SHEWING THAT ANY HONEST OCCUPATION IS BETTER THAN NONE, BUT THAT
OCCUPATIONS WHICH ARE DEEMED HONOURABLE ARE NOT ALWAYS HONEST.
_J'ai peine à concevoir pourquoi le plûpart des hommes ont une si
forte envie d'être heureux, et une si grande incapacité pour le
devenir._
VOYAGES DE MILORD CETON.
“Happy,” said Dr. Dove, “is the man, who having his whole time thrown
upon his hands makes no worse use of it than to practise eight hours a
day upon a bad fiddle.” It was a sure evidence, he insisted, that Mr.
Staniforth's frame of mind was harmonious; the mental organ was in
perfect repair, though the strings of the material instrument jarred;
and he enjoyed the scientific delight which Handel's composition gave
him abstractedly, in its purity and essence.
“There can now,” says an American preacher,[1] “be no doubt of this
truth because there have been so many proofs of it; that the man who
retires completely from business, who is resolved to do nothing but
enjoy himself, never attains the end at which he aims. If it is not
mixed with other ingredients, no cup is so insipid, and at the same
time so unhealthful, as the cup of pleasure. When the whole enjoyment
of the day is to eat and drink and sleep, and talk and visit, life
becomes a burden too heavy to be supported by a feeble old man, and he
soon sinks into the arms of spleen, or falls into the jaws of death.”
[Footnote 1: FREEMAN'S Eighteen Sermons.]
Alas! it is neither so easy a thing, nor so agreeable a one as men
commonly expect, to dispose of leisure, when they retire from the
business of the world. Their old occupations cling to them, even when
they hope that they have emancipated themselves.
Go to any sea-port town and you will see that the Sea-Captain who has
retired upon his well-earned savings, sets up a weathercock in full
view from his windows, and watches the variations of the wind as duly
as when he was at sea, though no longer with the same anxiety.
Every one knows the story of the Tallow Chandler who having amassed a
fortune, disposed of his business, and taken a house in the country,
not far from London, that he might enjoy himself, after a few months
trial of a holiday life requested permission of his successor to come
into town, and assist him on melting days. I have heard of one who
kept a retail spirit-shop, and having in like manner retired from
trade, used to employ himself by having one puncheon filled with
water, and measuring it off by pints into another. I have heard also
of a butcher in a small country town, who some little time after he
had left off business, informed his old customers that he meant to
kill a lamb once a week, just for his amusement.
There is no way of life to which the generality of men cannot conform
themselves; and it seems as if the more repugnance they may at first
have had to overcome, the better at last they like the occupation.
They grow insensible to the loudest and most discordant sounds, or
remain only so far sensible of them, that the cessation will awaken
them from sleep. The most offensive smells become pleasurable to them
in time, even those which are produced by the most offensive
substances. The temperature of a glass-house is not only tolerable but
agreeable to those who have their fiery occupation there. Wisely and
mercifully was this power of adaptation implanted in us for our good;
but in our imperfect and diseased society it is grievously perverted.
We make the greater part of the evil circumstances in which we are
placed; and then we fit ourselves for those circumstances by a process
of systematic degradation, the effect of which most people see in the
classes below them, though they may not be conscious that it is
operating in a different manner but with equal force upon themselves.
For there is but too much cause to conclude that our moral sense is
more easily blunted than our physical sensations. Roman Ladies
delighted in seeing the gladiators bleed and die in the public
theatre. Spanish Ladies at this day clap their hands in exultation at
spectacles which make English Soldiers sicken and turn away. The most
upright Lawyer acquires a sort of Swiss conscience for professional
use; he is soon taught that considerations of right and wrong have
nothing to do with his brief, and that his business is to do the best
he can for his client however bad the case. If this went no farther
than to save a criminal from punishment, it might be defensible on the
ground of humanity, and of charitable hope. But to plead with the
whole force of an artful mind in furtherance of a vexatious and
malicious suit,—and to resist a rightful claim with all the devices of
legal subtlety, and all the technicalities of legal craft,—I know not
how he who considers this to be his duty toward his client can
reconcile it with his duty toward his neighbour; or how he thinks it
will appear in the account he must one day render to the Lord for the
talents which have been committed to his charge.
There are persons indeed who have so far outgrown their catechism as
to believe that their only duty is to themselves; and who in the march
of intellect have arrived at the convenient conclusion that there is
no account to be rendered after death. But they would resent any
imputation upon their honour or their courage as an offence not to be
forgiven; and it is difficult therefore to understand how even such
persons can undertake to plead the cause of a scoundrel in cases of
seduction,—how they can think that the acceptance of a dirty fee is to
justify them for cross-examining an injured and unhappy woman with the
cruel wantonness of unmanly insult, bruising the broken reed, and
treating her as if she were as totally devoid of shame, as they
themselves of decency and of humanity. That men should act thus and be
perfectly unconscious the while that they are acting a cowardly and
rascally part,—and that society should not punish them for it by
looking upon them as men who have lost their caste, would be
surprizing if we did not too plainly see to what a degree the moral
sense, not only of individuals but of a whole community, may be
corrupted.
Physiologists have observed that men and dogs are the only creatures
whose nature can accommodate itself to every climate, from the burning
sands of the desart to the shores and islands of the frozen ocean. And
it is not in their physical nature alone that this power of
accommodation is found. Dogs who beyond all reasonable question have a
sense of duty and fidelity and affection toward their human
associates,—a sense altogether distinct from fear and selfishness,—who
will rush upon any danger at their master's bidding, and die
broken-hearted beside his body, or upon his grave,—dogs, I say, who
have this capacity of virtue, have nevertheless been trained to act
with robbers against the traveller, and to hunt down human beings and
devour them. But depravity sinks deeper than this in man; for the dog
when thus deteriorated acts against no law natural or revealed, no
moral sense; he has no power of comparing good and evil, and chusing
between them, but may be trained to either, and in either is
performing his intelligible duty of obedience.