannot some one whistle it?"
asked Jerrold. Another member, who was rather given to boasting, said:
"Very singular! I dined at the Marchioness of So-and-so's last week, and
we actually had no fish." "Easily explained," said Jerrold; "no doubt
they had eaten it all upstairs." When Heraud, a somewhat bombastic
versifier, asked him if he had read his "Descent into Hell," Jerrold
instantly replied, "No; I had rather see it." Being asked what was the
idea of Harriet Martineau's rather atheistical book, he answered that it
was plain enough,--"There is no God, and Harriet is his Prophet." This
is even better than the remark of another wit who, when asked what was
the outcome of a meeting before which three of the ablest and most
dogmatic Positivists in England made speeches, replied that the result
arrived at was this: that there were three persons and no God. Jerrold
could not confine himself to any regular system of work, but drove the
quill at such times and only to such purpose as his erratic mood
indicated, jumping from one subject to another like one crossing a brook
upon stepping-stones. This, however, was a habit by no means peculiar to
Douglas Jerrold. There are some ludicrous stories told of him; like that
of his being pursued by a printer's boy about the town, from house to
club, from club to the theatre, and so on, and finally of his being
overtaken, getting into a corner and writing an admirable article with
pencil and paper on the top of his hat.
Agassiz,[79] the great Swiss naturalist, who became an adopted and
honored son of this country, was singularly unmethodical in his habits
of professional labor. If he was suddenly seized with an interest in
some scientific inquiry, he would pursue it at once, putting by all
present work, though it might be that he had just got fairly started in
another direction. "I always like to take advantage," he would say, "of
my productive moods." The rule that we must finish one thing before we
begin another, had no force with him. An individual connected with the
lyceum of a neighboring city called upon Agassiz to induce him to
lecture on a certain occasion, but was courteously informed by the
scientist that he could not comply with the request. "It will be a great
disappointment to our citizens," suggested the caller. "I am sorry for
that," replied Agassiz. "We will cheerfully give you double the usual
price," added the agent, "if you will accommodate us." "Ah, my dear
sir," replied the scientist, with that earnest but genial expression so
natural to his manly features, "I cannot afford to waste time in making
money."
A very similar habit of composition or study possessed Goldsmith,
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Pope, and some others of the poets, who not
infrequently laid by a half-constructed composition for two or three
years, then finally took up the neglected theme, finished and published
it. This unmethodical style of doing things is but one of the many
eccentricities of genius. Scott said he never knew a man of much ability
who could be perfectly regular in his habits, while he had known many a
blockhead who could. Southey and Coleridge were at complete antipodes in
regard to regularity of habits and punctuality: the former did
everything by rule, the latter nothing. Charles Lamb said of Coleridge,
"He left forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and divinity, not one
of them complete." Neither Agassiz, Coleridge, nor any of similar
irregularity in work, is to be imitated in those respects. Had it not
been for Agassiz's far-seeing and vigorous powers,--in short, for his
great genius, he could never have accomplished his remarkable mission.
The deduction which we naturally draw is, that method is a good servant
but a bad master. If genius were to be trammelled by system and order,
it would suffocate. Perhaps Montaigne was nearly right when he thought
that individuals ought sometimes to cross the line of fixed rules, in
order to awaken their vigor and keep them from growing musty.
Coleridge was much addicted to the habit of marginal writing; which,
though sadly wasteful on his own part, was very enriching to those
friends who loaned him from their libraries.[80] Charles Lamb, who was
not inclined to spare book-borrowers as a tribe, had no reflections to
cast upon Coleridge for this habit. The depth, weight, and originality
of his comments as hastily and carelessly penned on the margins of books
were wonderful, and if collected and classified would form several
volumes, not only of captivating interest, but of rare critical value,
as the few which have been brought together abundantly prove. In one
volume which he returned to Lamb is this memorandum: "I shall die soon,
my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not be vexed that I have
be-scribbled your book. S. T. C., May 2d, 1811." "Elia" valued these
marginal notes beyond price, and said that to lose a volume to Coleridge
carried some sense and meaning with it. These critical notes often
nearly equalled in quantity of matter the original text. In his article
upon the subject, Lamb says, "I counsel thee, shut not thy heart nor thy
library against S. T. C." As we have already said, while this erratic
expenditure of Coleridge's rare literary taste and judgment enriched
others, it in a degree impoverished himself; for had the same time and
thought been expended upon consecutive literary work, it would have
produced volumes of inestimable value to the world at large, and have
proved monumental to their author.
