BOSSUET
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the
purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life,
he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of
the subject, and he defines it: _Reason always attentive and always
contented_. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the
pure flame disengaged from the senses.
ROUSSEAU
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the
eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our
literature, _the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor,
quiet, hidden life, in which are accumulated so many treasures of virtue
and affection_. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks
of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old
song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words
stitched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he
never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!
JOUBERT
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul....
M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type
of that class of honest people which the old society alone
produced,--spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who
were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an
interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To
converse and to know--it was in this, above all things, that consisted,
according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of
connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain
talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has
followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a
corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the
opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is
really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains,
only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing
external can enter. Let us have _hospitable hearts and minds_."
* * * * *
Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of
all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with
which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and
with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming
ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.
MME D'HOUDETOT
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
In the years to which we refer--that is, the years immediately preceding
1800--there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the
remnants both of fashionable and philosophical society--never, indeed,
entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal
existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent
devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in
immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time
renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued
unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during
the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives
flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Rémusat,
in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of
those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and
consideration which they procured for her."
MME DE RÉMUSAT
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they
come into the world, that your youth is passing into theirs. O mothers,
be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!
DIDEROT
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
If the _Encyclopedia_ was in Diderot's time considered his principal
social work, his principal glory in the eyes of the men of to-day
consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and
eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become
immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists
of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and
as the founder of this style of criticism.
Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly,
as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fénelon
represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin
exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency,
I refrain from mentioning the names of Fréron and Des Fontaines. But
nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility,
and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to
find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good
qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue
than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and _fly
forward to meet the good_. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a
book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my
eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it,
while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is
beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm--this
sort of universal admiration--undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of
him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked
man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would
unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the
alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed
it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for
having introduced among us the fertile criticism of _beauties_, which he
substituted for that of _defects_. Châteaubriand himself, in that
portion of the _Genius of Christianity_ in which he eloquently
discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by
Diderot....
"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short
duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I
reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that
I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually
thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they
must know it. If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart
it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I
unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have
consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is
perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my
imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the
ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."
LA BRUYÈRE
[Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]
That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who
tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than
gold or silver, _if it is the opportunity of obliging you._
SABBATH BELLS
[Sidenote: _Anon._]
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
The church bells they du ring,
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
An' seems they bells du zing:
"O merry be! O merry be!
The work it all be done,
Zee, peas and brocoli du graw
Tremenjus in the zun;
An' hot it is, an' calm it is,
Bees buzz an' cattle doze;
Zo, laze about, an' talk about,
All in your Zunday clo's."
_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
The church bells merry ring,
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
An,' dang it! doan't they zing?--
"O rest awhile! O rest awhile!
Vor 'tis amazin' sweet
To watch the white-heart cabbages
All bustin' in the heat;
Zo, zit about, an' stand about,
Beside ov Early Rose,
An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things,
All in your Zunday clo's."
_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!
Dong! Dong! Dong!
There's a shadow on the marn,
Dong! Dong! Dong!
The one larst bell du warn:
"O fulish mun! O fulish mun!
Life be no more than grass,
It glitters in the shinin' zun--
Until the Reaper pass!
An', hark! I call 'ee up to prayer,
Wi' passen, clerk, an' schule,
Come up along, an' take thee seat
Thou ole pig-headed fule!"
_Dong_! _Dong_! _Dong_!
UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY
[Sidenote: _Sterne_]
My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;--not from want of
courage,--I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of
courage":--And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or
called it forth,--know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken
shelter;--nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his
intellectual parts;--for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly
as a man could do;--but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,--no jarring
element in it,--all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle _Toby_
had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.
--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed
about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,--and which,
after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;--I'll
not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going
across the room, with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy
head;--Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he
spoke, to let it escape;--go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I
hurt thee?--This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the
action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity,
which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most
pleasurable sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might
go towards it;--or, in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of
voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to
my heart, I know not;--this I know, that the lesson of universal
good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_ has never since
been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study
of the _Literæ humaniores,_ at the University, have done for me in that
respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed
upon me, both at home and abroad since;--yet I often think that I owe
one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental expression.
HOBSON'S CHOICE
[Sidenote: _William Hazlitt_]
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I
like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but, out of doors,
nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when
alone.
The fields his study, nature was his book.
I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am
in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for
criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to
forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this
purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I
like more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I
give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for
A friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty to think, feel, do,
just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all
impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind much
more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space
to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation--
May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd--
that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a
loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise
or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale
topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give
me the clear blue sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a
winding road[8] before me and a three hours' march to dinner--and then
to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone
heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder
rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the
sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his
native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like "sunken wrack and sumless
treasuries," burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and
be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at
wit or dull commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart
which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations,
antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes had
rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I have just
now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me
"very stuff o' the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet without a
comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of
emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so
endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better, then, keep it
to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy
point, and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon? I should be
but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have
heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on
by yourself and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of
manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time that you
ought to rejoin your party. "Out upon such half-faced fellowship," say
I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal
of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or
solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's that he
thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and
that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time. So I cannot
talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation
by fits and starts. "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne,
"were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It
is beautifully said; but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of
notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the
mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind
of dumb-show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a
toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being
perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of
others. I am for this synthetical method on a journey in preference to
the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to
examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions
float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have
them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like
to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone,
or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a
point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not for
pleasure. If you remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road,
perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant
object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to
look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a
cloud, which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to
account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it,
and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end
probably produces ill-humour. Now I never quarrel with myself, and take
all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend
them against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord
on the objects and circumstances that present themselves before
you--these may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too
delicate and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I
love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can
escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before
company seems extravagance or affectation; and, on the other hand, to
have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make
others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered),
is a task to which few are competent. We must "give it an understanding,
but no tongue." My old friend Coleridge, however, could do both. He
could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a
summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric
ode. "He talked far above singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in
sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with
me to admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it
possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of
All-Foxden. They had "that fine madness in them which our first poets
had"; and, if they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would
have breathed such strains as the following:
Here be woods as green
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet
As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curled streams, with flowers as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eye
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep
Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountains with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest.
Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake
the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening clouds:
but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up
its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on the spot:
I must have time to collect myself.
In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be
reserved for table-talk. Lamb is for this reason, I take it, the worst
company in the world out of doors; because he is the best within. I
grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey,
and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at
night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or friendly
altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the
road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it. How
fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach
of night-fall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights
streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring for
the best entertainment that the place affords, to "take one's ease at
one's inn"! These eventful moments in our lives' history are too
precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered and
dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would have them all to myself,
and drain them to the last drop: they will do to talk of or to write
about afterwards. What a delicate speculation it is, after drinking
whole goblets of tea--