Byron was addicted to marginalizing; and though he could not equal
Coleridge in the profundity of his criticisms, or impart such charming
interest to them, still he was quite original and often piquant. Burns
contented himself with trifling criticisms of approval or disapproval
pencilled in the margin of books, especially poetical ones, which were
nearly all he was in the habit of reading.
Many famous authors and public men have been extravagantly fond of the
rod and line, disciples of that patient and poetical angler, Izaak
Walton. George Herbert, the English poet; Henry Wotton, diplomatist and
author; Dr. Paley, Archdeacon of Carlisle; John Dryden, poet and
dramatist; Sydney Smith, the witty divine; Sir Humphry Davy, the eminent
chemist,--all were devoted anglers.[81] This brief list might be largely
increased. Bulwer-Lytton says: "Though no participator in the joys of
more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my
abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures, in the
tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton
destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my
pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise
towards a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the
luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost."
Walton puts himself on record in these words: "We may say of angling, as
Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: 'Doubtless God could have made a
better berry, but doubtless God never did;' and so, if I might be judge,
God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than
angling." Sydney Smith declared it to be an occupation fit for a bishop,
and that it need in no way interfere with sermon-making.
Perhaps the best thing said or done in angling is an unpublished
anecdote of the great preacher to the seamen,--the late Father Taylor,
of Boston. He was once lured to try his hand at the rod, and soon
brought up a very little fish that had been tempted by his bait. He took
the small creature carefully from the hook, gazed at it a moment, and
then cast it back into the water, with this advice: "My little friend,
go and tell your mother that you have seen a ghost!"
Dr. Parr, the profound English scholar, was a most inveterate smoker; so
was Charles Lamb,[82] who one day said to his doctor, "I have acquired
this habit by toiling over it, as some men toil after virtue."
Robert Hall, the popular English divine, was very much addicted to
tobacco and other stimulants. A friend who found him in his study
blowing forth clouds of smoke from his lips, said, "There you are, at
your old idol!" "Yes," replied the divine, "burning it." Napoleon could
never abide smoking tobacco; yet observing how much other men seemed to
enjoy it, he tried to acquire the habit, but finally gave it up in
disgust. He, however, took snuff to excess. Sir Walter Scott was very
fond of smoking. Thackeray, like Burns, loved to get away by himself and
enjoy the flavor of a rank tobacco-pipe. Carlyle, like Tennyson, did not
care for a cigar, but kept a pipe in his mouth most of his waking hours.
Bulwer-Lytton was a ceaseless smoker; and there are few if any notable
Germans who have not been addicted to the same indulgence. The nicotine
produced from tobacco is one of the most deadly of all poisons, as has
been proven by some startling experiments in the Paris hospitals.[83]
Thackeray said there was good eating in Scott's novels. Extending the
remark, it might be added that there was good drinking in those of
Dickens, and good smoking in those of Thackeray.
Dean Swift relieved his sombre moods by harnessing his servants with
cords and driving them, school-boy fashion, up and down the stairs and
through the garden of the deanery of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Dickens was controlled by a nervous activity which made him crave
physical exercise of some sort, and he daily found relief in an eight or
ten mile walk. Thackeray once told the author of these pages that he
preferred to take his exercise driving upon very easy roads. When
Dickens was in this country he was frequently accompanied in his long
walks by the late James T. Fields, who was ever ready to sacrifice
himself to the pleasure of others. Mr. Fields was not partial to extreme
pedestrian exercise, and the author of the "Pickwick Papers" tested his
good-nature to the verge of exhaustion in this respect. Dumas, when not
otherwise engaged, was accustomed to go down into his kitchen, and,
deposing the servants, cook his own dinner; and an excellent cook he
must have been, if one half the stories rife about him be true. Besides,
did he not write an original cook-book, which still stands for good
authority in the cafés of the boulevards?
Dr. Warton, the English critic and author, as represented by
contemporary authority, was noted for a love of vulgar society, which he
daily sought in low tap-rooms and gin-shops, where he joked away the
evening hours. Turner the painter had similar tastes and habits, though
he was of a reserved and unsociable character, and noted for his
parsimony. Shelley, Goldsmith, and Macaulay delighted in the company of
young children. "They are so near to God," said Shelley. "Intercourse
with them freshens and rejuvenates one's soul," wrote Macaulay. "I love
these little people; and it is not a small thing when they, who are so
fresh from God, love us," said Dickens. Children always had a most
tender and humanizing effect upon Douglas Jerrold, no matter what was
his mood. He writes: "A creature undefiled by the taint of the world,
unvexed by its injustice, unwearied by its hollow pleasures; a being
fresh from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre
in it. If childhood be this, how holy the duty to see that in its onward
growth it shall be no other!"
History tells us that Henry of Navarre, who was every inch a king, was
often seen upon his palace floor with two of his children upon his back,
playing elephant and rider. What a peep into the king's heart we get by
this little picture of his domestic life! Where was all the monarch's
pride of State, his kingly dignity? "How hard it is to hide the sparks
of nature!" It is related of Epictetus that he would steal away from his
philosophical associates to pass an hour romping with a group of
children,--"to prattle, to creep, and to play with them." Charles Robert
Maturin, the poet, author of the tragedy of "Bertram," and other
successful dramas, could not endure to have children near him during his
hours of literary composition. At such times he was particularly
sensitive, and pasted a wafer on his forehead as a token to the members
of his family that he was not to be interrupted. He said if he lost the
thread of his ideas even for a moment, they were gone from him
altogether. Sir Walter Scott, on the contrary, was ever ready to lay
down his pen at any moment, to exchange pleasant words with child or
adult, friend or stranger; and it was notorious that children could
always interrupt him with impunity. He declared that their childish
accents made his heart dance with glee. He could not check their
confidence and simplicity, though pressed upon him when his thoughts
were soaring in poetic flights or describing vivid scenes of warfare and
carnage. Scott preserved considerable system, nevertheless, in his
composition and labor. He lay awake, he tells us, for a brief period in
the quiet of the early morning, and arranged carefully in his mind the
work of the coming day. He laid out systematically the subject upon
which he was writing, and resolved in what manner he would treat it.
Thus it was that he could lay down his pen at any moment without
deranging the purpose of the work. He had one axiom to which he
tenaciously adhered, and was often heard to repeat it to his dependants
and friends: "Do whatever is to be done, at once; take the hours of
reflection or recreation after business, and never before it."
Schiller said that children made him half glad and half sorry,--always
inclined to moralize. "Happy child," he exclaims, "the cradle is still
to thee a vast space: become a man, and the boundless world will be too
small for thee." Goethe was ever watchful, loving, and tender with the
young. "Children," he says, "like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent,
that they detect and hunt out everything." He thought their innocent
delusions should be held sacred. Elihu Burritt, the "Learned
Blacksmith," says that he once congratulated an humble farmer upon
having a fine group of sons. "Yes, they are good boys," was the father's
answer. "I talk to them often, but I do not beat my children,--the world
will beat them by and by, if they live." A fine thought, rudely
expressed.
Shelley's interest in children was connected with his half belief in the
Platonic doctrine of pre-existence. As he was passing over one of the
great London bridges, meditating on the mystery, he saw a poor
working-woman with a child a few months old in her arms. Here was an
opportunity to bring the theory to a decisive test: and in his impulsive
way he took the infant from its astonished mother, and in his shrill
voice began to ask it questions as to the world from which it had so
recently come. The child screamed, the indignant parent called for the
police to rescue her baby from the philosophical kidnapper; and as
Shelley reluctantly delivered the infant to its mother's arms, he
muttered, as he passed on, "How strange it is that these little
creatures should be so provokingly reticent!" Shelley was a child
himself in many respects; in illustration of which the reader has only
to recall the poet's singular amusement of sailing paper boats whenever
he found himself conveniently near a pond. So long as the paper which
he chanced to have about him lasted, he remained riveted to the spot.
First he would use the cover of letters, next letters of little value;
but he could not resist the temptation, finally, of employing for the
purpose the letters of his most valued correspondents. He always carried
a book in his pocket, but the fly-leaves were all consumed in forming
these paper boats and setting them adrift to constitute a miniature
fleet. Once he found himself on the banks of the Serpentine River
without paper of any sort except a ten-pound note. He refrained for a
while; but presently it was rapidly twisted into a boat by his skilful
fingers, and devoted to his boat-sailing purpose without further delay.
Its progress being watched, it was finally picked up on the opposite
shore of the river and returned to the owner for more legitimate use.
Charles Lamb in his quaint way says: "I know that sweet children are the
sweetest things in nature, not even excepting the delicate creatures
which bear them; but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more
desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind. One daisy differs
not much from another in glory; but a violet should look and smell the
daintiest."[84]
Good and substantial food is quite as necessary to authors and public
men, as to those who gain their livelihood by laborious physical
employment. Authors are, however, as a rule, rather inclined to free
indulgence at table. There is as much intemperance in eating as in
drinking. Tom Moore, who was the best diner-out of his day, said, by way
of excusing this habit, "In grief, I have always found eating a
wonderful relief." N. P. Willis was quite a gourmand. "There are," he
once wrote, "so few invalids untemptable by those deadly domestic
enemies, sweetmeats, pastry, and gravies, that the usual civilities at a
meal are very like being politely assisted to the grave." It is
certainly better to punish our appetites than to be punished by them.
Dickens and Thackeray were both inclined to free indulgence at the
table, the former being struck with death at a public banquet. Dean
Swift often gave better advice than he was himself inclined to follow.
He says: "Temperance," meaning both in eating and drinking, "is a
necessary virtue to great men, since it is the parent of the mind, which
philosophy allows to be one of the greatest felicities in life."
Macready, the famous English tragedian, would not touch food of any kind
for some hours before making one of his grand dramatic efforts, but
drank freely of strong tea before appearing in public,--a subtle
stimulant in which the late Rufus Choate freely indulged, particularly
before addressing a jury.
Abstinence in diet was a special virtue with Milton. Shelley utterly
despised the pleasures of the table. Walter Scott was an abstemious
eater. Pope was a great epicure, and so was the poet Gay. Speaking of
appetite, Coleridge tells us of a man he once saw at a dinner-table, who
struck him as remarkable for his dignity and wise face. The awful charm
of his manner was not broken until the muffins appeared, and then the
wise one exclaimed, "Them's the jockeys for me!" Dignity is sometimes
very rudely unmasked, and an imposing air is nearly always the cloak of
a fool. Newton lived on the simplest food. "If Aristotle could diet on
acorns," he said, "so can I;" and before sitting down to study he
exercised freely and abstained from food. Dr. George Fordyce, the
eminent Scotch physician, ate but one meal a day, saying that if one
meal in twenty-four hours was enough for a lion, it was sufficient for a
man; but in order not to be like the lion, he drank a bottle of port,
half a pint of brandy, and a pitcher of ale with his one meal. Lamartine
used to pass one day in ten fasting, as he said, to clear both stomach
and brain. Aristo, the stoic philosopher, used to fast for days on
acorns. Thomas Byron, a well-known author, never ate flesh of any sort.
Dryden's favorite dish was a chine of bacon. Charles Lamb was enamoured
of roast pig. He said, "You can no more improve sucking pig than you can
refine a violet!" Keats was a very fastidious eater, but was fond of the
table, especially where there was good wine,[85] and yet he was not
addicted to its intemperate use. Dr. Johnson was greedy over boiled
mutton; and Dr. Rhondelet, the famous writer on fishes, was so fond of
figs that he died from having at one time eaten immoderately of them.
Barrow, one of the greatest of English theologians and mathematicians,
is said to have died of a surfeit of pears,--a fruit of which he was
extravagantly fond.
Gastronomic appetite and reason have been compared to two buckets in a
well; when one is at the top the other is at the bottom. Byron nearly
starved himself to prevent growing gross and uninteresting in physical
aspect. Addison was addicted to port and claret, and was accustomed, as
already spoken of, while meditating a moral or political essay, to pace
up and down the long gallery of Holland House.[86] When a humorous
suggestion occurred to his fertile fancy, he solaced himself with
claret; or fortified himself with a glass of port when a moral sentiment
required to be enforced by an impressive close to a beautifully
constructed sentence.[87] This was after his frigid marriage to the
Dowager Countess of Warwick. On his death-bed he is reported to have
said to her graceless son, "See how a Christian can die!" Probably the
profligate youth, spying his father-in-law as he walked in the gallery,
might have irreverently remarked: "See how a Christian can drink!" But
the truth is that Addison, judged by the habits of his time, should be
considered a moderate drinker. Poe's nerves were so shattered that a
slight amount of wine would intoxicate him into a frenzy of dissipation;
the same amount swallowed by a regular toper would hardly disturb his
brain at all. While Pitt was quite a young man, he was so weakly that
his physician ordered him to drink freely of port wine, and he thus
contracted the habit of depending upon stimulants, and could not do
without them. Lord Greville tells us he has seen him swallow a bottle of
port wine by tumblerfuls before going to the House. This, together with
the habit of late suppers, helped materially to shorten his life.[88]
Goldsmith had a queer fancy for sassafras tea, from which he imagined he
derived an excellent tonic effect. Such a relish had certainly one
element to recommend it,--and that was its harmlessness. Dr. Shaw, the
English naturalist, nearly killed himself by drinking green tea to
excess. Haydn partook immoderately of strong coffee, and kept it brewing
by his side while he composed. Burns lived on whiskey for weeks
together, supplemented by tobacco, which caused Byron to say that he was
"a strange compound of dirt and deity."
Aristippus of old lived up to his own motto; namely, "Good cheer is no
hindrance to a good life." Few men reason about their appetites, but
they give way to them until disease reminds them they are made of mortal
stuff. Even Plutarch used to indulge at times in riotous living, saying,
"You cannot reason with the belly; it has no ears." Addison has pithily
recorded his own ideas of this matter. "When I behold a fashionable
table set out in all its magnificence," he says, "I fancy that I see
gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable
distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the
most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish.
Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third.
Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit
or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom, can escape
him." It is among the easiest of all things to outsit both our health
and our pleasure at the table. "The pleasures of the palate," said
shrewd old Seneca, "deal with us like Egyptian thieves, who strangle
those whom they embrace."
Thackeray said towards the close of his life, that his physicians warned
him habitually not to do what he habitually did. "They tell me that I
should not drink wine, and somehow I drink wine; that I should not eat
this or that, and, guided by my appetite for this or that, I disregard
the warning."
Eminent men are not unlike the rest of humanity in a desire for some
sort of recreation, and each one finds it after his own natural bent or
fancy. Literature is capable of affording the most rational and lasting
enjoyment to cultured minds, but physical exercise has also its
reasonable demands. The late Victor Emmanuel found recreation only in
hunting, having a number of lodges devoted to this purpose in different
parts of Italy. McMahon, late President of France, was also an ardent
sportsman. William the Conqueror passed all his leisure in the
hunting-field; and President Cleveland hastens with rod and gun to pass
his vacation in the Adirondack region. Henry V. occupied a whole day at
a time upon his one game,--tennis. Cardinal Mazarin, while virtual ruler
of France, used to shut himself up in his library and pass an hour daily
in jumping over the chairs. Louis XVI. had a passion for constructing
intricate locks and keys, many curious specimens of which are still
extant in the Cluny Museum. Charles II. in his leisure hours enjoyed
practical chemistry. John Milton wiled away the long hours of his
blindness, when not engaged in composing and dictating, by playing upon
a cabinet organ; and Chief Justice Saunders was given to the same
recreation. The Duke of Burgundy had a singular fancy for constructing
mechanical traps and surprises in his house and grounds, so that
visitors were liable to encounter practical jokes at every turn.
We might cover pages in enumerating the resorts of notable people in
their instinctive search after necessary recreation from sterner duties.
Man must be doing something in order to be happy; action being quite as
necessary to the health of body and brain as thought. Schiller declared
that he found the greatest happiness of life to consist in the regular
discharge of some mechanical duty. "Cheerfulness," says the shrewd and
practical Dr. Horne, is "the daughter of employment; and I have known a
man come home from a funeral in high spirits, merely because he had the
management of it." It is in our unoccupied moments that discontent
creeps into the mind; busy people have no time to be very miserable.
Amusements are not without a double purpose, and it is only a mistaken
zeal which argues against those that are innocent. "Let the world," says
that wise old philosopher Robert Burton, "have their May-games, wakes,
whatsunales, their dancings and concerts; their puppet-shows, hobby
horses, tabors, bagpipes, balls, barley-breaks, and whatever sports and
recreations please them best, provided they be followed with
discretion."
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, a scholar as well as a statesman, found
delight in a variety of intellectual work. He shirked as well as he
could all invitations to parties, balls, and dinners, and once
despairingly exclaimed, when he was called from his studies to enter
into some form of amusement, "that life was tolerable were it not for
its pleasures."